René Redzepi Returns: Are We Ready for Noma's Next Chapter?

This week, Adrienne and Joe are tackling the latest developments in the René Redzepi and Noma saga. In a newly recorded update, they unpack Redzepi’s controversial return to Noma in a creative director role, the separation of creative vision from daily kitchen operations, and what accountability and "atonement" truly look like in the hospitality industry. Following this introduction, we're revisiting our episode from March, where we first discussed the abuse allegations, the immense pressure of wearing multiple hats as a chef and owner, and where the line is drawn between tough leadership and abusive behavior. In this episode: An update on Noma Copenhagen and René Redzepi’s return as creative director Revisiting the earlier scandal and abuse allegations tied to the restaurant The separation of creative leadership from daily kitchen operations How leadership must evolve as a restaurant or business grows What “atonement” and genuine accountability can look like in hospitality Follow the show: @chefscutpod Follow Adrienne: @chefadriennecheatham Follow Joe: @insta.flamm

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Today on The Chef's Cut, we are talking about the latest update on the Noma Copenhagen story with the return of Rene Redzepi that was just announced. Plus, we are gonna run back our episode from March when the story first broke, so you can remember what made these headlines so dramatic in the first place. But first, Chef's Cut Nation, you know what time it is. We need 10 seconds of your day. Please take a moment to rate and review the show wherever you get your pods. It really helps.

• 0:48Joe Flamm?

  So, big news out of Copenhagen this week is Noma is back and so is Mr. Redzepi.

• 0:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, he's back. So if you remember, not that long ago, Noma, the number one restaurant in the world for several years, was doing this massive LA pop-up. Tickets were 1,500 a person and it created an uproar about past abuse allegations with the staff, physical, mental abuse. So we did an episode about all of that. And the thing that happened, and we're gonna play this episode, so if you don't remember everything, don't worry, we've got the episode coming up next. But we have to talk about this again, because after doing that tearful-

• 1:30Joe Flamm?

  The whole ceremonious going to pre chef, telling everybody, "I'm out, you guys are running, I'm stepping away."

• 1:38Speaker 02

  I'm sorry everyone is in this situation. I really, really am. I don't think this represents our team.

• 1:46Joe Flamm?

  He's back.

• 1:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 1:48Joe Flamm?

  There is obviously a million wrinkles to this, right? So they say he's coming back. He's not coming back as like chef, right?

• 1:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. He's coming back as the creative director. And there's a chef who's worked for him for several years, who is gonna be running the kitchen as the exec chef. So Rene Redzepi will not be operational.

• 2:08Joe Flamm?

  Right. So, I mean- There's so many layers to this. Like one, it's like, okay, people deserve second chances, obviously, right? So it's like, always like, what's the line of like, what's the line too far? And, you know, and then it's like him coming back and saying like, I'm a creative director now, not a chef. It's like, so you're only influencing some people and some ideas, but not all people in all things?

• 2:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 2:31Joe Flamm?

  And like, that makes it better. And it's also like, is that not what his role really was before?

• 2:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Exactly. Like, was he, I mean, I'm sure he was checking everything before service started and all that too. But how much of that is going to change on the operational side? And, and I agree with you. Everybody deserves a second chance. And I feel like he has taken the steps to show that he truly heard what people were saying. He truly regretted the behavior that he used to have. He was going to therapy. He tried to, you know, distance himself from operations and the stress of the kitchen to begin with. So I feel like that is atonement to me. He was atoning for his past behavior. Like, is he gonna just completely divest from the restaurant that he built and created? And impacted the world with? I don't think that's right either.

• 3:20Adrienne Cheatham?

  So I was just really surprised.

• 3:23Joe Flamm?

  I don't think it's realistic. You know what I mean? Like, I just don't think he would do that. You know what I mean? You don't build that restaurant because you're the kind of person who can just like let other people do it, right? You, you build it because you're obsessive. Anyone who's at the height of whatever field they're at, they're obsessive, they're compulsive, they are, they are one track mind, right? The one track was creating the greatest restaurant in the world. And he went and did it. Seemingly at, you know, extremely high costs to himself, to others. But it was, you know, it was very goal oriented. So I think like going into this role, it makes it interesting. And I think, you know, it's kind of, kind of guardrails, right?

• 3:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 3:58Joe Flamm?

