Published on •Updated
Danish chef René Redzepi, co-founder of Noma, the highly-acclaimed restaurant, has resigned from the firm following allegations he’s abused and mistreated staff for years.
It comes after corporate backers pulled out from sponsoring the Los Angeles Noma pop-restaurant which opened on Wednesday. Redzepi was due to head operations at the establishment with a meal will cost around €1,500.
In a post on Instagram, Redzepi, the “New Nordic” cuisine innovator said: “After more than two decades of building and leading this restaurant, I’ve decided to step away.”
“I have worked to be a better leader and Noma has taken big steps to transform the culture over many years,” Redzepi said in a video that showed him apologising to staff. “I recognise these changes do not repair the past,” the 48-year-old said. “An apology is not enough. I take responsibility for my own actions.”
“I was not able to handle the pressure, small mistakes could feel enormous to me, and I reacted in ways that I regret deeply today,” added Redzepi.
Redzepi also said the LA project would continue without him and praised its current team as the “strongest” that it had ever been.
A history of violence
Last month, Jason Ignacio White, the former head of Noma’s fermentation lab, began posting about abuse he had witnessed.
He also relayed stories sent to him by other former employees.
“Noma is not a story of innovation. It is a story of a maniac that would breed culture of fear, abuse & exploitation,” White said on social media.
His posts sparked protests online and at the restaurant’s opening.
Last weekend, The New York Times also published an extensive story containing several witness accounts of mistreatment, including punches thrown and public shaming, at the three Michelin star Noma in Copenhagen.
Redzepi has been dogged for years by reports of mistreatment of his staff as well as his years-long use of unpaid interns to staff the pricy restaurant, which topped Restaurant magazine’s World’s 50 Best Restaurants List five times between 2010 and 2021.
Campaigners in LA, who’ve vowed to continue their protests for fair and living wages, say stories of surviving physical and mental abuse at the posh Copenhagen establishment have been well known for years but such incidents are widely seen as a ‘rite of passage’ within kitchen culture at all levels of the industry.
Video editor • Yolaine De Kerchove Dexaerde