--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Noelle King: It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Noelle King: And earlier today I went online and tried to book a table at the famed Noma in Copenhagen. It's game and forest season, so moose, mallard, and reindeer are on the menu. But I couldn't get a table. Noma's booked up through the end of the season.
--:-- Noelle King: And that is okay ultimately because in this economy, spending $500, the fixed price, before wine, on any meal is a lot. And it's not just for me that this feels unsustainable. Noma's renowned chef, a man named Rene Redzepi, has acknowledged it's too much for him, too. He's closing the restaurant saying, this is simply too hard, and he's going to turn Noma into a food lab.
--:-- Noelle King: Noma's considered by many people to be the best restaurant in this world. So how is it possible that it can't survive? And what does that mean for the places where the rest of us go to eat?
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--:-- Noelle King: This is very Sean. This is very Sean. Coated Gucci loafers. Saks says Saks makes shopping feel totally customized to you, whether that's from an in-store stylist or a visit to Saks.com, where they can show you just what you want to see.
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--:-- Noelle King: They say they'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in or when something you've been eyeing is back in stock. You can find inspiration for your personal style every day at Saks Fifth Avenue.
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--:-- Noelle King: It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. Evan Kleiman is the host of Good Food on KCRW. Evan has never eaten at Noma in Copenhagen, but she does know Rene Redzepi.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Rene Redzepi is, you know, the words genius, I think, would not be inappropriate here. He's just one of those people whose passion, curiosity, and focus managed to result in this very different experience of what a restaurant is and what the food is served in that restaurant.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Where did he come from? Chef Redzepi, Rene, is the child of a Danish mother and an Albanian father who was an immigrant to the Republic of Macedonia when it was still Yugoslavia.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And he was raised both in Denmark and in Macedonia. And until 92, when the war broke out, I spent quite a lot of time in Macedonia every year. It was a completely different lifestyle from the Western world. Back then, it was extremely rural.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: You ate what you had yourself, which meaning what you could grow. You worked the land, you harvested. The Macedonian experience for him left its mark.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: It was a multi-generational household in a rural setting. So he got to run around, explore nature. And of course, the house was always filled with people and filled with home cooking.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And I think that that closeness he felt to the land and to the experience of being a kid, running around, exploring things never left him.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: As a child, it's fantastic to grow up in that sense because you're out there on the field. You're eating things when they're just harvested.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And it makes me perhaps see possibilities in some products where 100% native just see it as something old-fashioned or that can only be seen in one specific context.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: When does he decide that he's going to become a chef? When he was 15, he decided that instead of continuing on in high school, that he would go to culinary school.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Yum. That is not uncommon in Europe. In Europe, they have vocational avenues for people who don't want to go to college. And so there is a very robust educational and apprentice system in place.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And so it isn't uncommon for a person that young to make the decision and then soon thereafter find themselves slaving away at the lowest levels in a palace of dining.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And was he in a palace of dining or was he in like an Applebee's? He was in a very high level restaurant in Copenhagen for many years.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And then after that, he got a position at a restaurant in the south of France, I believe. You have to go back in time and understand in the 90s that in that time, as a cook, French food was the only thing you looked towards.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: You thought that you were going to cook French food in Denmark. That's what I always thought to myself. And then after that, he started to do various stages or internships in other parts of the world, including the famed El Bulli in Spain and the French Laundry in California.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: You come from somewhere. The collective of you belongs to a lot of different influences. And in the case of mine, one of the main influences that gave me my philosophical drive in cooking came from my experience at El Bulli back then.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And I'm ever grateful for that. And then how does Noma come about? I believe he was 23 or 24 when a money guy in Denmark gives him the opportunity to be the head chef of a new restaurant that he's opening.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And that becomes Noma. And then what is the reception and what does he become known for? I think it's really helpful to look at Rene as an artist.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And I don't say that about chefs almost ever, because I really do believe that cooking at nearly every level except the absolute most rarefied is a craft, not an art.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Oh, good distinction. But he starts working and he starts developing as a I mean he a human who has all the curiosity and intelligence and voraciousness to learn still even though he head of this kitchen.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: I think it's so easy often just to go back to what you know. But that's not where we want to be with this restaurant. That's not where I want to be with this project or this, you know, culinary life that we've chosen at the restaurant Noma.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And he, I think, influenced by what he experienced in California, where when he was there, it was very much an ethos of farm-to-table, local.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: I think that ethos drilled into him, and I think he wanted to give himself the challenge of trying to see if he could accomplish cooking from his local environment, given that it was a Nordic environment, which no one had ever done.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: That's the thing that makes the whole clockwork start. Your brain tick. I really don't know. I'm searching for answers. I need to read. I need to study. I need to talk to people.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: We need to assemble. We need to figure out the solution. And that's when new things happen, and you learn more about yourself and the world.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: So I love that. And so he begins to create what was named the new Nordic cuisine. We found out that trees can be an ingredient in themselves. The sap, the shoots, the leaves, and even the wood can be used.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: We found snails and mahogany clams, berries when salted taste like olives. And that really hit the foodie world big time because it was such a challenge and so unusual.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And it was truly something new. We are indeed gastronauts, not exploring the moon, but Mother Earth.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: So Noma opens in 2003. In 2006, it appeared for the first time on the 50 best restaurants in the world list. It was number 33.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: But then it steadily began to climb and in three years, it was number three and one chef's choice, which meant that the chefs around the world who were on that list loved it.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Then it hit number one three years in a row from 2010 to 2012. And, you know, in all of this, we've been talking about the restaurants and the diners, but it's really hard to overstate the influence he's had on chefs and cooks from all over the world who then begin to knock on the door and ask for internships.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Because to have Noma on your resume, it's like shorthand saying, I have experienced this rigorous, creative, and focused experience at the highest level.
