The world-famous restaurant “Noma” closes – that’s behind Brazil: Bolsonaro radical supporters pull policemen off their horses

The announcement of the closure

On Monday, the Danish noble restaurant Noma announced that it would close. A stunner in the world of fine dining: the Copenhagen establishment was voted the best restaurant in the world in five years and recently received a third Michelin star.

Since its creation in 2003, Noma and chef René Redzepi have been credited with revolutionizing Scandinavian cuisine. The restaurant is still a magnet for guests from abroad – although eating in a luxury restaurant is no cheap pleasure. For a dinner menu, which now features duck and reindeer, you have to pay at least 3,500 Danish kroner, more than 460 francs.

Redzepi told the Danish newspaper Berlingske that the decision to end Noma in its current form was not a spontaneous idea. During the first Corona wave in 2020, he realized that it would probably no longer be like this in the long term.

The reasoning

As chef Redzepi explains to the “New York Times,” it is simply no longer realistic to continue the restaurant as before. You can’t pay nearly 100 employees fairly while maintaining high standards at reasonable prices.

“We need to completely rethink the industry,” he says. “It’s just too hard and we have to work differently.” To come to an improvement, one now has to rethink the whole principle of good food.

An industry under fire

The fact that Noma is about to close comes as a surprise to many – but the news does not come out of the blue. For some time now, the restaurant has been criticized for its treatment of employees.

In 2015, chef Redzepi himself admitted that he had verbally and physically bullied employees. He promised at the time that he wanted to try to be a better boss, but the criticism never quite stopped. Namarata Hegde, who once worked as an intern – ie intern – at Noma, reported to the “New York Times” about a bad atmosphere in the workplace. Young chefs were asked to work in silence, laughing was forbidden. “It’s a mafia mentality,” she says. And Redzepi is “the Don”. A spokeswoman for Noma said the account was “not accurate.”

For a long time, the interns at Noma were not paid for their work. Apparently for many it was enough motivation to put the job at Noma on their CV, which apparently was good for their future career. It wasn’t until pressure on restaurant management mounted that Noma started paying its interns in October.

The allegations against Noma are not isolated in the industry. Reports from the media and employees also pointed to precarious situations in other restaurants.

Noma lives on

However, Noma will not completely disappear from the scene at the end of 2024. Instead, the restaurant in Copenhagen will be given a new destination. “Noma 3.0”, as it is officially called, follows. The noble restaurant of today will be transformed into a huge test kitchen in 2025, where food and flavors will be experimented with.

The Noma will also not be permanently closed to guests. Serving people will remain part of the business, they say – in what form is unclear. Another possible idea is to open Noma popups in other parts of the world.