747: Julia Moskin Broke the Noma Story, and Possibly Broke Noma

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1:15They grew up in the Me Too era. They saw the social justice movements of 2017 through 2020, and they are asking a very good question, which is, why should I put up with this? Which is really a question that wasn't asked before. Some chefs said to me, you know, this profession is rooted in servitude and we haven't quite gotten rid of that yet. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard. Julia Moskin has been a food reporter at The New York Times since 2004, and her beat has taken her everywhere from the best Jamaican patties in New York to a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service earned for reporting on sexual harassment in the restaurant industry.

1:58This week, she joins me to talk about her latest investigation, a bombshell piece revealing years of alleged physical and psychological abuse inside Noma's Copenhagen kitchen. It's the story that set off protests at the restaurant's Los Angeles pop-up and led to founder Rene Redzepi stepping down, all in the same week. How do you get 35 former employees to go on the record? And what does this moment mean for the future of fine dining as a forum? Julia shares all.

2:30Julia Moskin, welcome to This is Taste. It's so great to have you on. Thank you for having me. Now, Julia, I mean, this is an important conversation we're having, and we're going to talk all about your reporting around NOMA and Rene Redzepi. We're going to cover your history of reporting on NOMA, what drove you to write your original story from March 7th and the follow-ups. This is all very serious stuff. I have to ask though, just to start, as we always do, where have you been dining out in New York recently? I am really loving, and maybe I'm late to it, but New York's pop-up culture. I think the last place I went was the Lunar New Year Cambodian pop-up at Red Hook Tavern.

3:15And actually tonight I'm going to the St. Patrick's Day Irish Chinese spice bag pop-up at Bonnie's. So cool. Like, I love that combination. And I think it's a reminder. I wanted to ask that question. You're a really unique reporter because you do these deep investigation. You won a Pulitzer and you spend a lot of time in documents talking to sources, but you're also writing about food culture. You're going to restaurants. I mean, how do you balance these two types of stories or as many types of stories, but the investigative story and then the other writing you do? Well, I don't know if I balance them, but I do certainly do produce both kinds.

3:58I never imagined winning a Pulitzer as a food writer. That's just not something I thought was possible. I started as a freelancer for magazines and did a lot of food history pieces when there was still a market for that. Then I was lucky enough to be hired at the Times Food section in 2004. Yeah. I mean, so the base of your writing was in this freelance world and doing some of the feature reporting that you're known for. But also, I'm sure with being at the Times, having the institution and just being the reporter you are, these investigations, did they come to you? The first one I did was actually in 2004 and was a great surprise and came through.

4:45I was working with a very experienced editor, even though I was a very inexperienced journalist. And that was when we thought, let's take a look at the James Beard Foundation. You know, what goes on over there? And I knew that a lot of chefs volunteered their time and their staffs and their ingredients and their wine people. And it just didn't seem clear how the James Beard Foundation was redistributing those funds. And that was actually really just took a few serious questions and the whole thing kind of fell apart. And that was really surprising to me. The whole board resigned and was reconstituted.

5:24So that was really the first experience that I had. And then I don't think I did another major investigation until 2017, when, of course, as our reporters were working on breaking the Harvey Weinstein story in a way that would have the maximum effect, everyone in the newsroom was thinking, well, who's the Harvey Weinstein on my beat? And there were several options in the food beat. And Kim Severson and I worked together on that. She taught me how to do this particular kind of work of interviewing victims of abuse and traumatize people who have been fired or assaulted or any number of other things that unfortunately happens to people in the restaurant industry.

6:11That was a case where the women who had worked at the Spotted Pig really banded together and supported each other and came to us. with a willingness to go on the record about the owner, Ken Friedman, and the chef, April Bloomfield, and the co-owner, Mario Batali. Let's step back and tell me, you know, how have you reported on Noma and Rene in the past, you know, the closing in 2023? I'm going to put air quotes around that. You know, how did you negotiate some of the statements Rene made, some of the writing he made previous to that? when reporting on him? So I think you're talking about my much more recent reporting on him, because of course, I, like virtually every other food writer in the world, had been following him and writing about him for quite some time.

