René Redzepi ran Noma like a cult. But is the real cult the restaurant industry itself?

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Corey Mintz is a Winnipeg-based writer and the author of The Next Supper: The End of Restaurants As We Knew Them, And What Comes After.

After The New York Times revealed earlier this month that “the world’s best chef” ran his kitchen like an abusive cult leader, the restaurant industry issued a collective mock gasp.

It was no secret that Danish chef René Redzepi was a monster. In 2017, I wrote about how his Copenhagen restaurant Noma, lauded as the world’s best, couldn’t exist without the free labour it depends on (about 25 paid cooks to 30 unpaid stagiaires at the time). In 2022, facing pressure to finally start paying all his staff, Mr. Redzepi declared the business unsustainable. Around the same time, in an interview with the London Times, he shed a few crocodile tears, avoiding any details that could be considered an admission, but insisting that he never hit anyone; a few years before, he wrote an essay in which he said he had “been a bully for a large part of my career.”

Celebrity chef René Redzepi resigns from Danish restaurant Noma after allegations of abuse

Now, multiple former employees have come forward to say that actually, he had been more than a bully. They alleged that Mr. Redzepi punched them in the stomach, slammed them against walls and jabbed them with barbecue forks.

Why did people put up with this? Was Mr. Redzepi a cult leader, beguiling acolytes into doing his will without question? Noma certainly checked off most of the boxes that define a cult: there was economic exploitation of followers by a charismatic, unaccountable leader, and brainwashing that compels followers to act against their own interests.

But while Noma and Mr. Redzepi represent the white-hot nucleus of the cult of chefdom, the restaurant culture orbiting that centre has always been a madhouse. In kitchens around the world that are far less prestigious than Noma, people – typically, young and impressionable people – are driven to work insane hours for unstable pay doing hard labour that can cause lasting injury. It’s enough to make you question if the restaurant industry at large is the real cult.

So to understand why Noma’s staff put up with the alleged abuse, we should consider why cooks put up with restaurant work at all.

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First, some good news. Having spent the first part of my career cooking in restaurants, and the next reporting on them (particularly on their shady labour practices), things have gotten better. In the last five years, the types of verbal, physical, sexual and psychological abuse that were once common have become unacceptable. The COVID-19 pandemic, followed by a mass exodus of staff from the industry, made it impossible for employers to compete for workers if they were still treating people like in the olden days.

Of course, these things still happen, and no level of tolerance should be acceptable. But they are no longer the norm. Most restaurant workers today understand that they are too in-demand to put up with being yelled at, much less being physically hit.

What hasn’t changed are the hours or the pay. Benefit packages have become more common, but in Canada’s largest cities, cooks still struggle to earn a living wage while routinely working 12- to 14-hour shifts, mostly at night. Most owners would like to increase wages, but understand that would mean higher menu prices, which comes with a loss of customers (who expect everything to be local, organic and ethical, but already think that everything is too expensive).

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These factors make it nearly impossible for restaurant workers to save money, maintain relationships with partners outside the industry, arrange child care, or even have a pet.

Of course, the industry is not a monolith. There are as many different types of restaurants as there are personalities drawn to it. Yes, some cooks are adrenalin junkies, in it for the thrill of a busy shift. But the people addicted to the challenge of keeping up an impossible pace while the printer keeps spitting out order chits are not the majority.

Having spent enough time in restaurant kitchens, listening to the conversations that bubble up during the afternoon prep period while staff fold agnolotti and devein shrimp, there’s a topic that often comes up: the division of life inside the restaurant world and outside it.

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In kitchens both good and bad, this “us against the world” mentality is fairly common: a perspective that the nine-to-five world is for squares, and that a fuller, more adventurous life is being experienced outside those margins. You’ll find similar talk in a bicycle co-op or a pirate ship. But this is an industry that employs about 6 per cent of Canada’s workforce and contributes around four per cent of our GDP. For such a pillar of our economy, it’s odd to hear the same outlaw self-mythologizing to which gangsters cling.

Depending on a person’s personality, the sense of belonging you can get in this subculture may scratch various itches. Maybe you want to feel like a pirate in society; maybe you have anti-elite politics; maybe you’re particularly susceptible to the feeling of found community that a cult expertly sells.

Or maybe it’s about status-seeking. Even if the job means applying garnishes with tweezers for the city’s wealthiest citizens, there is a status only found inside the machine. That’s reflected and reinforced when industry people dine out. Recognized by colleagues, they are treated to extra wine, free dishes, more attention and the best table (if it’s not in use). Extending this hospitality to fellow comrades is a show of respect, and a way to signal that restaurant workers are not servants, but members of an exclusive club that even the privileged cannot buy their way into.

In an industry known for alcohol-fuelled late nights, these restaurant workers blow off steam by hitting the road

Owners are often disciples of the faith as well. Why else would the 44 per cent of Canadian restaurants that are unprofitable or just breaking even continue to operate? And yet people continue to open restaurants, knowing full well the odds are stacked against them.

But then, people still get married, despite the roughly 40-per-cent odds that it will end in divorce, right? And that hints at the bigger reason that people keep being drawn into and stay in the crushing world of restaurants, and I don’t think it’s crazy – or if it is, I’m crazy too, because I feel it also.

At the risk of coming off as sappy or gullible, the reason is this: love.

Restaurant workers love feeding people. They love that their job feels real, that they produce something you can see and touch, smell and taste. They love the tactile relationship with their professional identities, getting their hands dirty transforming raw ingredients into something delicious and unexpected. They love the teamwork necessary to execute dinner service, as near to perfect as possible, night after night. They love the level of control necessary to know precisely how much fleur de sel to sprinkle over a raw scallop, how slowly to dim the lights as the sun begins to set, how to suggest the right wine pairing and how to crease their mouth just-so in that sliver of smile that says “you’re welcome,” but never “I told you so,” when hearing that a guest loved a meal. They love feeling like a part-hustler and part-artist, knowing the difference between service and servility. They love taking tired and hungry strangers, squinty-eyed and impatient at the host stand, and turning them into smiling, laughing, satisfied guests eager to return.

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Restaurant people love all of this. The parts of the job that don’t make any sense, many love those too – until they turn 30 and the components of adulthood that once seemed so far away, like marriage, parenthood, home ownership and back pain, are suddenly imminent.

But love can be used against people. Put this potent combination of passion for performance and rebel status in the hands of a charismatic, Rasputin-like talented chef who often grew up in the industry being bullied by their own mentors, and it’s the perfect scenario for the type of abuse we’re hearing about now. After all, if you’re already committed to put up with hardship in order to belong to this club, how much further would you go to be the best of the best?

There are restaurants that strive to provide better work-life balance. They offer health benefits, four-day work weeks, profit-sharing or other progressive ideas aimed at creating a better, more professional and sustainable work environment. But they are a minority, accounting for less than one per cent of the industry.

Most restaurants are not like Noma, either. But most are crazy. Still, the things that are worth doing – like marriage, or having children in a dire world – require a certain level of crazy.

It’s like the joke about the guy with the rash on his elbow. He goes to doctors, dermatologists, and nobody can help. Finally, he flies to Oslo to see an expert there, and the doctor asks the guy what he does for a living. “I work in the circus,” he tells the doctor. “I give enemas to elephants.” The doctor smiles and tells the patient, “If you quit your job, I guarantee this rash will clear up.” Dumbfounded, the man asks the doctor: “And give up show business?”