  Of like trying to like put himself in better situations. And, you know, I think that's, you know, smart. It's, you know, that's people, places, things, as they say, is how you keep yourself out of trouble.

• 4:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  And he's got a CEO coming in, well, somebody who worked with him before. So he's gonna have a CEO to oversee the business side of it. He's got the exec chef who's gonna lead the daily kitchen operations. And he's just gonna be focused on the growth, the mad side of things, mad symposium, the development, creative direction of all of the Noma projects that they have going on. Because it's not just a restaurant, it's a whole entity. So he's gonna be the creative director of all those entities. So you're right, he's putting those guardrails because chefs are always asked to do so much. And I think that's what leads to a lot of the stress. You, Joe, as like an exec chef, when you just had Rosemary, I'm sure you were HR, CEO,

• 4:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  manage, you know, it's like you're, you're wearing so many hats. And that leads a lot of chefs to have this incredible amount of stress on their shoulders every day. And some people, you know, it's, it's unmanageable for long term.

• 5:06Joe Flamm?

  You know, when you go from being a sous chef to a chef de cuisine, or going from being a floor manager to a GM, managing managers is what separates the elite from the good.

• 5:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, and the best example I can think of, so when I started at La Bernardine, that's when Eric Repair was just transitioning from still running service every day. He was still expoing lunch and or dinner service every day. He was in the kitchen nonstop. And he was kind of coming to the, the tail end of that time because he had, you know, taken up Buddhism. He was an angry French chef when he started off, and he'll admit that readily. He wasn't always enlightened and he wasn't always able to see the bigger picture. He was a very obsessive young chef when he took over La Bernardine. And he said, you know, he talked to me about it when I was a sous and said, yeah, I wasn't always the nicest person. I always didn't understand to put people first.

• 6:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  I put the food first or what I thought I was putting first. And so when he started to say, I want to be a better leader, I need to separate myself a little bit from service. So I come in and do line check before service starts, before lunch, before dinner. He's eating. And checking everything. You have to fire one of every dish for him to try. And him and the two chefs below him who had been there for twenty eight, thirty years with him. Were also tasting everything, but they were the operators. One of them was creative direction and managing the cooks. The other one was managing the sous chefs and the people coming up the ranks.

• 6:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  And they had two very distinct roles and then Eric Repair kind of oversaw everything, but it allowed him to keep it all in perspective and become the leader that he became. Because he didn't have to be operational. And so I think that's what Rene Redzepi is trying to do here. Where if he's not operational, he can be the leader that we all have looked up to him as in this industry.

• 7:08Joe Flamm?

  Right. And I think like, listen, like, you know, I, I, I won't make excuses for anyone's, you know, poor behavior, not trying to, to, to give him an out, but I think it's as anyone as like, you know, as a chef, as any person, would you grow in your business as your business grows? Like you have to completely reevaluate your role. You have to really think about like how you prioritize your time, your intentionality of your time, how you impact the day, the business, the mood. You know what I mean? Are all really big things. So I think the, these are all things that naturally in business, in life, like they come to a head. Like in, you know, in one way or another, good or bad, right? For me, it was like when I went from being the chef at cuisine of Spiaja and running that.

• 7:52Joe Flamm?

  When then having, you know, being the chef owner of my own business, it was like, I was trying to do it the same way. And it's like, I can't. So, you know, it's like this, I think is really, you know, it's a, it's a huge moment, right? Where everything was forced. So I think it's a huge moment for, for him as an individual where it's like, okay, this is, if this is two point O, three point O, eleven point O, whatever.

• 8:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 8:13Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? Whatever version of AOL fucking Copenhagen this is, you know, like. How does, you know, is there big lasting change? Cause I think that's the only real thing at the end of the day, right? How much atonement is enough atonement? I don't know. What, how does the punishment fit the crime? I don't know. You know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, it's gonna be diners are gonna be number one. Even like the critics doesn't matter. If he gets dropped off lists, but his restaurant's still full, it doesn't matter. He loses all the stars, but his restaurants are still full. It doesn't matter. You know, it's like Kevin Bame told me once, it's like the, the only truth is the diner. You know what I mean? He's like,

• 8:51Joe Flamm?

  you're not as good as your best review. You're not as bad as your worst. The only truth is the people coming through the door. And that's it. You know what I mean? And like, he just finished LA and LA went the distance.

• 9:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, it didn't end early. They did not end.

• 9:04Joe Flamm?