7:05It's hard to overstate the global sensation that NOMA became, not immediately after it opened in 2003, but I would say starting about 2008. That's when the restaurant started climbing up this very new and exciting list called the World's 50 Best List. And if the World's 50 Best List didn't exist, Noma would not exist in its current state, or at least its recent state, as, you know, a global destination. It was started by an industry magazine in the UK called Restaurant Magazine. And it really addressed clearly or, you know, filled a need among people for a different kind of ranking than the Michelin Guide, right?

7:53So Michelin has always been very Eurocentric, specifically French-centric. It took a long time to recognize what was going on in Spain with El Bully and the Arzac and the Can Roca. So it was really a time when more Americans were cooking in restaurant kitchens in Europe. And the world's 50 best was another thing to strive for. Instead of having one Michelin star, two Michelin stars, three Michelin stars, now you could strive to get to some number on the world's 50 best. And of course, world's 50 best was only too happy to oblige and expand the list from 50 to 100 and create new lists like South America's 50 best or Asia's 50 best, 50 best bars.

8:42So that has turned into a huge franchise that drives a ton of what we call gastro tourism, where people all over the world, it's very simple, You just look at the list and you say, well, let's eat at five places on the list this year. And that is part of how Noma became a place in Copenhagen, which was hardly a culinary destination, and really put Rene on the map. Yeah, the real, the checking of list element of Noma really became a thing. And it really brought attention that to the restaurant that really, you can't compare really in the United States, you know, because of Copenhagen being this destination.

9:30And so with that, the expectations rise and service becomes more and more, I would say, a pressure cooker as you report. In the March 7th story, you know, you independently interviewed 35 former staff members and revealed a pattern of physical violence Rene perpetrated on his team. Between 2009 and 2017, they recounted physical strikes, being poked with kitchen tools, and being slammed against walls. They described enduring trauma from layers of psychological torment, including intimidation, body shaming, and public mockery. When did you start reporting this March 7th story? And I have to ask about just the social media posts and some of the sub stacks that preceded it.

10:19Was that a catalyst or was that almost like a postscript to something you've been working on and thinking about? In some ways, I've been working on this story since I would say about 2010. and 10. And when a lot of young American chefs started going to stage at Noma, we were very curious about it. That's not something that we really have here, a three-month unpaid internship. And it was becoming something that was just gold to have on your resume. It was like a golden ticket because Noma was becoming so celebrated. The tide had turned from this Spanish, highly technical molecular gastronomy to this style that, you know, René had pioneered in the new Nordic, which was more rustic, more ancient, more modern, playful, serious, earthy, foraging, fermentation.

11:13All of these things were getting into the mix. So as those stagiaires, as they're called in Europe, started returning to the United States and opening their own restaurants, I just called them up, chatted with them, as you do as a reporter, and just heard a lot of admiration and amazement for what, you know, they were doing at NOMA, but also what sounded like, you know, at the time, I don't think we had so much of a language for psychological abuse and trauma, but the extent to which they were working these crazy long hours, they weren't eating, they were subjected to a level of physical violence that, you know, wasn't that unusual at the time.

11:59We're talking about 2011, 2012. But, you know, of course, I took notes. I remembered it. And then as things only kind of became more tied to NOMA in terms of the chefs that were going to MADCAMP, for example, which was the which is the annual symposium it really just became I don't even know how to describe it Matt it was just like a tsunami of Noma became so much more than a restaurant very quickly it was more it was a movement towards sustainability there was kind of a proclamation of how restaurants were going to be good for the earth that was this moment where sustainability became an issue and a goal for restaurants, which certainly had never been the case because Rene had drawn this circle around Copenhagen and vowed that he was not going to use any ingredients outside it.

