The Scene

There is a scene in Luis Buñuel’s Viridiana that has stayed with me since I first saw it. A group of beggars, given shelter and charity by a well-meaning woman, take over her house while she is away. They feast at her table, drink her wine, smash her possessions and arrange themselves, in a moment of delirious self-satisfaction, in a tableau of the Last Supper. It is one of cinema’s most devastating images of chaos mistaking itself for righteousness. Of destruction wearing the costume of justice.

I thought of that scene on Wednesday, when René Redzepi resigned from Noma.

I interviewed René in 2015. I have sat at his tables multiple times, as a diner, as a journalist, as someone who has spent decades in the world of serious gastronomy. I also spent a full week in Austria at a Gelinaz event – a gathering of around twenty of the world’s best chefs and fifteen food journalists, spending time together, sharing meals, working side by side. René was part of that group. I watched him over those days with the particular attention of someone who writes about food and the people who make it. He was kind, empathetic, hardworking, and profoundly disciplined. In the evenings, while the rest of us were enjoying ourselves, René went to bed early – not out of aloofness, but because he had work to do in the morning. That is not the portrait of a tyrant but a portrait of a man whose dedication was entirely genuine, not performed for an audience.

I wrote about him earlier on the day when he resigned – you can read that piece here – a few hours before his resignation, because I believed – and still believe – that the conversation being had about him was not the conversation that needed to be had. What happened that Wednesday confirmed everything I feared.

 

What Was Lost

René’s resignation statement was dignified, direct, and entirely without self-pity. He acknowledged his past. He noted the years of work to transform Noma’s culture. He accepted that an apology is not enough. And then he turned the light away from himself and onto his team – a team he described as the strongest and most inspiring Noma has ever had. He also resigned from the board of MAD, the nonprofit he founded in 2011 to give back to the industry he loved. This was not a man performing contrition but a man taking responsibility with grace.

To understand what was lost this week, you need to understand what René Redzepi built. Noma was not simply a restaurant that won awards. It was a laboratory that changed the entire direction of world gastronomy – how chefs think about ingredients, about place, about the relationship between a kitchen and its landscape. More than that, it was a school. The alumni of Noma’s kitchen have gone on to open some of the most celebrated restaurants in the world, carrying with them a philosophy of cooking that René shaped. And beyond the restaurant itself, he founded MAD – a nonprofit that gathered the best minds in gastronomy and far beyond it: philosophers, scientists, farmers, activists, sharing knowledge, challenging assumptions, and arguing for an industry built on better ethics. MAD was René giving back to the profession that formed him, and trying to make it worthier of the people who choose it. That is the body of work the mob decided was not enough.

 

The Anatomy of a Mob

Among those who responded to my piece on Wednesday was Cemre Torun, food journalist and one of the academy chairs of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, who also happens to be a trained clinical psychologist. She described this as a psychological and sociological issue as much as a culinary one. And she added a detail the broader coverage has missed entirely: that René devoted a full MAD symposium to the question of better workplaces in the industry. She was there – it was not a PR stunt. He was, she said, one of the first in the industry to publicly acknowledge the problem and work toward fixing it. She also questioned the role of journalism in all of this – noting that, unlike the coverage that has attempted nuance, the New York Times articles were one-sided, biased, and geared toward destruction rather than betterment or construction. Not about opening up a conversation, she said, but starting a lynching and a witch hunt. The level of irresponsibility, she added, is inexcusable when you consider the impact those articles and their social media reach have had.

There is a bitter irony at the heart of all this that nobody in the polite coverage will acknowledge. René was not a chef who thought only of himself. In a world full of powerful kitchen figures who take everything and give nothing back, who abuse quietly and keep their profiles low, René was the one who stood up. Who used his platform. Who founded MAD precisely to push the industry toward better ethics, better treatment of people, better values. It is exactly that visibility – that willingness to be seen, to argue, to lead publicly that made him the target. The chefs who genuinely abuse and give nothing back are never attacked. They are careful to remain invisible. René was not careful. He cared too much, too loudly, too publicly. And that is what destroyed him.

He resigned after weeks of mounting media pressure, a coordinated social media backlash, sponsors pulling out, and a demand letter from One Fair Wage – an American labour organisation – delivered on March 11th, setting a deadline of 12 pm on Thursday, March 12th to agree to their demands or face further legal and public action. The deadline had not even arrived. Two hours after that letter was sent, René resigned. Not because the ultimatum had expired. Because the cumulative weight of the mob – on screens, in newsrooms, and on that Los Angeles pavement – had made it impossible to continue.

The physical demonstration that accompanied all of this? Around twenty people – at most – on a pavement outside the LA pop-up, holding identical pre-printed pink placards supplied by One Fair Wage. The same small group was photographed from multiple angles, the same faces appearing across images published by the Guardian, the New York Times, NBC, the LA Times, and ABC. Twenty people with professional signs, amplified by the global press into the appearance of a movement. That is the anatomy of a modern media mob.

