Not so much. Ernst says the NYT story hit Danish front pages and then quickly receded, muscled out by the country’s general election. According to the Times’s own follow-up, the paper’s investigation was largely met with a shrug.
“Within Copenhagen’s food circles, this is not a revelation,” says Tove Henckel, editor-in-chief of Falstaff and co-founder of Gastronaut. “Redzepi’s behavior has been an open secret in the industry for years. What is new is the scale of the international reaction.”
Folks in Copenhagen’s industry circles are talking about it, though, and a few made their thoughts public, including Noma alum Christian Puglisi. Most chose to gossip privately. “Some are relieved that it has finally come into the spotlight,” Henckel says. “Others defend [Redzepi], pointing out that he has previously acknowledged these issues and made efforts to improve.”
For many locals, Noma stopped mattering a while ago, and not just because Redzepi announced in 2023 that the restaurant would close. Copenhagen is now rich with restaurants, bakeries, and bars that attract plenty of visitors. But Noma was instrumental to the rise of many of those businesses, and dismissing it as irrelevant ignores the broader implications for Copenhagen and the world.
“What we are seeing is not an isolated failure, but the predictable outcome of systems the industry has relied on for generations,” says Nick Curtin, co-owner and executive chef of Michelin-starred Restaurant Alouette. “Denmark is supposed to be a place of equality, where workers are protected, empowered, represented. What this moment has exposed is a structural blindspot.”
In the tight-knit Copenhagen dining scene, industry networks can silence and blacklist kitchen staff who speak out against bad behavior. Noma also relied on immigrant workers, who exist precariously in Denmark’s shadows. “Twenty years ago, new Nordic cuisine was built on the idea of interpreting local, seasonal ingredients through a regional lens,” Curtin says. “The original framework did not meaningfully address the labor and cultural issues now being discussed.”
That blind spot isn’t unique to Copenhagen. Redzepi’s story could have played out in a fine dining restaurant in any country. “Noma is not a Danish restaurant,” Ernst says. “Noma is an international restaurant that happens to have an address in Copenhagen.” The majority of guests were international tourists, the restaurant’s alumni have spread around the world, and the ideas of new Nordic cuisine are pervasive. The lessons of Noma can also be universal.
To effectuate change, a lot of difficult things will have to happen. Diners have to peer into opaque kitchen environments for evidence of misdeeds. Rising chefs have to overthrow a lineage of trauma and a culture of toxic ambition. Workers have to challenge the economic foundations of a global hospitality industry. Food media have to divorce from celebrity chefs.
None of that is easy — but neither were the goals of new Nordic cuisine. While Noma has a mixed legacy in terms of impact on food systems, the restaurant did set out to take big bites of big problems. It was immeasurably influential in that effort. It could be influential again in the change it inspires among other chefs, who strive to be better than Redzepi.
Noma might be able to go on as a brand without Redzepi at the helm. Given the level of respect and attention he’s demanded in the past, I expect the chef will get on just fine, too. But there’s little doubt that if the restaurant hadn’t already fallen from its privileged place atop Copenhagen, it has now.
Noma is like a sun at the center of a solar system. For most diners, it appeared like a far-off star, something to be admired or studied, but never personally experienced. As allegations against Redzepi arose, the star’s power dimmed. Now it’s imploded entirely — yet its light still reaches Earth, and its gravity still holds diners. This is Redzepi’s universe. But we’ve all got to go on living in it.
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