René Redzepi

• 1. Introduction

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  René Redzepi is a Danish chef, born in 1977, who co-founded Noma, a Copenhagen restaurant that was ranked the Best Restaurant in the World five times. His name became closely tied to a style of cooking called New Nordic cuisine. It has also been tied to celebration and to sharp criticism. This documentary asks three questions. Where did his ideas about food come from, and how did a teenager who left high school at 15 end up running one of the most talked-about kitchens anywhere? What was life like for the people who worked behind the dining room doors? And why did a restaurant at the top of its field decide to stop operating the way restaurants normally do?

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• 2. Two Homes

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  Redzepi was born in Copenhagen to a Danish mother and an Albanian father from the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, then part of Yugoslavia. That territory is now the independent nation of North Macedonia. When he was young, the family moved to Yugoslavia and settled near the small city of Tetovo. They stayed until 1992, the year the Yugoslav Wars began. Redzepi has said he found life there far more enjoyable than his time in a small apartment in Denmark.

  The house near Tetovo stood in a rural area and held several generations of the family under one roof. Meals were built around locally sourced food, and most of it was vegetarian and nutritious. Redzepi has returned to those memories whenever he explains how he cooks.

  While he was still a youngster, the family moved back to Denmark, though he often spent his summers in Yugoslavia. His twin brother, Kenneth, was part of the same household. The two boys delivered newspapers and worked in a local store to add to the family's income. At 15, Redzepi left high school and enrolled in a cooking school with a friend.

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• 3. Kitchens Abroad

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  After choosing a culinary career, Redzepi trained at Pierre André, a family-owned and Michelin-starred restaurant in Copenhagen. His apprenticeship there lasted four years. At 19 he moved to Le Jardin des Sens in Montpellier, in southern France.

  In 1998 he first visited El Bulli, a restaurant in Roses, Spain, as a guest. He returned to work there during the 1999 season.

  Back in Copenhagen, Redzepi joined Kong Hans Kælder, one of the city's leading gourmet restaurants. In 2001 he crossed the Atlantic to spend four months under the supervision of Thomas Keller at the French Laundry, in Yountville, in California's Napa Valley. Then he returned to Kong Hans Kælder and to Copenhagen.

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• 4. Founding Noma

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  In December 2002, Claus Meyer contacted the 24-year-old Redzepi with an unusual proposition. Meyer had been offered the chance to run a restaurant at the North Atlantic House, an 18th-century warehouse on Copenhagen harbour that was being turned into a cultural centre. The restaurant, Noma, opened in 2004 with Redzepi as head chef. Its name joins two Danish words: nordisk, meaning Nordic, and mad, meaning food.

  The meals near Tetovo shaped how Redzepi cooks in Copenhagen. He sources much of his food locally and researches it by foraging in the wild. He says this habit comes from his years in Yugoslavia, where food was local and fresh. He is noted for his efforts to reinvent and refine New Nordic cuisine.

  At Noma, the menu follows seasonal themes and depends on what is available at a given time. Fermentation and dehydration are a major focus. Redzepi experiments with using as much as possible of each plant, animal and fish. Occasionally, he has even put insects on the plate.

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• 5. Climb to the Top

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  Noma first appeared on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2006, ranked 33rd. It rose to 15th in 2007 and 10th in 2008. That same year, TripAdvisor named it the best restaurant in the world, and a conference in San Sebastián, Spain, named Redzepi International Chef of the Year.

  The year 2009 brought a ranking of 3rd, along with the Chefs' Choice award. In 2010 Noma took first place, and it held the top spot in 2011 and 2012. It placed 2nd in 2013, won again in 2014, then placed 3rd in 2015 and 5th in 2016. A 2nd-place finish followed in 2019, and in 2021 Noma was ranked the best in the world once more.

  The Michelin Guide awarded the restaurant two stars from 2008 to 2020. It held three stars from 2021 to 2025.

  Redzepi himself appeared on the 2012 TIME list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2016 he received the Catey Awards International Outstanding Achievement prize and was made a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog.

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• 6. Beyond the Dining Room

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  In 2011, Redzepi co-founded MAD, a non-profit organization and symposium focused on the future of food and the restaurant industry. The annual symposium in Copenhagen brings together chefs, scientists and writers. They discuss sustainability, kitchen culture and the ethics of the food industry.

  Anthony Bourdain's series No Reservations featured Redzepi in a 2012 episode titled Japan: Cook It Raw. That year he also appeared in three episodes of The Mind of a Chef. Documentaries followed, including Noma: My Perfect Storm in 2015 and, in 2018, three episodes of Ugly Delicious. In 2024 he appeared in an episode of The Bear called Tomorrow. He also created and starred in the series Omnivore, released on Apple TV+.

  At home, Redzepi is married to the chef Nadine Levy Redzepi, who grew up in Portugal and Denmark. They have three daughters.

  In January 2023, Redzepi announced that Noma would close as a traditional restaurant at the end of 2024. It would become a food innovation lab, developing new products and hosting periodic pop-up events. A 10-week temporary residency in Kyoto, Japan, came first, and Noma held its final regular dinner service in December 2024. In July 2025, Redzepi announced a months-long Noma residency in Los Angeles, planned for spring 2026.

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• 7. Interns and Overwork

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  In a 2015 essay in Lucky Peach magazine, also carried on the MAD Feed website, Redzepi wrote: "I've been a bully for a large part of my career. I've yelled and pushed people." He described falling into a state of "absolute rage" over minor mistakes. He also said he had seen chefs "get slapped across the face" in professional kitchens. In later interviews, he said he had spent "many, many hours of therapy" on his own behavior.

  A 2022 Financial Times investigation found that Noma employed up to 30 unpaid interns alongside 34 paid chefs. The interns worked up to 70 hours a week and paid for their own housing in Copenhagen. A 2023 Vice investigation reported that about half of Noma's 60 kitchen staff were unpaid.

  In October 2022, the restaurant began paying its interns. That change added an estimated $50,000 to $70,000 per month in labor costs. One former intern, Namrata Hegde, told The New York Times that interns were "required to work in silence" and "forbidden to laugh."

  Explaining why Noma would end its traditional model, Redzepi told the Times: "It's unsustainable. Financially and emotionally, as an employer and as a human being, it just doesn't work."

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• 8. The Allegations

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  In March 2026, The New York Times published a report built on accounts from 35 former Noma employees. They described the years between 2009 and 2017 as a time when Redzepi "punched employees in the face, jabbed them with kitchen implements and slammed them against walls." They also described lasting trauma from psychological abuse, including intimidation, body shaming and public ridicule.

  A guest's request to lower the music led to one of the accounts. A female chef recalled that she used her smartphone to turn the volume down, and Redzepi punched her. She said the blow sent her against a metal counter and left her on the floor, bleeding and in tears.

  Another chef alleged that Redzepi would crouch just inside the kitchen, out of the patrons' sight. As workers came in from the restaurant floor, he allegedly stabbed them in the calves and thighs with a barbecue fork for perceived inefficiencies.

  The accusers said the attacks were often followed by threats to destroy their chances of future employment if they complained. It was also alleged that Redzepi used his influence in the culinary world to threaten employees and their families. According to the Times, the abusive culture continued after 2017, while senior managers repeatedly failed to address the mistreatment of staff and unpaid interns.

  Redzepi has admitted to undergoing long-term psychotherapy over his abusive behavior. After protestors began demonstrating outside the restaurant and sponsors started withdrawing their support, he announced his resignation from Noma on the 12th of March 2026. He also resigned from the board of MAD, the symposium he helped found.

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