After several days of protests outside its controversial Silver Lake pop-up, the restaurant Noma responded to a demand letter from workers’ rights activists who’ve led a campaign that resurfaced past abuse allegations and culminated in last week’s loss of event sponsors and the abrupt “stepping away” of renowned chef René Redzepi.
The Los Angeles pop-up, similar to others Noma staged in Mexico and Japan, has generated controversy since its inception. News of its $1,500-a-person price tag particularly enraged skeptical locals. Nonetheless, the reservations sold out almost immediately, Noma said.
On Thursday, prominent protest leader Jason Ignacio White received a letter from Noma, which he posted on Instagram. Noma indicated openness to a discussion, provided they agree to a set of “ground rules,” including a neutral third party to transcribe the meeting, confidentiality, and dialogue without personal attacks.
The letter also requested an end to the protests, writing that “demonstrations outside the Noma pop-up and our other operations will end permanently once a meeting is scheduled and attacks will cease.”
Reached by phone Friday, White said the letter is under review. “What I can say is that we will not accept protest stopping until there’s a settlement agreement, or until there’s some kind of agreement in place for our demands that are negotiated,” he said.
Protesters have pledged to keep a presence outside the gate of the Paramour Estate in Silver Lake, the location of Noma L.A. for 16 weeks. The Copenhagen restaurant also plans to open a pop-up retail shop next month on Sunset Boulevard.
At the center of the movement is White, who worked at Noma for roughly five years in its fermentation lab. White has partnered with worker-advocacy nonprofit One Fair Wage to amplify calls for reform, including reparations for abused Noma staff, a fund for support services, and livable wages.
The campaign that brought down Redzepi was sparked largely by a stream of social media posts from White that detailed allegations of past abuses against former Noma employees and gradually gained steam online and in mainstream media. A New York Times investigation into Redzepi’s behavior at Noma, published days before the launch of the L.A. pop-up, accelerated calls for accountability and included accounts of Redzepi punching staff in the ribs, poking them with a barbecue fork, threatening deportation and body shaming.
In addition to stepping away from Noma, Redzepi also resigned from MAD, the restaurant’s nonprofit. A “workplace transparency review,” published on Noma‘s website, includes new language regarding the restaurant’s internal practices such as training, hiring, pay and benefits.
White has been depicted as a polarizing figure. The former Noma intern is now disputing an incident that White used as an opening salvo in exposing the alleged toxic work culture at the restaurant.
White said that one of the catalyzing Noma experiences that led to his speaking out occurred in 2021, when an intern allegedly “burnt her face off” in the Copenhagen kitchen. White has recounted the incident several times on social media. In an interview, he said that head chef Pablo Soto and other managers joked and laughed as the intern cried in the bathroom, until White persuaded the team to call a car to take her to the hospital.
The former intern spoke to The Times and requested anonymity for fear of retaliation and to not be professionally associated with Noma or the accident.
The Times reviewed photos of her facial burns and messages sent to her parents recounting the August 2021 incident. She disputed White’s characterization of the Noma staff’s response.
“I read his comments, and I do not recognize anything of what actually happened in his texts or comments,” she said of White’s posts about her injury.
No longer working in restaurants, she learned of the posts from a friend last month. She said she considered contacting White directly but feared any communication might be screen-shot by him and posted to social media.
She arrived in Copenhagen that summer at the age of 18 for an unpaid internship and called it “an extraordinary experience.” She said she had been thoroughly trained in safe-kitchen practices, but after eight or 10 rotations at the Noma oven, one evening she opened the door without stepping aside, causing steam to burn her face.
When she felt her burns worsening, the intern said she approached Soto, who instructed her to wash her face while another staff member called for a car to take her to the hospital. She said she never cried or screamed, and never heard or saw anyone laughing, and that all treated her respectfully, including Soto, who transported her, waited with her and took her home.
“I do not think about that time as traumatic,” she said. “It’s still, for me, one of the best life experiences I was able to have at such a young age.”
Soto remains head chef at Noma and is cooking at the L.A. pop-up. Since White’s Instagram posts, Soto told The Times he has received numerous “hate messages and personal threats.”
Soto, a native of Mexico City who first interned at Noma in 2012 and joined the team in 2017, said White’s account “doesn’t attest at all to who I am and how I conduct myself at work.”
“I actually remember it being something very serious. No one would have condoned anyone laughing about a girl burning her face,” Soto said.
Another former Noma intern also disputed White’s telling of the burn event, saying he never witnessed anyone laughing or jeering. The intern, who also requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, said he worked closely with White in the fermentation lab and never experienced or witnessed abuse beyond White’s own alleged verbal abuse of lab interns, who “were suffering under him.”
“It was more on a psychological level,” the former intern said. He said White cussed at interns and repeatedly accused them of breaking things they said they did not.
White denied allegations of verbal abuse. “Obviously it sucks to know that there’s people who have worked with me who have been in an environment that I’ve created that made them feel uncomfortable,” he said.
“I’ve never cussed at a Noma intern in my life, so I’m not understanding why they would be saying that,” he added. “I would encourage them to reach out to me and talk to me, because that would be the more important way for us to solve that.”
White said that all versions of the burning incident are valid.
“I really don’t want to engage in it too much more,” he said. “I think it’s unfair, and that’s what happened, it affected me. And her side of the story, my side of the story matters, and [his] story matters.”
At the opening day of the pop-up, White, who now leads fermentation seminars and programs at other restaurants, addressed the pitfalls of his newfound visibility.
“I don’t think you have to be a saint to stand against violence and abuse,” he said on March 11. “But at the same time, I’m navigating through it as best as possible.”
The fast-paced nature of the restaurant industry creates a constant, underlying pressure, said Andrew Moreo, an assistant professor of hospitality management at Florida International University.
The urgency element, combined with thin profit margins, long hours and generally hot, cramped working environments with fire and knives can create dangerous situations. “When you add all those factors together, it makes for a very explosive environment,” Moreo said.
To change the culture, restaurant owners and managers must make a concerted effort to flip their perspective, he said. Managers need to see themselves as serving or supporting staff, instead of their staff being there to support them.
Depictions of kitchens in media, from “Hell’s Kitchen” to “The Bear,” have also helped spread awareness. “Media is shining a light on [the industry] and opened the public’s eyes to it, and shown us it’s not OK,” Moreo said.
White confirmed that he and other organizers plan to protest the upcoming Noma retail shop, which is expected to sell fermented goods, coffee and other pantry items.
“We only talked about Rene’s abuse in the New York Times,” said White, who estimates he has received more than 200 accounts of alleged abuse within Noma’s various branches. “That amount of cultural abuse that’s going on inside of a restaurant for that long is not one person’s actions. It creates cycles of abuse and cycles of trauma that entangle people.”
Soto said Redzepi’s announcement of a stepping away from Noma has not affected the pop-up’s run and the team is staying the course. Reservations remain booked out.
Soto declined to answer whether he witnessed abuse in his near-decade at the restaurant but said that he has seen corrections in how staff address each other and how they are trained, and that “toxic” staff have been “actively removed” from the team. “I know that improvement is a process,” he said. “I am nothing else than proud about the way that we work today.”
White and One Fair Wage said they would consider legal action against Noma should the restaurant not address their list of demands. He said he also plans to shift focus to “addressing ethics policies” at other major industry institutions such as the Michelin Guide, the James Beard Foundation Awards and World’s 50 Best Restaurants organization.
Times staff writer Suhauna Hussain contributed to this report.
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