Noma, a restaurant.

If you haven’t heard about Noma by now, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s been called one of the best restaurants in the world for years, and the chef, René Redzepi, built his whole reputation on pushing food forward, fermentation, foraging, all that shit. Fine. Cool. I like fermentation. I do it. Respect it. But then all the sudden in a matter of days, he’s protested out of his LA residency and suddenly everyone acts like they just discovered the restaurant industry is hard and that humans arent kind of fucked up sometimes.

Back in 2023, The New York Times published a report going into Noma’s kitchen culture, and it talked about unpaid interns, long hours, high pressure, all the things people either pretend don’t exist or defend like it’s some rite of passage. At one point they had dozens of stagiaires working for free, like 60 to 80 hours a week in some cases, just to be there. That’s not even really debated, that was just how it operated for a long time. Eventually they announced they’d start paying interns after the backlash, but by then everyone already picked their side and dug in.

When Noma opened that residency at the Paramour Estate in Silver Lake in March, protesters were outside on opening night, right there at the gates, holding signs that said things like “Noma broke me” and “No Michelin stars for violence,” which is… pretty direct and profound, bravo. Jason Ignacio White, who used to work there, was one of the people leading it along with the group One Fair Wage, and they were calling for accountability, better wages, and basically saying the whole system that built that restaurant was fucked up (allegedly).

They planned multiple days of protests, and this was all happening at the same time sponsors were backing out and René Redzepi stepped down right as the residency opened, so the whole thing felt like this weird mix of LA “richards” paying 1,500 to get in the door and a public cancelling.

And again, I’m not even saying they’re wrong. People should get paid. Kitchens shouldn’t be abusive. That’s not a crazy take. But the way people talk about it, on both sides, it's gotten pathetic.

You’ve got the tough guys going, this is how it’s always been, if you can’t handle it, get out. And then you’ve got the other side acting like every kitchen should feel like a yoga retreat. Hey, dumb fucks, neither one of you is living in reality. Most people in this industry aren’t working at Noma. They’re not staging in Copenhagen. They’re trying to pay rent, working somewhere that might close next month, making way less than they should, and just getting through the week. So when people act like this one restaurant is the center of everything, it just feels disconnected.

Being the little stinker I am, I called him a dweeb in a post on the Dinner Rush instagram (@shopdinnerrush). I made him look fatter in photoshop, gave him a lazy eye, wrote “dweeb” over him, and said I wouldn’t let him swing on me. Ruffled a few feathers in the industry. That’s the part that makes me laugh. We’ve built these chefs up like they’re these larger than life figures, like they’re untouchable. In reality they just cook food, just like you and me. A lot of them are just really intense, obsessive food nerds who worked really hard and got some form of frivolous notoriety. That doesn’t make them cool. That doesn’t make them tough. It just makes them good at what they do. A lot of you reading this are good at what you do, too, Those are different things.

Now, the protest side isn’t exactly inspiring confidence either. Screaming statements into a phone, trying to explain serious issues, but sounding like a bad youtube video isn't really doing our industry any favors. It starts to feel performative, like everyone’s just playing their role in this bigger online argument instead of actually trying to fix anything.

Rene stepped back, put out a statement, said he takes responsibility, talks about change, all that. Standard stuff. He literally said he takes responsibility for his actions and that the changes they made don’t repair the past. And maybe that’s true, maybe he means it, but we’ve all seen this before. Public figure gets called out, steps away, disappears for a bit, comes back later and it’s all fine. Is there a path for redemption? That's not up to me to decide. And during all of it, you hear the same language. “We’re a family.” That one always gets me. Every bad job I’ve ever had told me we were a family. And it never meant anything good. If you're new in the restaurant industry and you are at an interview and the owner says this, run. It usually means you’re going to be asked to do more than you should for less than you deserve (or that the owner is a creep). 

The video of him talking to the staff, telling them to fight, talking about the team, the future, made me feel like i was back in the fucking principles office. It’s serious, but it’s also kind of empty. And I get it, what is he supposed to say? But that’s the point, none of it feels real anymore because we’ve seen the script too many times.

He’ll be gone for a bit, things quiet down, and then he comes back with something new. Smaller, simpler, more “for the people.” I said it before, I’ll say it again, I would not be surprised at all if it’s a burger spot or something casual. Suddenly it’s about getting back to basics, reconnecting, and making food “accessible” again. Yall will love it. They always do. Our attention spans and the sheer number of humans on earth usually allow for this sort of comeback. He'll be fine. 

Meanwhile, everyone online is still arguing, acting like they’re solving the entire industry from their phone. People in comment sections threatening each other, defending millionaires, or acting like they were one step away from working there themselves. It’s just noise. None of those arguments are changing anything.

The reality is the industry has always been messy. Long hours, low pay, high expectations, big personalities, thin margins. You can scream about it or defend it, but it doesn’t magically fix itself overnight. So all this turns into another cycle. Another round of people picking sides and yelling into the ether.

So I’m not really interested in picking a side. I don’t think any of these people are completely right. I think a lot of them look ridiculous, honestly. The chefs, the protesters, the commenters. I’m just here to point at it and say this is what’s happening, this is how people are acting, and yeah, some of it deserves to be made fun of. I don’t know what the answer is to the lifelong fucking issues of the world let alone restaurants.

at the end of the day, most of us are just trying to get through our shift, pay our bills, and maybe not hate where we work. That’s it. Everything else is just people arguing about nothing.

I still think he’s a dweeb and if he wants to hit that squared circle baby, lets fuckin rumble. 

Keep walkin. 🤜