12:59So he was celebrating carrots and serving 200-year-old clams and just really digging in in a way that was new and exciting. And everyone wanted to be around him. And he could get anyone to go to Mad Symposium. And that became, you know, chefs who normally never left their restaurants, David Chang, Alex Atala, both of whom were on the Time Gods of Food cover with Rene. In the meantime, Rene and Noma were climbing up the world's 50 best list and absolutely determined to get to number one. And they did it four times in a row. And then once again, until they actually changed the rules of the world's 50 bests so that NOMA effectively couldn't keep winning.

13:52And they decided that once you had been named number one, you were not eligible for future awards. And that left the third Michelin star. NOMA had two Michelin stars. It didn't have a lot of the things that people considered necessary. It didn't have super fancy bathrooms. It didn't have tablecloths. It didn't have truffles and foie gras, but it really prided itself on sort of rejecting those things. It took a very long time until 2021 for Noma to get that third Michelin star. But everyone I spoke to said that that was an absolute obsession for Rene. Meanwhile, and as you find out in reporting, the kitchen culture and those expectations became beyond untenable.

14:38I mean, he abused his staff and you write about this. And I want to go back to something you said earlier, how 2011, you'd heard some things about these long hours that people not, that the stage is not eating. And you mentioned some physical violence, but you say this was common. It felt like this was part of this fine dining machine. How did you negotiate that as a reporter? And did that make those original accounts from the stages less impactful because it was part of the culture? Sure. I mean, I can't say that they told me about it with any kind of concern for themselves or any feeling, you know, of this has to stop.

15:21It really was so baked into the culture for so many reasons, you know, starting with the brigade system, going through Anthony Bourdain and the pirate ship and the swagger and the sweat. There was just this mystique that like in order to be a great chef, you had to suffer. And that was really unquestioned. It's really still unquestioned. You know, dozens of chefs who came to Rene's defense online cited that. They said, this is just how it has to be. And it really was just unquestioned for a very long time. You know, this is the tension between the industry and the two, you know, this is the fork in the road.

16:04And we'll get to some of the reporting about the response from the industry. But at some point, you decided, you know, enough is enough, or at least there was enough of a story to report on these accounts. Let me just ask you about speaking with the 35 former staff members when you started reporting this piece. You know, what are they telling you and how is the tone changing, perhaps, from when you had spoken with Stages in 2011? I would imagine there was a different framing of their experiences at NOMA. Oh, no question. It's a massive generational change in that younger cooks, Gen Z cooks from all over the world who have been churning through the Noma kitchen at a rate of about 100, if not more, per year.

16:56They would have at least 30 interns per season, and there were three seasons a year. They grew up in the Me Too era. They saw the social justice movements of 2017 through 2020, and they are asking a very good question. which is why should I put up with this? Which is really a question that wasn't asked before because some chefs said to me something that I had sort of forgotten after reporting on this world and celebrity chefs for so long. They said, you know, this profession is rooted in servitude and we haven't quite gotten rid of that yet. And that is true. You know, a lot of the people, even when I started 20, 25 years ago, A lot of the people who were in kitchens were people who had learned to cook in the military or in prisons.

17:49There just was not this sense that cooking was an art. There just was a sense that you had to get food out and at all costs. And, you know, what is baked into the industry is the fact that everyone wants to have dinner around the same time. And that pressure cooker, regardless of, you know, whatever other personality traits people have or what goals they are searching for, is what makes a restaurant kitchen such a high pressure place. And not just, you know, any dinner. This is Noma. And this is some of the most complicated and, you know, fussed over or and scrutinized, not just the process to get to the flavor profiles and the ingredients, but the actual plating and the artistry of it, which is in, you know, down to the seconds.

18:44so it's it's like the IndyCar pit crew happening for five six hours during service I want to ask about the way I think one fork in the road and those who perhaps are coming to defensive Rene are recognizing that if you put in your season as one of the the interns of 30 interns per season and you you put up with this this training this abuse you're able to leverage the Noma name back home wherever you come from, we're around the world. And, you know, there's, there's a lot of benefits to putting up with it. And that's just the way it goes. I think that's a central tension, especially for older folks who've read your reporting and perhaps are coming to his defense.