 

The Voices Nobody Wanted to Hear

I have spent the past two days receiving messages from people who worked with René, staged at Noma, dined there, and built their careers in its orbit. Most of them preferred not to be named publicly. Jonathan Wat, a passionate devotee of Noma’s cooking who volunteered with the MAD symposium team – working in the Noma kitchen and alongside crew members he had come to know over years of following the restaurant’s work around the world, from Sydney to Tulum to Kyoto to Copenhagen – put the asymmetry precisely: those who attack can do so without any consequences, letting their anger out freely, while those who defend from genuine experience must weigh every word – considering the team’s space to respond, the PR implications, the risk of being seen as overly defensive in an already raw situation. The attackers operate in a consequence-free zone. The defenders carry all the risk. That imbalance is itself a form of injustice, and it explains exactly why so many of the people who contacted me preferred to remain anonymous.

Christian Puglisi, who worked as sous chef at Noma between 2007 and 2009 and has since built his own distinguished culinary legacy, wrote about this publicly – I encourage you to read his full piece. He did not excuse the physical violence described in the New York Times report – he called it unjustifiable, full stop. But he refused to flatten a complicated human being into a monster. The René he worked with was highly ambitious, emotionally unregulated, capable of disproportionate anger, and also generous, honest, fair, and even humble. A man whose worst behaviour was rooted in the terrifying gap between his vision and what any kitchen could yet deliver. Puglisi grew under that pressure. He also eventually had enough and left to do his own thing. He was not broken. He was not traumatised. He acknowledges that others experienced it differently – and he does not dismiss that. What he dismisses, correctly, is the spectacle that followed.

He asked the question nobody else was asking: what does the current Noma staff want? What are they asking for? Nobody on social media, and nobody at the New York Times, thought to consult the hundred people whose livelihoods and dreams are tied to this restaurant. Perhaps because the answer might have complicated the narrative.

A chef who now runs his own restaurants in Copenhagen, and who spent eight months working at Noma, preferred not to expose himself in the current climate – and that restraint alone tells you something about the atmosphere of fear that surrounds any dissenting voice right now. He never witnessed physical violence. Every morning, René came to greet the team. He was moved to tears watching the resignation video. He doesn’t deserve this at all, he said. He also noted the numbers at the LA protest with dry precision. A handful of people. And twenty-three years dismantled.

An Italian chef who staged at Noma, and who also asked not to be named, wrote to me with a composure that shamed the noise around him. For him, and for many friends of his generation who passed through that kitchen, Noma was an important school and a place of great growth. The friendships built there are still part of his life. Those people now have restaurants, careers, families, and children. He feels close to René and his family, and is sorry for what they are going through. And in the same breath, without contradiction, he acknowledges that different people can experience the same environment differently – that kitchens at the highest level demand dedication, sacrifice and pressure. He holds all of this at once, without collapsing into either dismissal or condemnation. That is what maturity looks like and what this conversation needed more of.

Another chef who staged at Noma in 2016, and who also asked to remain anonymous, was characteristically direct: Was it hard? Yes. Did it push him? Absolutely. Did he grow because of it? One hundred percent. He drew a distinction that the entire media coverage has failed to make: there is a difference between being challenged and being mistreated. High standards are not abuse. They are the reason places like Noma are world-class. The team he worked with were passionate, committed, and serious about excellence. That environment, he said, is not for everyone – and that is fine. But it is not the same as harm.

A European chef who did a stage at Noma wrote to me at length. He was unequivocal: René Redzepi is a friend and mentor, and without Noma, his own restaurant would not exist. He described the kitchen as demanding but not unusually so – anyone who has worked at the world’s top restaurants knows that intensity is the currency of excellence. He placed the stagiaire system in its proper historical context, noting that ambitious young professionals have always worked for little or no pay in architecture studios, design houses, law firms and creative industries across Europe to learn from the best – a tradition going back centuries. And he ended simply: Noma was a place of genuine creative happiness – intense and fast-paced, yes, but one where he was, simply, happy.

Another former employee also shared their thoughts on the stagiaire system, making a point that cuts to the ideological heart of this whole affair. The stagiaire system is fundamentally a European institution – embedded in culinary culture across France, Spain, Italy, and Denmark itself. The great restaurants of Spain would not function without it. To apply a North American framework of paid labour to a European apprenticeship tradition and call it slavery is not justice – it is cultural imperialism dressed as progressivism. Everyone who has ever staged agreed to the terms. The experience you got there was the payment. And Noma, it bears repeating, is a Danish restaurant. It is not from the United States. It should not be tried by American activist standards alone.

 

Questions Nobody Asked

The One Fair Wage letter addressed to René invoked slavery and racial inequity in the same breath as demanding a response by a specific Thursday deadline. It was signed by former employees – not current ones. There was no negotiation being sought, no specific achievable demand that could be met and verified. There was a performance, staged outside the Noma pop-up in Los Angeles, performed by around twenty people, aimed at burning down twenty-three years of work built by a team of a hundred human beings who were never once consulted about whether they wished to be saved. Consider, as Puglisi wrote, that those hundred people have children, have careers, have shared a dream. Some have worked at Noma for ten years or more. Pulling sponsorships and engineering a resignation does not help them. It puts their livelihoods at risk.

