Voted five times the best restaurant in the world, Noma in Copenhagen announced this Monday (8) that it will cease its regular service to customers at the end of 2024. The news has sparked debate on how to approach the creative process, the business, and the workforce in haute cuisine.
The restaurant said in a letter on its website that the 2025 proposal aims to become a “giant laboratory” with a test kitchen focused on food innovation. “Serving people will still be a part of us, but being a restaurant will no longer define us,” the publication continues.
The text, signed by chef René Redzepi and his team, also states that Noma is open to promoting seasons or doing popups.
Redzepi, who oversaw Open House two decades ago, transformed his minimalist cuisine into a symbol of the class of restaurants focused on the hyperseasonal and local sourcing of ingredients, capable of attracting waves of wellheeled tourists — um the vegetable, forest or sea menus for about BRL 2,700.
“Him [o chef] closes in the current format. Redzepi spoke about the format that the business was no longer viable in terms of cost and maintaining a large team. It’s an issue that’s being considered now, too,” says Rosa Moraes, president of the Brazil region for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, which compiles regional and global rankings.
In an article published in the New York Times this Monday, the chef claims that the “fine dining” or haute cuisine restaurant model he helped create is “unsustainable.” “Financially and emotionally, as an employer and as a person, it just doesn’t work,” said Redzepi, who also has three Michelin stars, the French publication’s highest category.
According to the American newspaper, elite houses like Noma are under scrutiny over the treatment of their employees reports of long hours, low wages and sometimes cases of moral harassment are mounting in the industry around the world and in Brazil. Redzepi himself has already admitted inappropriate behavior with his team.
The issue is essential to discussing the viability of these facilities, says Joana Pellerano, an anthropologist and researcher in the field of nutrition. “A sustainable and explorationbased business model cannot be. And a lot of that happens in the gastro scene disguised as a love of the job and the necessary dedication to the work,” he says.
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Pellerano believes that the arrival of new generations in the kitchen has helped make the discussion visible and “helped to denaturalize a behavior that has existed in the industry for some time”.
She also claims that the haute cuisine restaurant model, based on long and complex research into ingredients and techniques, may also be losing ground.
“This reflects the scenario of a market that unfortunately demands faster responses, which doesn’t allow for several months of research, as was possible with Noma. Today, this research focuses on dishes that will be on the menu next week.”
However, imagining that the restaurant model of haute cuisine is running out of steam is a mistake, says chef Ivan Ralston. During the pandemic, he closed Tuju, a São Paulo restaurant that once had two stars in the Michelin guide and is expected to reopen in a new format this year.
For the chef, finedining restaurants with slimmer offerings should continue to exist, as opposed to establishments “with a hundred employees” where “you have ten people to cook just one dish,” he says.
“Noma has been a very important restaurant in the history of gastronomy in recent years. But this format is coming to an end, also because today there are only a few people who are willing to do it and because it is not financially feasible,” he says.
The new venture, opened by Ralston, will have less space for a restaurant and will include a bakery, coffee shop, wine bar and school. “It’s a multidisciplinary space, which makes more sense, I can join other farms. Today’s world demands many things from a restaurant in order for it to survive, including delivery,” he says.
The new configuration also makes it possible to make the Tuju Research Center’s investigations profitable. “Lately I’ve been spending everything I’ve earned from events on research. Opening the school, creating courses and showing what we produce is one way to make research profitable,” he says.
The need to constantly surprise the customer is another aspect of the creation process of haute cuisine restaurants discussed by chefs. “The source of creativity isn’t always as infinite as the guest might think,” says Luiz Filipe Souza of Evvai, a Michelinstarred restaurant in Pinheiros, west of São Paulo.
As an example, Souza cites his own restaurant, which changes the menu three to four times a year. If the chef fails to create the sense of novelty, it can lead to a drop in the occupancy rate of the home.
“What we’re doing today seems more connected to the entertainment industry than to the food itself,” he adds. “It’s like in the cinema. People come to us knowing they’ll find some tricks, but if they don’t find something new, they won’t come back.”