  Everyone, oh, it's gonna be shut down early. It's not gonna do this, it's not gonna do that. It went to the end, so they're doing this. So it's like, if they book, they book.

• 9:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  You know, we remember that video, the first night of service in LA. He's stepping away, not sure what the future of Noma in Copenhagen is gonna be. But he's stepping away from everything. And now Noma Copenhagen's back, he's back. But they have instituted organizational changes. And, you know, we won't get into the abuse allegations because again, we're gonna run that episode now. So you can hear everything that went on that brought this into the news in the first place. But the question that like Joe and I are kind of grappling with, what is the difference between a tough chef or a tough boss and an abusive one? When does that cross the line? What does atonement look like?

• 9:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  Is it just divesting and taking away that person's involvement or power? Or is it just making sure that they understand that it was wrong? And steps are being taken to make sure it doesn't happen again. And I think that's what I see happening here. So we'll keep following this and see where it goes. But, you know, that's our, that's our Noma update for now. Cause this, it keeps coming back in the news cycle.

• 10:17Joe Flamm?

  My biggest help with this is that, you know, I, this is a chef. This is a restaurant that created a playbook for so many people on how to be the best, right? My biggest hope is this is a chapter where he takes that same intensity, that same intentionality, all of that and helps build a playbook of like how to lead with empathy with compassion and like show like, hey, you can still be the best, but do it from a, you know, I mean, healthier, happier place. Like that's what I hope. You know what I mean? It's like that this is, we see a blueprint for excellence on a high level where it's like he's on his, you know, Phil Jackson Zen shit. And that's, you know, that's, that's what I'm hoping for. You know, I mean, that's what I'm

• 11:00Joe Flamm?

  rooting for. That's what I want to see. Show me, show me that blueprint.

• 11:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  Hopefully this just really sparks a conversation in our industry about should we be separating the creative genius from the operational structure of restaurants because it puts unnecessary stress, it takes away sometimes from the growth and development. And yes, you can do a lot of it, but should chefs be doing it all? So that's another conversation I hope, you know, really comes out of this.

• 11:26Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, it's, it's always good reminders. Like you need, you can't do it alone, you know?

• 11:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. Well, let's, let's get into that episode for anybody who didn't know the backstory on Noma. Check it out and let us know in the comments what you think about this next iteration of Renee Redzepi coming back, Noma coming back and the new structure that they're instituting.

• 11:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  There's no way that we can not talk about this, this topic that's all over the news right now. And that is Noma, the number one restaurant in the world is being canceled. And that's not even the biggest part of the story. The biggest part is that Renee Redzepi, the executive chef of Noma has stepped away from the restaurant. And in this episode, we're going to talk about What happened? What led up to this point? And more importantly, what this means for chefs, for diners and for our industry at large?

• 12:28Joe Flamm?

  You know, I think him stepping away is one of the loudest things that's happened in our industry at a really, really long time. And, you know, like, all this comes out, the New York Times article that hit a couple of days ago, alleging all these allegations against, you know, Renee himself and the culture there at Nobah and, you know, the abuses and all that, on the heels of this massive pop-up that you and I had been talking about. You know, this $1,500 per person, move everyone to LA, massively corporately backed juggernaut of a pop-up. And then all this comes flying out and you see, you know, you saw the money walk away first, right? You know, Amex backs out, was the other one, Blackbird?

• 13:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, the platform, the reservation platform.

• 13:11Joe Flamm?

  The reservation platform backs out.

• 13:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 13:14Joe Flamm?

  And now, but it's like you still have this thing there. And now, you know, Redzepi shows up to pre-shift and says he's leaving. And he's stepping away from Mad, too. You know, this is the founder of Nobah. This is a guy, you know, 23 years ago, who started maybe the most prolific restaurant of mining your cooking era. Right? You could say, people are talking about this on a household level, who maybe necessarily didn't even know who he was.

• 13:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 13:42Joe Flamm?

  But like, this has made him a household name in, you know what I mean? In, in the worst, in, in a negative way as opposed to, you know, a positive way.

• 13:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, and this all kind of started because they brought 130 staff members from Copenhagen to LA for this pop-up and charging $1,500 a person. And so first, the conversation was about how expensive it is, right? Like, that was the first thing that people kind of honed in on. And then people started looking at the labor practices and said, well, they're charging so much, but there's so many years of staff that were unpaid. And then it kept going and it snowballed and it snowballed. And then people started digging into allegations of abuse that happened in the kitchen in the early years.