One is also entitled to ask, quietly, about the man who led this campaign. He came to Noma in 2017, working in the fermentation lab under David Zilber. He stayed until 2019. Then, in 2020, when David Zilber left Noma, he chose to come back – not as a junior cook, not reluctantly, but deliberately, to take over the fermentation lab. He remained until 2022, when, according to people close to Noma, he was let go. He did not leave – he was fired. Around four years in total, across two separate stints, the second of which he actively sought out – and which ended not on his own terms. If the environment was as he describes, the question is not merely why he stayed – it is why he left, waited, returned to take a promotion, and is now leading a public campaign against the place that ultimately dismissed him.

There is a further question that no reporter has thought to ask. The man who led this campaign has stated that abuse also occurred during his time there. And yet every account of mistreatment that has appeared in the press – in the New York Times and elsewhere – describes incidents from before he arrived. Not one person who worked at Noma during those years, alongside him, in the fermentation lab he helped lead, has come forward to say: yes, this is what it was like when he was there. If the culture was as he describes during his tenure, those voices exist. They have not appeared. That silence is not proof of anything – but it is a question, and it is one that nobody in the coverage has been willing to ask.

 

The Pleasure of the Takedown

And here we must talk about something that the polite coverage will not name: Schadenfreude. The pleasure of the takedown. Because the physical protest was twenty people at most, but the real mob was on screens – thousands of miles from Copenhagen, from that kitchen, from any lived experience of Noma whatsoever. People who had most likely never eaten there, never staged there, never met René, sharing and amplifying and celebrating as though the destruction of something great were their own personal victory. This is what social media has made possible: the conversion of other people’s pain into entertainment, dressed up as solidarity. Internet warriors who have never held a knife professionally, who have most likely never worked a double in a serious kitchen, are pronouncing judgment on a man who changed the entire landscape of world cuisine, and feeling righteous while doing it.

A reader who responded to my piece on Wednesday put it with quiet precision: the central problem with mob mentality is that those individuals believe that if they feel strongly enough about something, their conclusion must be correct regardless of the facts. Feelings have replaced evidence. Intensity has replaced argument. And anyone who dares to introduce complexity is immediately labelled an enabler, a gaslighter, an abuser of power structures – the vocabulary of the movement deployed as a weapon against thought itself.

 

The Man They Destroyed

Before his resignation was made public, René gathered his team and spoke to them directly. These are his words, unmediated by press releases or legal counsel: “I’m sorry everyone is in this situation. I really, really am. I don’t think this represents our team. I am so proud of where we are as an organisation. In order to make sure that you guys are 100% feeling safe, I’m gonna step away. I’m not running away from any responsibility for how I have been. I am not. I know how I’ve been.” He told them he believed Noma was the restaurant of the decade. He told them that many of them had become his family – people he had worked alongside for ten, thirteen, nineteen years. He told them: “You can break things in minutes, and to build it up again can take forever. Please, please, please, please fight. Be in this. Find strength in each other as a team. Know that I’m doing this to protect everyone here.” And then: “When I see what’s going on online, it’s nothing like this. I know that’s not who we are.”

That is the man the mob destroyed. A man stepping aside to protect the people he loves, asking them to fight for something he believes in with every part of himself, telling them that what is happening online bears no resemblance to who they actually are.

And while René was saying those words to his team, one of the leading voices of the campaign posted under René’s resignation statement on Instagram: “All of your voices were with us in Silver Lake. Almost there. See you tomorrow.” Followed by: “Still much more work to do.”

Almost there. Still more work to do. A man has resigned from the restaurant he built over twenty-three years and from the nonprofit he founded. And the response is: not yet. More tomorrow. One must ask, as my colleague Kaja Sajovic put it: what exactly is the finish line? His firstborn? There is no answer – because the goal was never a specific, achievable change. It was never about justice. It was about the pleasure of the hunt, and the hunt is not yet over.

 

None of That Was Enough

René was, by his own repeated and public admission, capable of behaviour that crossed lines – behaviour he acknowledged, reckoned with, and worked to change over many years. He had already stepped back from direct kitchen service, recognising that his temperament and the pressures of the pass were not a combination that always served his team well. He was doing the work. Quietly, without press releases.

None of that was enough. Because this was never about the work. It was never about change. It was about the pleasure of the takedown.

Buñuel understood something about human nature that we prefer not to examine: that the desire to destroy can dress itself in the language of justice so completely that even the destroyers believe their own performance. The beggars at the table of Viridiana are not evil. They are human. That is the most uncomfortable part.

What happened on Wednesday was not justice. It was not a movement. It was, as Christian Puglisi wrote with characteristic directness, a witch hunt.

And the proclaimed abused became abusers. This is not how the world is made better.

Andreja Lajh

Read also the article by Kaja Sajovic: https://hautdegamme.net/2026/03/13/i-can-live-with-imperfect-chefs/