19:28One of the reasons people didn't come forward was simply because they were benefiting from the NOMA name. And whether they felt guilty about that or conflicted about it, I don't know. But But in many cases, it isn't that they were afraid of Rene, despite his frequent threats of getting people blacklisted, which were carried out because he had such great power in Copenhagen and Denmark and really then around the world. So it's really that's why it took so long, you know, to get all of those people on the record, because people have to be not only brave enough to do it, but they really have to be angry enough to do it.

20:10And they have to get over this feeling of guilt, which is that they used that NOMA name and to get where they are. And they do feel that they owe Renee something. Yeah. And at this point, I have to recognize the 35 former staff members, the bravery it took to come forward, those on the record and off, that took a lot. And it obviously has affected change. So I wanted to recognize that. But in your reporting, you know, are you seeing any patterns in Rene identifying, you know, potential victims? Did he have like a certain type of person? And also as the second part, you know, since that March 7th story came out, you know, you've written, you know, follow ups about the industry's response, some of the sponsorships leaving.

20:57But I wonder if there's any, you know, new information from more victims coming forward. Going back to the 2023 story in which the Times announced that Noma would be closing, that was also the first time I was able to get people to go on the record. It was a small number of people who went on the record. There is a wonderful, brave intern who was making fruit leather beetles at Noma and wondered why she was there. She had, you know, saved and scraped. She was from India. Her parents had paid for her to go. She thought it was the best restaurant in the world. She was told it was the best restaurant in the world.

21:37And she was so mystified by the kind of cooking that went on there and so disappointed that she was brave enough to go on the record. But what wasn't in that story was testimony that I had already gathered from probably 10 or 15 other chefs that I had contacted but who were not ready to go on the record. So I had their stories. I knew that they were willing to speak, but not yet. And they were really afraid. And they weren't able to sort of get over that. There was not the critical mass that you need to be able to write the full story. So in 2023, the story that I wrote included some of these accounts and a few people on the record.

22:27It ended up being a story about NOMA closing. So it was sort of a hybrid of an investigation and an announcement that I know some people saw as just PR for NOMA because we had this exclusive. but that story really was very important in terms of getting to where we are now. Where we are now is partly because I was able to collect those stories and had them ready to go for a long time and had more sources contacting me. However, there was a spark, of course, as soon as Noma announced this expensive, sort of fabulous LA pop-up. There was a lot of pushback, I think that Noma couldn't have anticipated.

23:10People didn't like that it was$1 ,500 a person. People didn't like that it was in Los Angeles where the chefs are already dealing with so many challenges. And that pushback inspired several former Noma chefs to go online, including one who has particularly articulated a lot of grievances. At that point, people started coming forward to me on Instagram. I started hearing from some of my old sources. And at that point, it was just a matter of, you know, telling more stories. There were stories that I had never heard before. The particularly vivid story that opens the article where Rene pulled a sous chef out of the restaurant outside, made everyone form a circle around them.

24:04and punched him because he had played techno music in the production kitchen, not near the dining room, but everyone apparently knew that Rene hated techno music. You could not play techno music. And indeed, when Rene found this guy doing this terrible thing of playing techno music, pulled him out, put him in this sort of shaming circle and hit him until he said, I like to suck DJ dick. That was what Renee was yelling at him that he had to say before anyone could go back inside. And this was in the middle of service. And I hadn't heard that level of, I had heard that level of cruelty, but not that level of losing self-control, losing a sense of where he was in the world to be doing that in a restaurant.

24:52That is so far beyond definitely what is normal. It is beyond what was normal in 2011, way beyond what is normal now in 2026, because there has been a lot of progress. Oh, yeah. I mean, you read in Eric Ripper's memoir about Robichon behavior in the kitchen in the 80s in France. And of course, it's a place of violence and knives throwing around, and some intimidation and some mental intimidation and mental games. But this is different. This feels different. It's interesting because one thing that's really interesting about the NOMA reporting is that there really isn't a sexual harassment element that people have come forward and talked about.

