Hello, and welcome to a special edition of In Good Spirits. This week we are dedicating our entire newsletter to the developing case around the abuse within 3 Michelin Star restaurant Noma and beyond. We often focus on bartending, spirits and front-of-house (FOH) type issues but we feel compelled to elevate the voices of the victims coming forward against Noma, René Redzepi, and others as of late. Back-of-house (BOH) is distinctly different from FOH but has recently become a source of pop culture interest with shows like “The Bear”. While the show’s makers hoped to call out the mental toll the industry takes on BOH workers, it seems they might have given an incomplete picture of the ways in which industry professionals experience trauma, almost as a right-of-passage.
It’s important to note that right now all of the stories of abuse are alleged. We stand with the victims and we believe their stories.
Trigger Warning for physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual abuse, and medical neglect.
Stolen Labor, Abuse, and Cover-Ups
How the Most Well-Known 3 Michelin Star Restaurant Rose to Prominence
When it comes to Michelin Star kitchens, it’s pretty well known that the obsession with perfection borders on insane. The plating, the ingredients, the ways in which items are prepared, it’s all meticulously crafted and, well, a little ridiculous. It’s a caliber of service and craftmanship that lives in excess. Most of these restaurants cost more than the average person would be willing or able to spend per meal or “experience”. Some even cost as much as a whole month’s rent! It would stand to reason that such restaurants are not typically considered “sustainable” since the ingredient choices and labor involved seem to make sustainability a low priority. So naturally, Noma became an almost overnight sensation when they broke the mold and built their image on foraging and sustainable farming.
The chef behind the global phenomenon? René Redzepi. He was idolized by the food community. He was a genius doing things with gastronomy no one before him had thought to do. Noma was soon the place to go for aspiring chefs. Having Noma on your resumé was a golden ticket to anywhere when you left. The problem is, it cost a lot more than any of those young chefs knew it would.
Noma opened in 2003 and has been at its current location since 2018. They had announced their closure in 2024, stating that they would be moving to a pop-up based model and food lab, calling the new structure “Noma 3.0”. The move has been praised as a brilliant marketing strategy since it creates even more of a sense of scarcity, driving the demand for their expensive dinners even higher. It also can be seen as a brilliant strategy to hide and rebrand while the world quickly forgot about all of the abuse allegations that had already surfaced about Redzepi.
The Open Secret Of Noma’s Success
Spoiler: It’s the Unpaid Labor of Interns
Noma boasts on its own website that it has a staff of over 100 people in its food labs and pop-ups. After reading all of the detailed personal accounts from former interns and stagiaires, I can’t help but wonder if that number includes unpaid laborers.
As part of my indoctrination into this industry, I trained as a young, unpaid intern at Noma, the fine-dining temple in Copenhagen. When I worked there in 2015, I dodged a few comments about my figure and a lecture on how having more women in the kitchen lowered the quality of the food. (A Noma representative said my experience “is not something we recognize, and we are deeply sorry to hear if this has been the experience for any of our team.”)
But after hearing worse tales from colleagues at other restaurants — including one who saw a head chef throw a duck breast at another chef — I considered myself lucky to have emerged physically unscathed. Until this past fall, Noma continued to employ unpaid interns while charging diners $500 per head. After earning the No. 1 spot on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list five times, Noma recently announced that it was closing, amid rising criticism of its labor practices.
Redzepi came under fire for his business practices and named it as one of the reasons for their rebrand. “Redzepi admits that his approach is unsustainable. “Financially and emotionally, as an employer and as a human being, it just doesn’t work,” he told The New York Times.” The number of stories from unpaid interns continue to roll in despite Denmark having very strict employment laws. Some sources claim that because the penalties for infraction are mostly fines it really isn’t a law for the wealthy, simply a cost-benefit analysis. So one of the most expensive dining experiences not only profits directly from the labor of unpaid, overworked aspiring chefs but it does so without impunity.
This is partially why so many people are scratching their heads about the price tag on the planned L.A. pop-up. The meals at the Noma L.A. pop-up are priced at $1,500 per person. This includes the beverage pairing, tax, and tip (thankfully) but many feel that the pop-up itself is insulting. During a time when so many people can’t afford to feed their families it only serves to highlight the insane divide between the wealthy elite and the average American.
Defying The Will Of A God
The Brave Victims Coming Forward With the Truth
This past week a former Noma employee, Jason Ignacio White (@microbes_vibes), started posting about the horrifying abuse experienced by the unpaid staff (and at times the paid staff as well) at Noma. It has opened a floodgate of testimony from former stagiaires at Noma and beyond. Plans for a protest of the pop-up are already forming. Reddit has multiple threads discussing the recent allegations and industry professionals past and present are relaying the abuses they have experienced in similar kitchen settings.
The first image posted by White on his Instagram about Noma’s abusive culture
White’s account of his own experiences 1/2
White’s account of his own experiences 2/2
The PR email sent out by Noma to current employees
White has a highlights album on his page dedicated to stories that have been shared with him via DM that remains viewable for those who visit his profile. There is a mountain of testimony in there that I couldn’t hope to tell in a concise enough way.
So many have remained silent to the abuse because they fear being blacklisted in a cutthroat industry that they have sacrificed so much to be a part of. The bravery of these professionals coming forward now, together, is one that stands to benefit an entire new generation of cooks and food prep professionals. Power is in numbers and it is always better late than never.
We will continue to follow this story and post updates when available.
Best Video We Saw This Week
Not terribly long, this video gives an overview of how Noma came to become such a cult following and the current allegations coming forward about the “god” of the kitchen himself, René Redzepi.
Quick Hits:
Redzepi has a seemingly thoughtful article in which he explains his volatile nature in the kitchen. Reading it as a trauma-informed person I can tell you it felt a lot like a list of excuses and self-centering after being called out for being toxic. It was like someone punching you in the face and then explaining to you that it hurt them even more than it hurt you.
Money can’t buy you class, the great divide between those who can afford a Michelin Star meal and those who deserve to.
