It’s an existential dilemma bedeviling some high-net-worth food influencers: If you dine at a $1,500-a-plate Michelin-starred pop up and have no Instagram posts to show for it, did the meal really ever happen? We are talking, of course, about Noma, the famed Copenhagen restaurant which opened an extremely pricey pop-up in Silverlake earlier this month, and has been enveloped in a cloud of scandal ever since, making it a post-at-your-own-risk type of establishment.
Days before Noma LA launched with its reservations fully booked, a New York Times story detailing widespread abuse among Noma employees at the hands of its head chef, Rene Redzepi, dropped.
Redzepi tried to apologize for the allegations of bullying and abuse which took place almost eight thousand miles away and over a decade ago, but to no avail. Corporate sponsors including American Express and Cadillac yanked support. Former Noma employee Jason Ignacio White, in tandem with the wage-advocacy nonprofit One Fair Wage, has been organizing protests in front of Paramour Estate where Noma LA set up shop, banging pots and pans, holding signs that read “Noma Broke Me” and reportedly shouting “shame” at those entering the gates of the former convent.
The whole affair has been grabbing headlines for weeks, and several prominent crisis PR pros have been pulled in to try and control the narrative and broker some sort of detente (so far, those efforts have failed). The allegations against Redzepi have stirred up age-old debates regarding social justice, class resentment and the boundaries of “cancel culture.”
What it hasn’t done is stop some of LA’s most high-profile foodies from showing up for what might be a once in a lifetime culinary experience. Sources tell Page Six Hollywood that Mindy Kaling and BJ Novak have dined at Noma LA, as has “Emily in Paris” star Lily Collins. (While none of the aforementioned posted about their experiences at Noma LA, Collins did post about visiting Noma’s flagship restaurant in Copenhagen in 2024, prompting several critical comments.) Reps for all three did not respond to our request for comment.
Even with the controversy, there seems to be no shortage of demand. When Noma first opened its reservations online, more than 50,000 people signed up to try and score one of the 5,000 available seats. It sold out in under a minute. According to a source at Noma, there have only been about a dozen cancellations since the New York Times story; all of these were quickly filled.
Fueling the ongoing controversy, according to several sources, is the relationship between White — Noma’s former head of fermentation — and Redzepi. After working for five years at Noma, White turned on his former employer and started sharing anonymous accounts of alleged abuse on his social media which included Redzepi punching and poking staff with objects, body shaming and threatening to deport employees. One of the most horrific incidents White shared involved an intern whose face was burned in a 2021 incident. White claimed that Noma managers stood by and ridiculed the intern as she cried in agony. That account has since been debunked by the LA Times, which tracked down the intern who provided an entirely different version of the events surrounding the accident.
White has addressed his own troubled past which includes a short prison sentence and an ugly divorce (his ex-wife weighed in on social media suggesting White is an unreliable narrator).
A source involved in trying to resolve the situation says White originally said he was simply seeking a direct dialogue with Redzepi. But when the Noma LA team agreed to facilitate that meeting, One Fair Wage added new demands, including paying reparations to unpaid interns. “They keep moving the goalposts,” says the source. When contacted by P6H, White declined to comment beyond saying via text, “Rene is a master abuser & manipulator so I can’t be comfortable in this situation.”
For now, it seems the controversy barrels forward. Noma plans to open a retail store on Sunset next week, and it seems likely the protests could shift to the storefront.
As if the Noma saga wasn’t strange enough, the setting for all of this — the Paramour Estate — has its own incredible history. The estate is anchored by a 22,000-square-foot, 15-bedroom Mediterranean revival mansion which served as a convent for nearly half a century and has been the setting for countless films and television shows.
