\u201cImagine?\u201d Menchaca, 52, said in Spanish when I explained Noma L.A.\u2019s premise. Gardening tools weighed down the bed of his well-worn Ford Ranger. \u201cI would have to work every day, all day, for three months to afford that. And if I had that money, why would I spend it on just one dinner?\u201d<\/p>\n
The price point is the least of Redzepi\u2019s sins. A recent New York Times article<\/a> detailed allegations of abuse that Redzepi inflicted on his workers, from not paying interns to punching workers to jabbing them with forks to threatening their family members with deportation.<\/p>\n The chef, who has admitted to his \u201cbully\u201d past before, posted a weak-salsa apology on Instagram after the article published. On Wednesday, hours after the protest, Redzepi announced his resignation from Noma via a self-pitying video featuring forlorn crew members looking on as he urged them to \u201cfight\u201d for what he predicted would be \u201cthe restaurant of the decade.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s an a\u2014\u2014\u2014!\u201d cracked Jim Longeretta while waiting behind Menchaca in a luxury SUV when I asked if he knew what was going on. Would he go to a Noma dinner if someone else paid for it?<\/p>\n \u201cNo way,\u201d Longeretta replied. \u201cNot with all the allegations right now.\u201d <\/p>\n The bus finally parked down the hill. Holding signs that read \u201cNoma Broke Me\u201d and \u201cYour Kitchen is a Crime Scene,\u201d about a dozen activists demanded that Redzepi meet with them and offer reparations to his victims.<\/p>\n A security guard stands at the gate of the Paramour Estate in Silver Lake as guests make their way in for a lunch service at Noma L.A.\u2019s pop-up restaurant.<\/p>\n (Ronaldo Bolanos \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n L.A. is a city of reinvention, where second chances are a civic sacrament and residents often overlook the flaws of the famous. Here was a chance for Redzepi to redeem himself with true contrition.<\/p>\n Instead, grim-faced men photographed protesters and the media. Employees peeked through a wrought-iron gate as former Noma head of fermentation Jason Ignacio White read a letter decrying Redzepi. <\/p>\n No one answered the intercom when White rang. A looky-loo employee refused to take the letter from him but snapped his photo as he left the letter hanging on a gate.<\/p>\n Security guards directed Latino workers to enter via a side entrance. When a New York Times reporter tried to interview a woman in a chef\u2019s apron and clogs carrying a flower bouquet, she ran back to her van.<\/p>\n \u201cIf [Redzepi] would pay any attention to what\u2019s going on in the city, he would have taken his approach differently,\u201d White said, referring to the fires and deportations that have afflicted L.A. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t care about people. He only cares about fame.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m OK with people spending $1,500 on a dinner. It\u2019s their money, and too many Angelenos do love conspicuous consumption. I have no problem with chefs like Redzepi catering to the elite \u2014 chefs have done that for centuries. His abhorrent behavior is sadly too common across the restaurant industry, from the finest dining to the humblest street stalls. <\/p>\n My main issue is the hubris of it all \u2014 and the people who enabled it.<\/p>\n When Redzepi announced Noma\u2019s residency last summer<\/a>, the L.A. food world largely welcomed him as a culinary god. He was viewed as someone kind enough to grace us with his aura, who would renew an economically and spiritually depressed scene<\/a> with his gospel of foraging, locally sourced products, food preservation and seasonality \u2014 so-called innovations that my Mexican grandmothers practiced without widespread adulation or million-dollar budgets.<\/p>\n Gushing media profiles willfully ignored Redzepi\u2019s problematic past and brushed aside the cognitive dissonance of offering a $1,500 Mexican meal in a city with wild economic stratification and a Latino community under existential threat from President Trump\u2019s deportation deluge<\/a>, whose restaurants have particularly suffered<\/a>.<\/p>\n Noma L.A. nevertheless sold out in 60 seconds<\/a>. Its preliminary success and subsequent meltdown is another indictment of those who think that welcoming big names and events \u2014 the World Cup, the Olympics<\/a> \u2014 is the way to save us. <\/p>\n How do you say \u201cPendejos\u201d in Danish?<\/p>\n Last year, Redzepi told my colleague Laurie Ochoa that he chose Los Angeles for his first Noma pop-up in the U.S. because he \u201ctruly fell in love<\/a>\u201d with the city. He should have known that L.A. is sick and tired of powerful people trying to put a gloss on indefensible actions, whether it\u2019s Mayor Karen Bass and her handling of the Palisades fire<\/a> or Trump and the state of this country.<\/p>\n Yet that\u2019s all Redzepi has done since the damning New York Times expos\u00e9. Meanwhile, his cult is such that defenders are dismissing his alleged victims as weak-willed crybabies.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773398833_852_.jpeg\")
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