The celebrity chef at Noma, one of the world's most influential restaurants, responded Saturday to harassment that resurfaced ahead of the opening of his sold-out pop-up in Los Angeles, sparking discussions about working conditions and exploitation in the high-end restaurant industry.
Former employees and interns have detailed Danish chef René Redzepi's lawsuit for physical and verbal abuse Article published in the New York Times. Since founding Noma in 2003, Redzepi has become the flagship Copenhagen restaurant and a global authority on fine dining, fermentation and foraging.
The report comes after former Noma employee Jason Ignacio White, who previously ran the fermentation lab, began posting insults on Instagram last month about others who also worked at the restaurant. White is organizing a protest against the LA pop-up starting Wednesday in Silver Lake.
The New York Times story focused on reports from 35 former employees, including alleged cases of “psychological abuse, including intimidation, body shaming and public ridicule,” as well as stabbing, punching, kicking and workplace retaliation that occurred between 2009 and 2017.
Many of the attacks were known from previously published reports.
Both Redzepi and Noma representatives say these attacks reflect the restaurant's past, not its current state, and that the organization had several systems in place – including new human resources practices, intern pay and “improved hours and time off” – when the plaintiff appeared years ago.
On Saturday morning, the chef responded to the article with an online post and apologized to those affected. He noted that he has spoken openly about his history of abuse in the past, has since sought therapy and has stepped away from Noma's “day-to-day duty.”
From an essay from 2015 He wrote: “I was a bully for most of my career. I yelled at people and pushed people. I was a terrible boss at times.”
A representative for Noma said in an email Saturday that the restaurant has “enhanced the process for addressing concerns” and is conducting an ongoing independent review of its practices.
“I knew I had to change and I wanted to change,” Redzepi wrote on Instagram on Saturday. “Since then, I have been determined to understand my anger and deal with it differently. … The organization we are today is very different from the one we started with. I am grateful for our team and the ways they have helped transform our kitchen culture and for their commitment to moving the industry forward.”
He added: “I can't change who I was back then. But I take responsibility for it and will continue to work to get better.”
The investigative story came just days before Noma is set to launch a 16-week pop-up festival in Silver Lake, with tickets priced at $1,500. Tickets sold out almost immediately, with Redzepi posting on Instagram in January that they were “gone in 60 seconds.”
A pop-up shop for Noma products like coffee and hot sauce is also planned in LA. Noma has also hosted two collaborative pop-ups, first at Courage Bagels, then at Holbox, to make his cuisine more accessible to Angelenos.
White plans to lead a protest against the pop-up, which is being organized with nonprofit wage advocacy group One Fair Wage. According to an email from One Fair Wage, organizers will send a letter to Redzepi calling for “dialogue, reparations for injured workers, and structural changes to address exploitative labor practices that advocates say are widespread throughout the restaurant industry.”
White declined to comment on the protests or investigations before the New York Times article was published and could not be reached for comment Saturday after it was published.
He later posted on his personal Instagram Stories: “History is being made in Silver Lake. … Together we will stand against violence and exploitation. This is just the beginning. We will take back our entire industry.”
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