• 14:30Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, and I think it's one of those things where it's like, you know, they talk about at restaurants where it's like the bigger a place gets, the more issues you're gonna have, right? The more people that are gonna come for you. And I think it's, you know, 23 years is a long fucking time. And fine dining 23 years ago is very different than fine dining today. Or in restaurants 23 years ago, or anything 23 years ago, right? But, you know, I think it's like when we started to see this snowball, you know, you wondered, right? Because you were like, yeah, we talked about the price, and we're like $1,500 is crazy. But then that shit sold out in three minutes. So you're like, alright, the price doesn't matter. And you talk about the unpaid labor model, and you're like, okay, yeah, but they've been doing that forever, and it hasn't mattered. You know what I mean? It hasn't mattered to the diner, whether or not people are getting paid. It

• 15:14Joe Flamm?

  hasn't mattered to Michelin. It hasn't mattered to World's 50 Best. It hasn't mattered to anything for 23 years. And I feel like the stuff in the New York Times article, like, you know, alleging, you know, physical abuse, and the verbal abuse, I think, was on the table forever with this place and other places. And I don't know, I wasn't there, I've never worked there, you know what I mean? I've never met Renee. But it's, it's crazy that like, that was finally the tipping point, where you saw action, where you saw sponsors actually pull out. And the sponsors pulling out, like, that's, you know what I mean? Anything, right? Nothing happens till the money's effective. You know what I mean? And then once the money gets pinched, things get shaken up. You know, you can fuck with a lot of things, but you can't fuck with the bag.

• 15:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  I think it's also because the allegations in the New York Times article did go beyond what people, people already expect the stereotype, like, right? People watch the bear. People know about Noma from the bear, because the main character had Staj there and had flashbacks in an episode. There are certain things that people assume and take for granted and are okay with when it comes to fine dining and verbal abuse. Or, you know, we used to call them like, the Jedi mind tricks. It's like, they gotta break you down to build you up. So there is a certain level of what was acceptable, and then what came out in the New York Times article that some people have experienced there went well beyond what

• 16:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  I think people thought, you know, when you think of a fine dining kitchen, this restaurant was named number one in the world five times. So you expect that there's a high level of pressure, super high expectation. There's a ton of like a militaristic ethos of the way people are like, you know, disciplined there. But physical abuse definitely takes it to another territory. And that's why I think Amex and Blackbird pulled out. Because once you go beyond what is acceptable abuse, which shouldn't be acceptable in our industry. But it is the standard of how things have been done. And it's what I've experienced also.

• 17:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  But when you go beyond that into physical abuse and some of the things that I read, even I was surprised by.

• 17:29Joe Flamm?

  Did you expect, let me ask you this, did you expect him to walk away?

• 17:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  No, I didn't. Because on one hand, this behavior was a very long time ago. And, you know, in his statement, he said that he's done therapy. He's stepped away from service, that he has tried to make amends and change his behavior over the years. So I didn't think, number one, I was going to be reading about the types of, you know, things that I was reading about that, that people had experienced there. But I also didn't expect him to be stepping away. I mean, it's literally the start of the 16 week pop up in LA. And for the exec chef to step away before the first service or right on the first night.

• 18:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  And the sous chefs, the CDC, the team that they brought from Copenhagen is going to be running it. I did not see that coming at all. But he, he said that, you know, he felt that he's too much of a distraction right now, but I definitely did not see that coming.

• 18:34Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I mean, I didn't see it coming either. I mean, I felt like this, this situation, and I mean, we'll still see what comes out of this. You know what I mean? It feels like every few hours, things are unfolding, things are changing. There's perspectives coming from all sides of the aisle on it, right? People of like, yeah, this should be this. People on the other side who are like, you know, they spent time there, they had a great experience or whatever it may be. But the, the fact of the matter is like that this is, you know, where it's at now. This is, you know, the way, you know, he's being held accountable for these allegations. And, you know, with him stepping away, I think it brings to the question of like, like, what does that mean for that restaurant of that pop-up? You know what I mean? Like, one, like, you know, I don't even know if it's a question of like, is that enough? Like, there's, I mean, I don't

• 19:18Joe Flamm?

  know what else he could do at that moment, right? But like, for those people still there, they're there. It's starting. They have people coming to the door. Does that change the guest perspective? You know what I mean? Are they still gonna come? Is this thing gonna make it 16 weeks?

