On the MenuNoma chef Rene Redzepi’s Instagram apology over abuse allegations is worthy of an Oscar
Will Rene Redzepi’s carefully filmed and edited video of him addressing his team at the three-Michelin-star restaurant appease his critics?
The Oscars were announced on March 15, but the performance of the season might just go to the social media post featuring fallen chef Rene Redzepi, published on the Noma restaurant account on March 11.
In the run-up, an aggrieved ex-employee – Jason Ignacio White, Noma’s former head of fermentation – began sharing stories of physical and emotional abuse at the restaurant from other Noma alumni.
What started as a trickle quickly became a torrent of increasingly alarming allegations of Redzepi and other senior chefs subjecting staff to public humiliation and physical harm, including detailed accounts of punching, jabbing with forks and burning. The restaurant’s history of not paying interns was also re-examined, and its entire kitchen brigade culture was questioned.
The voices snowballed and became hard to ignore, prompting an in-depth investigation by The New York Times on March 7 that corroborated dozens of past employees’ experiences. Following the report, major sponsors of the pop-up event – including American Express – revoked their sponsorship dollars, eager to distance themselves from the implosion of the Noma brand.
On March 8, Redzepi posted a statement on his Instagram account, expressing remorse for his past behaviour. “I cannot change who I was then. But I take responsibility for it and will keep doing the work to be better.”