I know a lot of friends (and ourselves) who aren’t rich or part of the top 1% but at the same time see food as an (sometimes expensive) hobby which also includes spending money on tasting menus. It’s not something you do very often but from time to time. I think it is a misconception, independently of this Noma pop up specifically, that tasting menus are only for the rich/1% in general.
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You seem to spend a lot more time defending people who will support a chef’s heinous behavior just for one dinner for a shit ton of money. I’ve eaten at higher end places & have enjoyed pricier tasting menus, but $1,500 is outrageous. And you finding that perfectly normal implies an income level that puts you in at least the top 10% 
More importantly, I’ve not read a single critical word from you about the actual issue at hand. So, it certainly sounds like you are a-ok with it bc “shit happens in kitchens, but the food.”
I’m also super-curious if our very own mod, @ipsedixit, has changed his mind about dining there.
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I have a lot of colleagues and friends (and ourselves) who putting money aside each month so that they can eat once or every two years at places such as Noma, Single Thread, Hayato etc. Just because something isn’t important for you, doesn’t mean it isn’t important for other people. You seem to be in general very judgmental towards people who don’t have the same interests or preferences as you, perhaps you should be much more open minded towards others and their interests.
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Karma is a funny thing. I think RR might be feeling a bit now. Getting dissed in LA , corporate sponsors pulling out, can’t be helpful. I imagine he picked LA for the celebrity, PR , wealth gap and climbers thinking no one would care. Yes there are real food people in LA but there’s also the see and be seen crowd (who I guess bought a lot) and they may not want to be seen with shitweasel. Maybe a few years ago this wouldn’t happen but current events, the fires, ICE sweeps, industry decline and lack of affordability is driving a different narrative. Probably not a lot of hard karma happening but I think the gig/scam is up.
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For anyone who hasn’t read The NY Times story here’s another lovely (psychotic) story about chef.
Understand that people who love food and not in on deep restaurant gossip probably splurged to buy a ticket to this popup. And they should go. I am interested to see if well known people will show up and wade through demonstrators with camera phones. Seems like RR could save this fiasco by emphasizing his hardworking staff and the work they have done and saying he will stay away, but who knows. Everyone respected and feared Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose (and Weinstein) etc until they didn’t.
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I actually care a lot about food and dining out, which is why I am an active participant in this forum.
Accepting shit behavior like this just bc “one likes the food” is unacceptable to me.
I find it immoral. That is my opinion, certainly, but it sure looks like there are plenty loud voices out there who agree with me. And they’re only going to get louder.
ETA I see you edited your post to remove the unnecessary ad hominem.
My post stands as it is.
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The $1500 is all inclusive, so really only 2x French Laundry or Alinea. I’m not rich but I’ve been to the French Laundry twice - years ago & at different price points but still big splurges considering what I was earning.
I agree that it’s not just the 1%. At the median Seattle household income of $120k, $1500 is only 3 day’s pay. Plenty of people in tech or finance or whatever can afford it.
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Cool. That median is roughly three times my salary. So that makes it only 3/4 of my monthly salary to have a meal like that. For one person. Not even with a dining guest. And you get the satisfaction of knowing you support an exploitive abuser and that part doesn’t cost extra.
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As a friendly reminder, please feel free to comment on the food, the prices, or whatever at Noma.
But please refrain from personal attacks on any one poster’s viewpoint about the food, the prices, or whatever at Noma.
Thank you.
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Redzepi’s behavior being unacceptable and abhorrent is not in question. He should have been held to task a long time ago.
But you are not wrong that it seems to have become acceptable on this forum, across many threads, to express reverse snobbery / judgement / bash the perceived rich (including forum members) who are able to or choose to spend their own (let’s assume hard-earned) money on expensive restaurant meals.
The same judgement would be completely unacceptable directed the other way.
You made the point early on this thread – before the NYT story and ensuing discussion – because many of the early comments here were about the price of the pop-up, not his history.
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What I’m curious about is why it took until 2026 for the NYT or other publications to “suddenly” expose this?
Redzepi’s behavior was captured in a 2008 documentary, complaints were public since at least 2011 and 2014 – even prior to the pop-ups in Sydney, Tokyo, and Mexico, Redzepi wrote public essays / apologies in 2015, then it popped up again 2021 onwards, with another apology in an interview in 2022.
When Batali was in the crosshairs in 2017, plenty of other chefs and restaurateurs with horrific behavior got exposed and canceled as well.
So who was protecting Redzepi this whole time?
NYT didn’t suddenly find out about this in 2026. Nor in 2023, when Noma closed and everyone was singing paeans to Redzepi.
Was it not publicity-grabbing enough for the NYT until there was a U.S. event to capture attention?
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From another food board (FTC) about an interview with the author of the NYC article
And from the comments, a question to the author of the article:
“After I read that you’ve been covering Noma for years, I was wondering why this story just came out. You somewhat address this in your comment but the argument seems weak to me.”
Author:
“That’s a fair question. At the Times, we don’t just assert what we know: we need the voices of victims to prove it. It’s hard to overstate how powerful Redzepi is in the high-end culinary world, and how much people feared getting on his bad side by going on the record. Also, many people had mixed feelings, because Redzepi also helped them get ahead in their careers. There’s not much upside for sources to go on the record; I had to wait until there was a critical mass of people who were both brave and angry.”
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Hmmm did post some comments about the actual food and kind of got dragged as a know nothing rube. But whatever. It’s the internet.
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That’s a CYA response.
Basically, he was too famous for them to publish.
Maybe they missed the movie about the Globe & the Catholic church expose.
I don’t think it’s unusual for this kind of expose to take time. A lot of the me too men had been abusing women for years and right now we’re dealing with the coverup of the Epstein files and events that happened many many years ago. As was stated on a site I read, lots of his victims were immigrants or on work visas and could not just punch him in the face and walk away. This chef was made into a superstar and got away with all this behavior until he didn’t. That’s the way it usually happens.
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Agreed, building a case needs evidences and witnesses. Most of the witnesses do not show their names. Jason Ignacio White (former head of r&d at noma fermentation lab) is stepping up and exposing noma’s history of physical and mental abuse through the stories of multiple former team members. He has worked there 15 years.
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The parallels to other high-profile cases are glaring. But hey — the food’s grrrrrrreat, so let’s move on.
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Of course it does.
But take a look at the timeline.
And it’s not a coincidence that it dropped the week of the LA pop-up.
Well Popup in LA and cost has gotten a lot of publicity and also there seems to be a more concentrated effort by ex employees to go public. Not sure how quibbling about timing is relevant to what this guy got away with for years. Just glad it’s coming out in the open and will hopefully help the industry as a whole. My issue with this guy was the physical abuse and the fact that he has 3 daughters somehow is stomach churning. Also I’m half swedish and I thought Scandinavian’s were supposed to be cool and collected not raving lunatics. Joking not joking.
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I’m not “quibbling about timing”.
In case it wasn’t clear, I was saying that the media is complicit in protecting his horrific behavior and elevating him to the the status he had.
What does that have to do with anything? Many male abusers do. It doesn’t stop them.
Batali being exposed in 2017 somehow did not act as a catalyst for exposing this, or Barbara Lynch, or many others.
Until the industry gives up the ideal of the French brigade system or admits its failings, and the bottom rung isn’t a collection of vulnerable groups, the system is the system. Not just in food.
