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Beyond Noma: Rethinking the myth of the ‘brilliant but volatile’ chef
Beyond Noma: Rethinking the myth of the ‘brilliant but volatile’ chef
The recent conversation around toxic kitchen culture, prompted by stories around the Michelin starred Danish restaurant Noma and its chef René Redzepi, has pushed the inner workings of restaurant kitchens into public view. For the record, I have never eaten at Noma, nor do I know anything of its internal culture, so I am less interested in commenting on one chef or one restaurant than on what this moment reveals about our industry.
For a long time, the professional kitchen has carried a certain mythology: high stakes, machismo, alpha personalities, and a relentless fight to survive. Popular culture has fed that image for years. Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential helped romanticise the kitchen as a pirate ship. The Bear, Hell’s Kitchen, Boiling Point and Burnt all play with the same idea, that brilliance and volatility are natural companions. In that sense, what we are seeing now is less a revelation than a tipping point. The culture being debated is not new. It has existed, and in some corners been admired, for years.
From inside the industry, though, the picture is more nuanced. For over a decade, I have run, cooked in, visited and collaborated with plenty of kitchens that do not carry these undertones. That is not to say kitchens are loving, gentle places. Nor are banks, law firms, hospitals, ad agencies or production houses. Any high-functioning workplace comes with stress, hierarchy and pressure. Kitchens simply add their own special ingredients to the mix. Physical labour, heat, noise, speed, antisocial hours, thin margins, neurodivergent personalities and the daily challenge of trying to produce something excellent while keeping a business alive. It is, in many ways, the perfect storm.
Within that storm, I have seen very different kinds of leadership. There is the chef who came up the hard way and feels their place at the top now gives them licence to do the same to others. It is often framed as tough love, not unlike ragging or hazing at university. ‘I went through it, so you should too’. ‘It made me who I am, so perhaps it will do the same for you’. ‘If you cannot handle it, maybe you do not deserve to make it’. Then there is the chef who went through exactly that world and decided it stops with them. The kitchen can still be exacting and serious, but fear, humiliation and bullying have no place in it.
Daniel Giusti and kitchen staff working at Noma restaurant, Copenhagen, on May 9, 2014 | Photo Credit: Sarah Coghill for The Washington Post via Getty Images
I think we make a mistake by talking about restaurants as though they are all one thing. A 30-seat, $1,000 tasting-menu restaurant is a very different beast from one turning 1,000 covers a day at $30 a plate. Both create experiences, one aspirational and the other accessible. Both require systems, labour, discipline and graft, but the psychology is not the same.
In the rarefied world of stars, rankings and global acclaim, there is often an almost spiritual belief that sacrifice is the price of recognition. A young chef starts to believe that surrendering time, money, relationships, health and sometimes self-respect is simply the price of reaching the summit.
There is a certain romance to that idea. The boxer sacrifices brain cells, the Olympian sacrifices childhood, and the monk withdraws from family and worldly life. Greatness, in this view, demands suffering. The danger, however, comes when a young cook also starts to believe that being bullied is somehow part of the journey, that being diminished is a necessary step towards becoming great.
In more grounded kitchens, especially those operating in the real world of fair pay, staff retention and accessible dining, things tend to work differently. The mythology matters less. People know their worth, know they have options and will leave if the culture is poor. Those alone changes behaviour at the top. Staging and self-sacrifice are far less romantic when rent is due and a better job exists across the road.
So, is there a solution? I am not sure there is one neat answer, because restaurants are too varied and too personal for that. But respect should be non-negotiable. Self-respect, respect for the people who work for you, respect for those who supply to you and respect for those who dine with you.
Noma's chef René Redzepi in Copenhagen | Photo Credit: Soeren Bidstrup/Ritzau Scanpix via AP
In the end, it’s not only the restaurants, but awards bodies, sponsors, the media and ultimately the diners who decide what gets celebrated and glorified. They need to ask the questions that matter and dig beneath the surface.
The real question is what we choose to reward. Do we continue to treat absolute perfection on the plate as the ultimate goal, quietly accepting that young chefs may feel any price is worth paying to reach it? Or do we begin to recognise and reward organisations that produce great food while also creating fairer, healthier workplaces?
I do not claim there is a simple answer. Many of the world’s most intricate restaurants operate with immense reverence for produce, craft and people. But those same environments can sometimes allow unhealthy cultures to hide behind the pursuit of brilliance.
In many ways the choice is no different from standing in a supermarket aisle deciding between two bars of chocolate or two bags of coffee. One carries a fair-trade label. The other sits wrapped in shiny gold foil, its supply chain harder to decipher. In that moment we decide what matters. We can turn a blind eye to exploitation, or we can reward fairness with our wallets. Restaurants are no different. What we celebrate ultimately shapes the culture of the industry.
Karan Gokani is a London-based chef and restaurateur who spends his time cooking, travelling and exploring what the world is eating. He loves the gym, biriyani and his frying pan. Not necessarily in that order.
Published - March 20, 2026 02:04 pm IST
The Hindu Weekend / restaurant and catering / food / food / food and dining (general) / work relations
Source: TheHindu
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