As you all surely know by now, Noma next upcoming popup is happening in Los Angeles. Since, like, 7 days ago? the Instagram account @microbes_vibes, which has over 51k followers as of this writing (and that I suspect has grown a lot very recently), has been posting text screenshots between him and former/current Noma employees alleging some fairly juicy stuff.

For one, allegedly, a nineteen-year-old intern almost burned her face off and her higher ups did nothing but laugh about it.

For two, René, allegedly, “punched cooks in the legs beneath the open pass during service” and “stabbing them under the table with a bbq fork,” because if he punched or stabbed them higher than that then customers would see.

And for three, amongst more typical abuse one would expect, that they didn’t close Noma because “fine dining isn’t sustainable” as they claimed – they were actually making a ton of money! Millions even! But people found out they didn’t pay their interns or treat them very well, and, instead of doing that and owning up to their accountability, they shut down and rebranded as this pop-up concept, which allows them to keep overworking and underpaying people while also charging customers $1500 a pop.

Look, I almost didn’t write about this (thanks for the tip, Erin!). Is this even news? René himself admitted to being a bad boy rawr multiple times in the past and apologized. Also, the line between being abusive and regular in kitchens is fine, and Europeans are simply not as sensitive to boundries.

Also also, restaurant scandals that don’t, like, involve r*pe are so gray tbh (oh except for this we collectively forgot about), it’s really hard to know who is in the wrong or the right sometimes – even with jamgate, turns out the people accusing Koslow of unspeakable crimes (remember when people agreed it was worse that she stole recipes from her cooks than literally poising people and herself with moldy jam or having her employees work out of an illegal kitchen that was also a literal safety hazard??) might not be so irreprehensible themselves; people can be forgiven for doing stupid shit, I don’t believe anyone is completely good or completely bad.

Also also also, Noma in Copenhagen is still open? Wait, what’s the deal with that actually…

Also also also also, $1500 a person to eat at “the best restaurant in the world” — tax and tip included mind you — is only like 2-300 hundred dollars more a person than what you would pay at Providence or Vespertine.

Also also also also also, the first chef I ever worked for who was awesome laughed at me when my arm (briefly) caught fire when I was loading chickens onto a wood-burning rotisserie. Laughter is a totally normal reaction that chefs have when people catch on fire.

But the earnestness of @micros_vibes really nagged me. Jason seems to normally post cool pics of corn masa all over the world, but he has chosen to sacrifice his consistent brand aesthetic (basically suicide) to not only speak up about the PTSD he has from working at Noma, but to encourage fellow Noma survivors to do the same. And not only that, but people who are working at Noma right now are, allegedly, sending him screenshots of emails they got from their higher ups telling them not to talk to him! When people are willing to risk employment status for the sake of a post, I imagine the surface has not even been scratched of how truly awfully bad their workplace must be.

Doesn’t this make it so much more fucked then just how much of a non-surprise this is? Part of that for me is because I served René once... Well, I was his assigned busser. He is indeed much shorter than you might think, which is probably why he was able to punch so many of his line cooks in the balls underneath the pass with such ease. The restaurant I worked at at the time served a fine but basic tofu dish – it was a big bowl of wet tofu that had like three pieces of uni on it. And when I cleared it he turned to me and said something to the effect of it being “mind-blowing.” The guy who figured out how to spend two years to cook a carrot. So first off, I don’t trust the man – even if he was just trying to be polite. Second, I feel like the narrative of the cantankerous, rebel chef with a heart of gold, who we want to forgive so easily for their sheer amount of genius, is one so deeply ingrained in us that it’s hard to remember that this narrative is often driven by said chefs themselves, often by way of public apology or memoir. Imagine if Scott Rudin was given an outlet in the NY Times to apologize for all the people he fucked up and we all not just forgave him but were all here for what he was up to next. No. That would never and should never happen.

I Want to Believe @micros_vibes, not because it’s fun to watch Noma burn, but because we should always believe people who are risking their livlihoods to speak up about abuse that happened to them (no duh?). But even if it comes out later that @microbes_vibes meticulously photoshopped every single text post and crafted this whole schtick just for attention, I think it’s time we establish a new rule: the more a chef is lauded by the media, the more of an outlet and reach they have outside the realm of food, the more likely it is they are terrible to work for. This is kind of like a variant of Matt’s director cameo rule, where it’s more likely that a director is an asshole on set if he’s depicted as a nice guy in a cameo. If a chef is in the press a lot but it’s because they’re opening a new restaurant or dropping a new cookbook, or judging a cooking competition show, or they’re Gordon Ramsey, that’s different. And if you think that one would be hard-pressed to find a celebrity chef who does not fit the asshole bill, here is at least a brief list of celebrity chefs who have been in the business for decades and have never felt the urge to issue a public apology:

Eric Ripert
Wolfgang Puck
Michael Chiamustri
Masaharu Morimoto
Jeremy Fox
Rick Bayless
Tom Colicchio
Eric Funke
Walter Manzke (OK he apologized for saying the Tesla diner is cool but he’s an old man who cares?)
Nancy Silverton
Alice Waters
Niki Nakayama
Grant Achatz
Emril Lagassi

Hey! That’s pretty good for not Googling right? Maybe it’s normal to not be so terrible to people actually regardless of what industry you’re in.

Please don’t make me Google.

BAM!

P.S. People think that René doing Noma in LA is some kind of stroke of genius but it’s actually the safest choice. Where else in the world would he be able to get away with it? New York? Certainly not. Seoul or Hong Kong would laugh him out, and you know Kyoto only let him do it because they laughed all the way to the bank. Truth be told, he’s not even getting away with it in Los Angeles. I don’t care how good his locally-sourced coconut ceviche is gonna be (it’s gonna be amazing). If he hasn’t experienced commuting from Hollywood to Chatsworth five days a week, or waited in line at Urth Caffé, or food poisoning from Silver Lake ramen, he does not, and will never, know LA.

NOMAGATE

BAM!

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