25:37Now, that could be simmering under the surface, but it really doesn't seem to have been particularly gendered. He mostly hit men, but he did also sometimes hit women. And it really was not an atmosphere that we've heard so much about of sexualizing, of touching. The Noma kitchen was famously quiet. And, you know, this is what we see in the menu. This is what we see in the flashbacks of the bear is just all these chefs bent over their workstations working in total silence as if that's a good thing. Several chefs said to me, you know, that's a sign of tyranny. That's not really a sign of calm and serenity.

26:24Another one of the extremely vivid images that came through and was confirmed by multiple people, as all of the accounts were before we printed them, was this actual habit that Rene had of punishing chefs during service and hurting them physically in a way that the dining room wouldn't be able to see. And he would crouch down under the counters and either with his fists or a couple of times with a roasting fork, like whatever utensil was had come to hand and he would beat them and their calves. And they had to just kind of keep tweezing those flower petals onto those seashells. They continued to work.

27:08and there is of course a point at which this starts to sound like cult behavior and that is also a word that many people use so julia i mean this reporting is extraordinary and and it really you you you did the work and you you took you you took these stories and and you know distilled them down into this this breakthrough piece i think some of the questions have been about timeline you know you reported the last instance you reported was in 2017 and and I wonder how you you square that with your reporting of course this doesn't mean it didn't happen and couldn't be reported I'm not saying that I'm just saying that a lot of people um and I'm going back to that fork and that in the fork of the the defenders are like this happened a long time ago and there's been meaningful change from Rene he stepped back from the restaurant too how do you square that?

28:05I square that with the Me Too movement, because I don't think it is a coincidence that the really big change at Noma came when he reopened in the new space in 2018. And I know from speaking to many people in the Copenhagen restaurant community that people in the management of NOMA pointed out to Renee that, you know, this was something that really had to stop and was putting NOMA at an unacceptable risk. And he did manage to, after that, it seems, at least change his behavior quite a bit. There's some agreement that after that, he didn't work service, for example. And he's talked about that because it was simply too intense because he really couldn't handle that pressure, which is a very interesting acknowledgement for a chef to make and is borne out by my reporting.

29:02But people say, yes, he wasn't there anymore. I will say, however, that almost everyone agrees that he continued to physically abuse some of his senior sous chefs, people who had been with him for a long time when he got very frustrated. These were often like large Scandinavian men. Rene is about 5 '8". I think these were people that he felt safe with. And it certainly is the case that some of those sous chefs took out that abuse on the chefs de partie, the interns, the people who were junior to them. Like if Rene walked through the kitchen and saw that someone wasn't arranging the elderflowers the way that he wanted them, he would go and scream at the sous chef.

29:48And then the sous chef would come and thump the intern a little bit. It definitely continued. It wasn't so much perpetrated by Rene, and it was much less. But still, as you're saying, you know, as recent as the move over to the new space, there was maybe not from Rene exactly, but there was still abuse in the kitchen happening and general terrible vibes. Yeah, absolutely. The working in silence was still in effect. There was really what you would call generational abuse. And the sous chefs felt clearly had been trained to execute in this certain way. And just because Renee wasn't in service and just because they took over, there doesn't seem to have been any significant change in the dismissiveness, the making fun of people, the verbal abuse.

30:50You know, that certainly continued. Really what made this story news in our news judgment, because of course we thought about it a lot, was this level of physical violence that has never been acknowledged. And Renee has made some very careful apologies in the past. And he has said that he was a bully. He said that he pushed, he said that he screamed. But he had never really acknowledged that he had hit anyone and used that particular word. I think he made the mistake in 2022 of going on the record with a big interview with the Times of London of saying on the record, I never hit anyone. Therefore, when we were able to find that that just simply wasn't true, then that becomes sort of, there's a need to correct the record.