Noma head chef René Redzepi, who helmed the global culinary brand since 2003, stepped down following a New York Times investigation into past employee abuse.
Redzepi guided Noma to the pinnacle of fine dining by combining elegant execution with a renewed focus on ingredient sourcing, seasonality, and ancient techniques like fermentation, drawing plaudits as well as scrutiny: The Financial Times reported in 2022 that Noma employed dozens of unpaid interns working 70-hour weeks, and Redzepi — accused of physically assaulting staff — wrote in 2015 that he had “been a bully for a large part of my career.”
Noma asked diners to consider “the moral weight of an ingredient’s origins,” one commentator wrote, without paying “the same attention to the people in the kitchen.”