Pablo Soto, Noma’s executive chef, arrived in Denmark in 2012 with a one-way ticket, no savings, and no plan. He was already a head chef in Mexico, but he wanted something that would truly challenge him. What he found at Noma changed the course of his life. Today, at 38, he is Executive Chef of one of the most talked-about restaurants in the world – a place he is now helping to rebuild and reimagine. He is thinking about getting married. He still dreams, he still believes there is always someone watching.

 

First, a Proust questionnaire – a few personal questions to meet the man before we talk about the work.

What did you dream of becoming as a child?

An architect.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

I would like to think that it is yet to come.

What is the quality you most like in people?

Composure.

Who are your heroes in real life?

I think that all mothers and loving parents are heroes.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

I would like to be able to breathe underwater like a fish.

Which book has strongly influenced you?

Blindness, by José Saramago.

Your favourite dish?

I like well-seasoned food; no favourites.

 

Andreja: Take me back to the time when you first decided that you wanted to work at Noma. You arrived in 2012 as an intern. What was happening then in your life? What was your dream? What did Noma represent for you then?

Pablo: Back then, I was a younger cook. I was already a head chef at a restaurant in Mexico, so in some ways I felt like I had some knowledge and experience already. But I was definitely still looking with wonder at the idea of going somewhere far away and experiencing something extremely different. Through books, through my teachers at school… it felt back then like going from Mexico to Denmark was going to the end of the planet. Now the world feels smaller, but back then it felt like: why would you even go to Denmark? It made no sense. I didn’t even know what to expect from this place. But I was looking for something truly different, for a real experience. I’m a person who likes to work, so I just wanted to be challenged – and that’s exactly what I got.

The truth is, in 2012, I was also going through a very difficult time personally. Someone in my family was very sick, and it was a tough period. So once I got to Denmark, I felt that I was really sacrificing a lot by not being back home. And I almost thought: maybe I made a mistake coming here. I had no savings whatsoever, only the ticket I’d bought a month before. I arrived with no money for accommodation, no plans. So I made a commitment with myself from the start that I needed to make it work – it needed to be a success. That mindset allowed me to experience Noma with the eyes of someone who truly wanted to get the most out of it. I needed it to be enriching for my life. And it was. I met amazing people. I met René. At the time, it was a smaller restaurant, so we built a real connection. I was there for a couple of months, and it changed my life. It turned things around completely.

And then that opened me up for the opportunity that came some years later, in 2017, to join Noma for the Tulum pop-up. From the moment I left as an intern, I was craving that excitement and pressure — that environment that was truly bringing out the best in me. A place that continuously demands the best of you, where you’re surrounded by people who are looking for exactly the same thing.

 

Andreja: What was the best about your experience through all these years at Noma? And what was most difficult?

Pablo: It’s a tough question. I’ve now been working with Noma for ten years.

What’s been difficult is being an immigrant. As a Mexican working in Europe, at first it feels situational – okay, I’m moving to another country, it’s exciting. But eventually, after some years, you come to a real realisation: I am an immigrant, and there are real challenges in that. You’re far from everything you love — the weather, your family, your food. And I don’t want to romanticise it, like “oh, I missed my grandmother’s cooking so much.” There is a deeper layer of difficulty when you move somewhere far from home. Building a home in a new place is always hard.

But on the other side, I discovered new passions. I’ve been cooking since I was 17, and I’ve always been obsessed with food – but working at Noma shifted something. I became very passionate about people. About leadership, patience, and listening. Nobody in a kitchen ever taught me how to lead a team, how to communicate, how to build systems. And I have become deeply passionate about all of that. It’s what I want to keep learning: how to lead better, how to build better ways of communicating. Noma gave me the space to become a leader and showed me that this is the right path. It’s beautiful to discover new passions later in life.

Andreja: You joined Noma first as an intern in 2012 and returned in 2017, which means you have seen this kitchen across more than a decade. The stories that resurfaced this spring describe a culture from those earlier years. What was your own experience of it, and how has kitchen culture at Noma changed in the decade you have been part of it?

Pablo: I came in as an intern, young and hungry to make the most of the opportunity. It was intense. There was more in front of me than I could absorb, and I wanted to see and learn as much as I possibly could. I put my heart into it and worked. That experience shaped how I think about kitchens and leadership to this day.

In the past decade, I’ve seen not only our culture change, but the industry as a whole. It’s a much bigger question than I can answer in a few lines, but building a healthy, respectful kitchen has been a real focus for us over the past several years. It’s something I care deeply about as the leader of this team. We still expect a lot from each other and hold ourselves to the highest standards, but I don’t think respect and excellence are opposites. They have to go hand in hand.

 

Andreja: You have been at the centre of some difficult media coverage recently, where your name was mentioned in ways that many people who have worked with you found completely contradictory to who you actually are. It is worth noting that the accusation made against you was disputed not only by you personally, but by multiple people who were present, and was subsequently concluded to be a false accusation by independent media outlets, including the LA Times. How has that coverage hit you from the inside? How are you doing personally, and how is your team doing?