• 19:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 19:34Joe Flamm?

  Is it gonna run its full course? Or is it gonna taper out? Is it gonna fall off? Like, what's gonna happen here?

• 19:45Joe Flamm?

  There's so many layers to this that are crazy. But like, that it's not just like, oh, this is a restaurant group, and now this guy's walking away from this restaurant group, and there's still all the people there running it. But it's like, these are people who run a restaurant in a different fucking country.

• 20:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 20:00Joe Flamm?

  Who are now in another country for 16 weeks. Also, like, a lot of promises been made for this pop-up. But I mean, I gotta imagine, like, a lot of funding for those promises were coming from those sponsors.

• 20:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, Amex had tons of seats that they booked for their certain reservation people to get priority. All those reservations have been released. And so people were getting alerts who had been on the waitlist, like, reservations are open, reservations are open. Are people booking them at the same rate? Because when it went live, the whole 16 weeks sold out in three minutes, like you said. Now, what is that? I've, I've heard other diners who had booked, some people are canceling reservations. The LA Times critic said that she's not gonna go.

• 20:47Joe Flamm?

  Well, are those tickets refundable?

• 20:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Hmm. Good question. Amex refunded their guests who had booked, from what I read in their statement, I think it was like on Eater, Amex said that they're refunding their people, but I don't know, because you typically have to prepay for that.

• 21:06Joe Flamm?

  Mm hmm. That's like the curiosity of it. That's what I'm saying. Like the ripples of this, where it's like a pop up like that, where it's prepaid, it's like 16 weeks. Like, so does it go to 16 weeks? You know what I mean? Like, is Noma still Noma without Renee? You know what I mean? Is the entity now bigger than him? And is it enough to remove one person in that it's not, you know what I mean, like a cultural thing? And I don't know. You know what I mean? I don't, I've never spent any time around that camp. You know what I mean? I've never even, I've never even, you know, I've spent time in one three Michelin star restaurant in my life, and it was in a tidy touted Italy, and it was, you know, it'd be the family run restaurant. It was not that. So it's to be like, I can't

• 21:48Joe Flamm?

  even like, you know, like fathom what today looks like, whether going to the prep, but it's like, I mean, I imagine, you know, I mean, if you're the chef run of that kitchen now, you just gotta be like, we're full steam ahead, right? We gotta go about our business. We gotta get ready. We gotta set up. But I think it's a weirdly defining moment of like, what does this mean? Because like, at the end of the day, with everything, right? The only truth is the diner. Critics can say what they want. Awards can say what they want. It doesn't matter. People go, people go.

• 22:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  Guests in diners, it's like if you don't support factory farming of animals, and you vote with your dollar, you buy from local farms, you buy meat from, you know, a place that does it the right way. Or it's like, as a, as a guest, as a diner, you vote with your dollar. So are people still gonna go? Are they gonna take a harder look at the types of restaurants they're going to? Are they gonna take a harder look at the chefs that they're supporting with their dollars that they're going to pay for these dinners if there is abuse allegations? And we saw a lot of that during Me Too, where reservations started to drop at restaurants, where it was coming out that chefs had been abusive and, you know, sexual.

• 23:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Assaults had happened and whether it was the owner or the chef, those restaurants did start to lose business until the person was disassociated with the restaurant. And then people started returning, but it did take a while. And what does atonement look like for something like this? If the abuse happened years ago, is it still ongoing? Is that still the culture of the restaurant? From what I've, what I've heard, it wasn't the same in recent years as what the people who had experienced this abuse was from years before. So how do you atone for that? How do you make amends for that? And what does that look like?

• 23:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  What does that look like for the people who still work there? Do they want to continue working there? If Renee Redzepi is not involved in it, because part of the reason you go to a restaurant like that is to learn from the chef. So if he's not associated with it, do you still want to be there?

• 24:00Joe Flamm?

  Right, and I think like, I think for some people, they can't fathom why people, you know, went to these restaurants to begin with, right? I'm like, why would you, if you know it's like that? And it's like, I think it's one of those things, though, for us as like cooks and chefs like coming up, it's like you go work at the best places because it instantly gives you a level of like credibility, right? It instantly gives you a level of seriousness to your craft. And I think it's, you know what I mean? Like, not a good, but it is, you know, people wore it as a badge of honor of like, I worked at the hardest place in the world, right? And it was the toughest kitchen and, you know, mentally, physically and all these things, right? And they take that as like a badge of honor and not like as a dissuader of like, I want to show like that a place like that wouldn't break me or whatever.

