The announcement of the closure of the restaurant Noma, in Copenhagen, brought up two very uncomfortable issues for the gastronomy business.
One of them affects only those who work in the sector or frequent establishments of high luxury and experimental cuisine: it is a niche without economic viability. Not even Noma, proclaimed ad nauseam the best in the world, has a sustainable operation.
The other goes beyond the world of gastronomy and affects, in harmful ways, society in general. To continue on its limp, Noma resorted to the worst labor practices.
A 2022 report from the English newspaper Financial Times states that, before the pandemic, the Danish restaurant exploited the workforce of 30 unpaid interns. Another 34 cooks were paid for their duties.
Outside euphemisms, almost half of the team worked in slavery.
Before, Noma was the exception. Journalist Imogen West-Knights has scoured the Copenhagen restaurant scene (reputed to be less tyrannical to cooks than Paris or New York) and collected reports of horror.
The most bizarre story concerns a chef who punished his trainees by kneeing them in the balls. Such abuses are covered by a pact of silence.
Cooks fear reprisals, businessmen close themselves off in complicity, gastronomy journalists also defend theirs – what is left for them when the artificial glamor of a cruel industry collapses?
The abused routine in the kitchen is universal, universally known, accepted and polished with a romantic varnish. Therein lies the most insidious aspect of the thing.
Gastronomy functions as a laboratory for the application of postmodern slavery. It differs from classic slavery in that, while the back holds, the victim flaunts servitude in smiling selfies.
In upper circles, young elite aspiring chefs swallow the whip and the lash to learn from their idols. In the deep kitchen it’s another conversation: Pedestrian abuse does not embody post-medieval rapapés.
No, not every restaurant. It’s not all haute couture confection. But there is a pattern, they are not aberrant exceptions.
The digital exposure and the reward in likes lead a crowd to find it acceptable to work in cool activities (yes, cooking is more fun than tax law) without fair remuneration.
Scrub those pans: one day you’ll be as famous as I am. Make an Instagram post in exchange for five jars of mayonnaise: that will save you money for future flights.
Future flights, they forgot to mention, will be paid for in margarine. It’s a pyramid scheme. Only half a dozen pass through the funnel. The rest will be parasitized until they ask for a potty.
The American chef Rob Anderson wrote in The Atlantic magazine, about the downfall of Noma, an article entitled “How Noma Made Fine Dining Far Worse”. Badly translated, “How Noma Made Haute Gastronomy Too Worse”.
I disagree with the chef. Noma is no worse or better than hundreds of restaurants out there (and ateliers and agencies and such). What changes is the curriculum of the enslaved.
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I have worked as a journalist for over 10 years, and my work has been featured on many different news websites. I am also an author, and my work has been published in several books. I specialize in opinion writing, and I often write about current events and controversial topics. I am a very well-rounded writer, and I have a lot of experience in different areas of journalism. I am a very hard worker, and I am always willing to put in the extra effort to get the job done.
