An internationally renowned Danish chef set to launch a 16-week pop-up in Los Angeles next week is speaking out after a report in The New York Times chronicled allegations of abuse from dozens of former employees.
Chef René Redzepi, co-owner of the Copenhagen-based Noma, widely considered one of the most influential restaurants in the world, became something of a global authority on foraging, fermentation and fine dining after the restaurant’s 2003 launch.
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Named as the best restaurant in the world five times, Noma announced in 2023 that it would shift from service at its Copenhagen location to a “seasons”-themed style of service that could be hosted anywhere, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Noma’s L.A. season runs from March 11 to June 26, with 42 guests at each seating sampling a locally inspired tasting menu four days a week.
Tickets, which cost $1,500 per person, went on sale Jan. 26 and reportedly sold out in 60 seconds.
Redzepi’s statement about abuse allegations came after 35 former employees spoke to The New York Times, including Jason Ignacio White, who used to run Noma’s fermentation lab and recently began using Instagram to share experiences and allegations from other former staff members.
While some of the allegations were not new, many of the former employees claim to have endured punching, kicking and stabbing, as well as body-shaming, public ridicule and psychological abuse between 2009 and 2017, the L.A. Times reported.
Representatives for Noma, as well as Redzepi himself, say the claims do not reflect the restaurant’s current state, where interns are now paid, human resource practices are in place, and there’s an improved system for work hours and time off.
In a March 7 Instagram post, Redzepi appeared to acknowledge some of the allegations, saying, “Although I don’t recognize all details in these stories, I can see enough of my past behavior reflected in them to understand that my actions were harmful to people who worked with me.
“To those who have suffered under my leadership, my bad judgement, or my anger, I am deeply sorry and I have worked to change.”
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The chef goes on to say that much of his previous behavior was similar to what he experienced while working in kitchens where shouting, humiliation and fear were a part of the culture, something he promised himself he would never do to anyone else.
“But after we opened Noma, I found myself becoming the kind of chef I had once promised myself I would never be,” he wrote.
Redzepi continued, writing that over the last decade he underwent therapy, stepped away from running day-to-day operations and learned better ways to manage his anger.
“I cannot change who I was then. But I can take responsibility for it and will keep doing the work to be better,” he said in the post.
White, perhaps one of Redzepi’s most vocal critics, intends to lead a protest of Noma’s L.A. pop-up, where he and a wage-advocacy nonprofit plan to call for “reparations for harmed workers” and a change to “exploitative labor practices” they believe are endemic to the restaurant industry, the L.A. Times reported.