• 24:45Joe Flamm?

  And I think like, so it's like, there's still, you know, as much as it's been unpaid and much of the things, it's like there were still thousands of people lining up to work there, right? And I think like, that's hard for a lot of people to wrap their heads around. But it's like, I think when you're a restaurant at that level, that's was how those things still worked. And it doesn't make it right, it doesn't make it okay, it shouldn't be the way. But like as much as happened right now, I don't think we'll know what this is for like a while. You know what I mean? It really will be like how this pop up plays out for the next 16 weeks. Does it make it all the way through? I think is like number one, right? Like, do people go like, is this going to go the whole gauntlet of like 16 weeks is?

• 25:28Joe Flamm?

  That's also like an unprecedented pop up like, and I know they've done it other places. They did it in Japan. They did it in Mexico. It's not like, you know, oh, we came to Chicago for two nights. This is a fucking residency in Vegas. This is a massive undertaking. So it brings up so much more questions than answers. And I think what comes out of this, what the response will be to it is like so much more. Cause I think like the industry, like, like we have already responded. You know what I mean? I think in the past years of like how people are running their kitchens. I think, you know, in the most part are very, very different from the kitchens we came up in. But like, how does the diner respond to not being able to look away in this scenario from how the sausage is made?

• 26:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  People are running kitchens differently, but people who work in these restaurants are also not accepting the same behavior that we accepted a few years ago. You know, in our, in our generation coming up in restaurants, I've definitely had things thrown at me. I've definitely been yelled at where it goes beyond the mistake that I made. If I cut something wrong or overcooked or undercooked something, the screaming that you would get went beyond. You overcooked this piece of fish or you undercooked this piece of fish or you messed up that ship and nod. It definitely went into a, you suck as a human being. You don't belong here. That's why people who come from where you come from don't work in places like this.

• 26:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  So I, I understand that that behavior was never okay. But like you said, I mean, I personally wore it as a badge of honor. I was 14 hours without a bathroom break. One time was my record because my chef would yell at me every time I tried to leave my station, even if it was between seating sometimes. And I was proud of having built up that toughness and being seen as one of the guys. I was proud that I didn't let them break me because the sous chefs had taken bets on how long I would last in the kitchen in the first place. And the fact that I outlasted them, I was like, nah, take that because I wanted to show them.

• 27:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  That I was tougher. And so I personally put up with a lot of bullshit that I probably should not have put up with. But I also never went to HR and never necessarily stood up for myself. And the one time I did stand up to myself for the chef who, like I said, threw this tall metal container straight at my head. And if I hadn't ducked out of the way, it would have smashed me in the face. And it chipped a tile when it hit the wall behind me. I didn't go to HR. When he got that angry that that happened, it's because for the first time, I had actually started to say, chef, actually, that's not what happened. You know, I had actually

• 28:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  started not talking back. It was still, yes, chef, let me tell you what actually happened. That's when it went off the rails. So it just, it put me back in that shut up, yes, chef mentality, because I didn't want to get to the point where physical abuse would come in, because that was physical abuse. But I never had anybody lay hands on me. I never had anybody punch me in the stomach. I never had anybody, you know, poke me with a pasta fork or something like that. So I don't know how, how I would have even reacted in that situation. I don't know that people nowadays will even put up with being yelled at to a certain degree like we did.

• 29:07Joe Flamm?

  I've told stories to like, you know, cooks who I've worked with over the years about like coming up and being a sous chef for people and just like the way chefs talk to me and the way they would say things to me and, you know, they're like, oh, my God, they're like, how long did you work there? Like a couple of months? And I was like, I spent two years there. And they're like, what were you, they were like, what were you doing? Like, what were you thinking?

• 29:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 29:26Joe Flamm?

