The Archive

“Remember that one time when a 19-year-old intern burnt her face off and @P. and the other staff laughed until I forced them to call an ambulance? Then the New York Times came out with the abuse article and you told the...”

“I have tried writing this so many times. I have always chickened out. Today when I read you have PTSD, I knew I had to tell you. Me too. I was diagnosed with PTSD last year. Noma broke me in so many ways, I can't even...”

“I got punched in the face during service there.”

“They all know it's true. You can't deny it. I remember the first time I saw Rene punching a cook in the legs beneath the open pass during service. Everyone told me to just look away. They had all seen it plenty of times...”

“Forever grateful that I had the chance to have a talk with you on my first day as an intern. You opened my eyes, and after three weeks I left. Never turned back. Yesterday my first daughter was born, from a...”

“I don't post this because I think they will be cancelled. I have PTSD from the abuse there, but I'm not delusional. I post these things because all of my peers, World's 50 Best, etc. follow me here and they need to stop...”

“Everything I know is pretty "standard" Redzepi behaviour. Stabbing people with a BBQ fork since forever. Punching people. You don't know this? He couldn't smack people around during service, so he was stabbing them...”

“I remember seeing this right before service. Punched him right in the stomach and ribs because he "couldn't cook a fucking artichoke" according to Rene.”

“I experienced verbal abuse from C., K. (the head chef at the time), A., and an Australian chef in the test kitchen — he was so inappropriate. I raised it to HR. Nothing was done. Nothing. No apology from them either. I...”

“I did a stint at Noma ages ago. I remember Rene screaming at his wife on the phone as she worked in the office and they had messed up a booking, in front of 50 staff at the pre-service meeting. He hit one of the German...”

“Every day when I came back to drop off everything, I saw how people were miserable there — being screamed at, losing weight. Girls didn't have their period for months, so stressed and unhappy. It was painful to watch....”

“Everyone asking about the lab: the lab was very isolated, minus people coming in for sauces and meetings with the test kitchen. We wouldn't even go to kitchen meetings or service meetings most times due to workload....”

“The biggest issue in the lab was metric tons of production in a tiny space, plus all fermentation for Pop! and Noma Projects. The morale was a mix of inspiring, but eventually we all broke too. Overall it was mental...”

“No one was ever assaulted, attacked, or called names, but there were definitely times where I could have had more patience and instead pushed for more output, and that affected the whole team. Same for D.. We were all...”

“Then the incident with the girl burning her face and being laughed at — left to scream and cry alone in the restroom by kitchen staff. I forced them to call an ambulance and help her, and completely turned from that...”

“After Noma, I was struggling with PTSD to the point of being crippled by it. I was doing three types of therapy but was half a person.”

“Eventually I went on tour to return to my roots, helping people with science and teaching chefs. I ran into some abused former interns who were destroyed. So I spoke up here for the first time. Was scared due to PTSD...”

“I too worked at Noma for a short time and very quickly left because I saw abuse I didn't agree with. I moved my entire family around the world to work at Noma to only leave after the verbal and physical abuse I...”

“After that point, they made my life even more miserable, until my mental health was destroyed. I couldn't sleep no matter how tired I was from work, and I fell into alcohol in a really bad way. I made the decision to...”

“Noma claims the fine dining model is "unsustainable" and "broke." Meanwhile, the receipts show they've extracted over €3.6 MILLION in dividends for owners in just three years. They didn't say they were closing because...”

“A company with $13M in the bank and $5M in annual profit does not need to charge guests $1,500 to cover travel costs. They are choosing to pass every single expense onto the customer while keeping their millions in the...”

“I have so many stories to share from my time there, it is crazy. Everyone just got an email warning people not to talk to you or "correct misinformation" — that we should refer to the PR manager if you contact us in any...”

“We are sure that many of you are aware about recent hostile activity from a social media account that has aggressively targeted our restaurants and our team. This is deeply unfortunate and we wanted to share a few...”

“Messaging from a burner account due to the sensitivity of this. Worth considering that Resy is actually paying Noma for access to the LA residency for their most elite customers. I know it's about $2 million (hence the...”

“I hope you also speak up about the gardeners, carpenters, security, foragers, and all of us who also suffered abuse outside the kitchen within those walls. Tak! I was a gardener, and I know the others there were also...”

“Noma destroyed my passion for the industry. I struggled with intense anxiety, bad enough to give me panic attacks in the middle of the night. The trauma, abuse and idea that nothing would ever change all led me to walk...”

“I was an unpaid intern years ago at Noma. Got a few sections of the "code of conduct" letter that was sent to all interns if you're interested. I want to be anonymous though.”

“The Building and Restaurant Noma resides within the Nordatlantens Brygge (English: North Atlantic House). The administration of the building is run independently from that of the restaurant. Nevertheless, it is crucial...”