Pablo: I’m going to be completely honest – it hit me like a rock. Mostly because it felt so incredibly unfair; no one wants to be in a position where they suddenly have to defend what is simply true. I’m completely in favour of people speaking the truth – I have nothing against that. But when lies are being spread and amplified without any concern for accuracy, and they’re suddenly targeted at you, it’s a very difficult thing. I can’t say it didn’t matter, because it really did.

What it did was make me focus even more on what I do, and made me value every single action I take to ensure that people around me know, as a fact, that none of this is true. And it was also beautiful to see the immediate support I received – messages from people who were there, who witnessed how things actually happened, who had beautiful things to say. That felt really good.

But more than anything, it made me deeply aware of how much every single action you take every day really matters. My father used to say, “There is always someone watching.” I say that to my team as well. I’ve said it so many times. But it never came back to me in such a strong way as it did now. And I’m grateful – genuinely grateful – that I have carried myself the way I have. Now more than ever, I hold onto that. There is always someone watching.

Andreja: Let’s talk about the new chapter. What does “12 seasons” mean for how you cook? How does it change your approach to ingredients, suppliers, and the rhythm of the kitchen?

Pablo: Twelve seasons is a dream – something to aspire to, something I hope we can achieve. We are still in the process of discovering how we’re going to do it. It definitely won’t mean wiping the menu clean every month and starting from scratch. It means a menu that changes constantly as the seasons do, the way a normal restaurant would – but the seasons in Copenhagen are so short and so distinct that they actually give us the tools to move very quickly.

What’s going to make this possible is a different way of working in the kitchen – one that allows everyone to make faster, more dynamic decisions. This connects to the organisational changes René has been announcing: René stepping back, working on other creative projects, and letting Mette, Annika, and me take the reins of the operation. The way decisions are made will change, and hopefully become much more dynamic. That is what will enable these more constant, flowing shifts in the menu.

It’s still a dream in progress – we’re discovering how to do it. But it feels right. The way Mette and I communicate in the kitchen, I’m sure we’ll get there very quickly.

 

Andreja: Are there dishes you’re particularly excited to develop? Ingredients you’re obsessed with right now?

Pablo: Right now, one hundred per cent of my focus is on our opening in Copenhagen. Mette has been carrying the big workload with the Test Kitchen team while we were in LA, and now we’re just excited to be back.

But looking ahead, I’m actually most excited about autumn. We’ve done game season for many years – venison, the classic game – but what I’m really looking forward to is exploring what the ocean has to offer in autumn and reflecting that on the menu in a way we haven’t fully done before. That’s going to be really exciting.

Of course, I’m always thrilled about summer too. I have never tasted tomatoes and strawberries anywhere like in Denmark. But once summer fades and the challenge of limited fresh ingredients arrives, I’m very curious to see how we’re going to handle that in this new format.

 

Andreja: There was also media commentary suggesting that Noma was coming back too soon. What’s your view on that?

Pablo: Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But we need to take care of our team. We can’t just say: let’s take a six-month pause while we think about things. That sounds wonderful in theory, but this is an operating business that sustains the livelihoods of a lot of people. We need to keep this going for the team. We need to open – it’s as simple as that. I’m sure people have many ideas about how we should do everything, but at the end of the day, who is going to take care of our team if we don’t?

Andreja: When you imagine the kitchen you are building, what does it feel like to walk into?

Pablo: I have to be honest – I’m not building something new. I’ve been handed something that has been working extraordinarily well for 23 years, continuously refined into what works today. I’m not trying to rewrite anything. I’ve been given an incredible gift: the chance to lead this amazing team with systems that have been developed and improved over more than two decades.

What I do see for the future is that we’re in a difficult moment for professional kitchens. There is simply less of that particular kind of talent available now – people who want to go all in, who want to push through the demanding periods of a kitchen like this. That culture has changed. What I see now is a kitchen that needs to be highly skilled, full of hard workers, but much more mature.

The challenge is finding the formula for a team that operates at our level, while allowing people to genuinely build their lives. We have team members with families, with different ways of living, who somehow find balance – and they’re not alone in that. Fewer and fewer people are retreating from the industry the way they used to. Our team is growing older and more mature, and we’re still discovering how to make it all fit – how to stay curious, challenged, and pushing toward the most extraordinary restaurant, while continuing to give people the space to build their private lives.

I’m part of that too. I’m not the 22-year-old I was when I first arrived. I’m 38 now, thinking about getting married, making plans for my future, still full of dreams. I want to see how all of that can fit together. I hope it can.

 

Andreja: What is the most important thing you learned from René?

Pablo: We have a long history, so let me think… Something very simple, but something that applies to how you manage people: René says, “You never know if you don’t ask.” That sounds basic, but it’s profound. Never assume how a person feels. Never assume what someone’s plans are. Never assume anything about people – just ask.

To get to know what’s really going on with your team, you need to be close to them. You need to be able to ask. If you’re standing on a pedestal, just looking at the picture from a distance and making assumptions about everyone, you achieve absolutely nothing – in fact, you destroy a lot. But if you get close enough to ask real questions, that’s where real change happens. That’s where you build empathy and real relationships.

So yes: you never know if you don’t ask.

 

Andreja Lajh is the founder of Haut de Gamme, a London-based agency working with chefs, restaurants and food producers worldwide. She writes about food, wine and the restaurant world at hautdegamme.net.