  And, you know, like, the best I could come up with at the time was like, I think I was just at the point where I was like, well, I'm not going to let this person get the better of me. I'm going to go out on my own terms. I'm not going to quit because I feel like they are going to, you know, bully me. And that's what they were trying to do. It's just like, you know, it was a bully mentality and culture, I think, of like those old kitchens where it's like, oh, they just like bullied the shit out of people until they thought it would make them better or it would break them. And, you know, I think it was very much a mentality of like, well, this is the way, you know, people were even harder on me, so I'm going to be hard on you. And the reason I'm good is because people were hard on me. And I've always hated that mentality of like, you know, it sucked for me, so it should suck for you. I think, you know, our generation

• 30:11Joe Flamm?

  has had the greatest opportunity to say, it doesn't have to be like this. It could be whatever we want it to be. You know what I mean? Now that we're in charge, you know what I mean? A kitchen can be run, you know, intensity and aggressiveness does not have to be a tone. It does not have to be a way of speaking together. There's other ways to bring that to a kitchen that are positive and not negative. And you know what I mean? Not derogatory. My kitchens are super intense and aggressive, but like, it's not because people are yelling at each other. It's because we're like pushing the pace. It's because we're being maniacs and having fun and like barking at each other. And I don't mean like barking orders at each other. I mean, like literally just barking at each other, like dogs. I, you know, I think in my mind, I hope that this change at all already been

• 30:56Joe Flamm?

  happening. And you know what I mean? I think when you, you read the things about what was going on there, it seems like some of those changes had been happening. And you wonder, you know, I think the response to this by the diners is going to show, is it too little, too late? Is this a big enough move? What else will it be? What will come from this? Will the pop up survive? Will Noma survive? That's the bigger question here. You know what I mean? Something that was so prolific, something that was a restaurant that created a genre, like Nordic cuisine?

• 31:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 31:27Joe Flamm?

  Like that you thought Nordic was cuisine.

• 31:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, Noma came around.

• 31:30Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. And then it was, you know, the Favikins and the Relays and the, all these things. And, you know, Copenhagen being the dining city and the mad symposiums and all of these things, right?

• 31:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  Rementation labs, foraging, like all these things that Noma put in place that they created. I mean, Anthony Bourdain in 2013 said Rene Redzepi was the most important and influential chef of the time.

• 31:55Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 31:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  And that's, you can't understate.

• 31:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  The importance that somebody has and the impact that they've had on the industry. And that's why I think everybody's watching how this is unfolding and what's going to happen. Because we're all thinking through this in real time. This is causing a lot of us to look back at stuff that we went through, people that we worked for, past behaviors, and it's also probably going to cause some people to examine the way they behaved and say, oh shit, is somebody going to come for me next? It's like, you never know what that could lead to. So this is kind of like a watershed moment for our industry because we've discussed the abuse before, we've discussed the way kitchens were run before, but this is on

• 32:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  a whole new level that is really making people stop and take stock of so much more than just, eh, you know, we'll talk about it next week, you know, just be a little better tomorrow. This is really making people take a harder look at, at ourselves and our industry and what we kind of swept under the rug for so long.

• 33:04Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, so I think it's, you know, like you said, it's a watershed moment. Like what happens now? Do they go the 16 weeks? Does Noma make it? I think it's something that we won't truly know for a while, right? As this continues to unfold, uh, but you know, I think it's one of those things you hope it just, it does recalibrate us in a good way. You know what I mean? Of like reminding people of like, like one, like this shit can't be that fucking serious.

• 33:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, at the end of the day.

• 33:33Joe Flamm?

  It can't be, it can't be. Like, everybody needs to fucking calm the fuck down. It can't be that serious. You know what I mean? Where we're screaming at each other and people are hitting people and like, you know what I mean? Like it can't. We could still push really hard. We could still strive for excellence on the highest level. We could still push the boundaries of creativity of, you know, food, of sourcing, of how we do things. But like, it doesn't have to be that way. What the fallout is from this, what the reaction is from this, I think it'll be, it'll be a while till we know, but um, Noma, as we know, it has changed forever. We'll see what this means for the legacy of that restaurant and for, you know, Renee himself.

• 34:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, and one thing that we've always promised to our listeners, to our audience, is that we will not shy away from the tough topics. We are going to talk about this, we're going to talk about other things as they come up, because things are still developing in real time and we're working through this together in real time and we will continue to have these conversations, just like we always have and just like we always will.

• 34:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's it for this episode of The Chef's Cut. Be sure to subscribe wherever you're listening, especially if you're watching us on YouTube, where you can find full-length videos of every episode. And don't forget to rate and review wherever you're getting your podcasts. For Joe Flamm, I'm Adrian Cheatham, and this has been The Chef's Cut. Life beyond the past.