“We accept people for a minimum of three months and, as previously stated, all stages must start on a Tuesday and end on a Saturday (although you may be asked to come on the Monday before your first day for a tour of the...”

“Every time Rene entered the kitchen someone yelled 'CHEFS COMING' so everybody had to sweep the floor and stay silent not to annoy him. Then his right hand announced 'does anybody have a cigarette for Mr. Redzepi?' Like...”

“An anonymous source just sent me a clipping from an old Noma unpaid intern contract. This is how they built a longstanding culture of fear. The results of this have been huge in preventing people from discussing their...”

“The stories are true. I saw it firsthand. When I was in Sydney, they did a pop-up. We went there to grab some ingredients on their last service. Rene couldn't find his chef jacket — he shouted at his sous and started...”

“Lately I've seen stories about Rene's mother-in-law. She also owns the Noma apartments, which they rent out to the interns. I don't remember how much people were paying, but it wasn't cheap. People were sharing rooms in...”

“This was right around the time those articles came out about the work environment at Noma. At this time they also claimed they were closing, and then they launched Noma Projects as a backup plan just in case. All while...”

“I worked at Noma for a couple of years, a few years back. I was 24 when I got the job. K. was my manager at the time. Very early on, when we were all out having drinks, he invited me to follow him in the bathroom. While...”

“I don't think I've ever witnessed such biased and bad management as I've seen at Noma. The best decision I ever made in my career was to leave that place. Management knew he was not a nice guy, a couple of other female...”

“Reporting to management, at Noma, is reporting to Rene Redzepi's mother-in-law. She's the "intern therapist", reports everything back to management and makes sure nothing ever gets "out of hand" / basically that there...”

“It's crazy, I used to work with him back when he was still a stage at EMP way back in 2012, this guy is rotten to the core.”

“I joined Noma during the 2019 vegetable season. Coming from India, that alone was a big deal. There were only a few Indians, and many are too scared to talk about their experiences because the culinary industry...”

“I, like many others, travelled from across the world to work 40 hours as was the contract I signed. I had assumed that having already been 'almost cancelled' in the media, they would have now fixed things. Instead I...”

“I think from the initial intern group of around 30-40, only me and one girl were left after one month. She was just stuck in prep picking herbs. I was extremely dedicated and had a big ego at the time to be one of the...”

“After the first pop-up and reopening in the old space, I started as an intern and got smacked across the face back in 2016 by the sous chef R. for taking accountability for a container that was put in the wrong area of...”

“I've always been deeply interested in fermentation, but I never knew how to transition from kitchen work into it or how to start. I didn't have the confidence to begin something on my own, and honestly, I didn't really...”

“Worked there for 14 days — borrowed out — it was the worst two weeks of my life. He punched me in my stomach for not picking the herbs right. It was 2012. I'm a broken person since.”

“I left Noma after a month of the three that I was supposed to do. I was 10 hours straight scrubbing sea shells, my hands bleeding, and one of the sous chefs of the Italian gang was taking pictures of all the chefs'...”

“I'm not gonna lie — I just quit my first executive chef job that I've worked my ass off for the last 15 years, because I simply don't feel good enough. And tonight is the only night I feel peace — for real, for the...”

“I lived in one of the Noma apartments for my time there — a shared room. The apartment had 3 rooms, one of them being a shared one with two small mattresses on the floor. I don't fully remember how much I was paying —...”

“During my internship at Noma in 2022 I lived there, but as soon as I moved in I was looking for something new because of how dirty and unmaintained the place was.”

“I remember when I was attending MAD a few years back — more than a few people in our group had stories they'd heard about Rene hitting people, 'but nobody is really ready for that conversation yet.' This was before...”

“Copenhagen — since the years when Noma started, I have heard so many stories, but as you know it's all very hush-hush. It's crucial for both the writers, the chefs, and the food producers to be on good terms with Rene....”

“Yeah man, I remember her coming back with bandages all over her face and her leaving. Because I heard so many people referring to her as 'the mummy,' which is crazy cause the girl — working for free — came back even...”

“I'm writing you this because I was against all this. And I remember you being miserable, every time I saw you in that building. Until tonight — way too many people feel the same. I always told myself I'd been through...”

“I worked there in 2010, 4 months. He's a super nice guy. To be honest, I think he left the industry because that place wrecked him. Pretty sure Rene slapped him because an intern cut the green strawberries wrong.”

“I watched the documentary the day before I started my stage and was like, 'Oh my god, what did I get myself into here.' We all know he's worse when cameras are off. Ask about the time he chased him down on the bike...”

“I remember my visit to MAD in 2018 was quite a shock. Many of the young chefs would talk in whispered tones about the contradictions that were taking place in real time — one telling me about his encounter with one of...”

“I wanted to reach out because something you shared recently had a deeper impact on me than you might imagine. I know your call was specific to Noma and to your own context, but it resonated with me in a broader way as...”