--:-- Noelle King: You've interviewed Rene Redzepi. Do you have any insight into why he's closing Noma?
--:-- Evan Kleiman: I think it's something that has been in the works for him for a while. I mean, he is not a person to make a decision this big overnight.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: It's interesting because I interviewed him at the end of the year, and listening back to that interview, I can hear all kinds of hints.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: For example, he talked with such joy and affection about a 30-day walk he took through Japan, staying at just regular people's houses and in humble inns along the way.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And I think he's a person, I mean, he's 45, and he's looking forward to the rest of his life. And he's married, he has kids.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And I think that this kind of experience, being able to take a month to do nothing but walk through a food culture, is something that just feeds him and is something that is very difficult to do when you have the pressure of a daily restaurant on your back.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Also, this whole sort of reassessing of what work is for people, what labor is and what is fair and what is kind of inhumane came very solidly to roost in the restaurant business during the pandemic.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Restaurant work it's brutal, I mean it's very difficult work that is profitable on the backs of the lowest paid.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And for years, Noma and other fine dining restaurants at this level are fueled by unpaid interns.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And in October of 2021, NOMA started paying interns. And I am sure that that experience of having to meet that payroll was a come to God kind of moment.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Can't imagine it would have been anything else. You know, if you go on the NOMA website and you click on people, the list of humans it takes to run that place is kind of like the movie credits of a movie like Avatar.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: It's just this huge list of people. And you have to support all those people.
--:-- [Supporter announcement]
--:-- Noelle King: Ahead in the second course, I will never eat at Noma, But Noma matters for the less pricey places I and you eat. And Evan is going to explain why.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Support for Today Explained comes from Chime. Nobody likes fees and complicated banking, says Chime.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And Chime gets that, says Chime. Chime is a financial technology company that says they understand that every dollar counts.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: So when you set up direct deposit through Chime, they say you get access to fee-free features such as free overdraft coverage, getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit, so much more.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Chime says with qualifying direct deposits, you can be eligible for free overdraft up to $200 on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Plus, they say you don't need to worry about monthly fees or maintenance fees.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: You can work on your financial goals through Chime today. You can open an account in two minutes at Chime slash explained.
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--:-- Noelle King: It's Today Explained. We're back with Evan Kleiman, who's the host of Good Food on KCRW.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: She's also a chef herself. Evan, Renee Redzepi says he's got to close Noma because he can't afford to do it anymore. It's become too expensive.
--:-- Noelle King: But if I were going to eat at Noma, I would pay around $500, which feels to me like a ton of money. I might pay $30 for dinner at Applebee's and they're doing OK.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Like what what is the breakdown here of cost versus? You can't. I mean, they're not in the same. They're not in the same world.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: You can't compare them. Would you mind explaining why? Because I think it's an obvious question for people who don't eat at places like Noma.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Yes, $500 is a huge amount of money. And, you know, I've never been to the restaurant in Copenhagen, partly because, you know, it would have been a choice to get on a plane, find a hotel, pay that money.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And, you know, for me, that was a very difficult decision and obviously I never made it. But there are a lot of people who made that decision and not all of them are billionaires or even millionaires.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: People would often just include it as part of the entertainment or the experiences or the adventures of their travels in Scandinavia.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Noma, where it is now, and it moved in 2017 to an island that is still part of Copenhagen, and it isn't like one building. It's a compound.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: So the restaurant itself where people sit and dine is not one room. It's kind of like several different huts. And then there's the large R&D facility. It's a whole infrastructure that you need to support, as well as all the salaries and all the benefits.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: It would be better to compare it to your local family-run neighborhood restaurant, which in its own way deals with the same amount of financial pressure as Noma does.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Depending upon what city it is, there's rent, there's taxes, many, many, many different kinds of taxes.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: I was a restaurateur. I had a restaurant for 30 years, so I know about this. There is all kinds of insurance and there's payroll.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And then, of course, there's, you know, your physical and mental labor, which is not inconsiderable in the restaurant business.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: I think you make a good point. Let's not compare this to Applebee's, which has something like 1,500 plus locations in the U.S.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: But what are the financial challenges of a fine dining restaurant that maybe you wouldn't find at a chain restaurant?
--:-- Evan Kleiman: I think it's even worse maybe in restaurants that are just below the fine dining model because in fine dining, the customer understands what they're paying for and is willing to pay for service that is usually included.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And if not, they tip like crazily. But in a regular restaurant that maybe isn't quite fine dining, but is really a nice restaurant.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: This idea that most restaurants still rely on the diners to leave a tip to make their payroll is so antiquated and is really a conundrum.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And yet this is the model on which all restaurants live or die on. And I just think it's absurd. I really do.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: It's just, it needs to die. But diners won't let it die.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: The vast majority of people can't throw down the kind of money that it would take to eat at Noma. And yet, it seems important to people in your line of work that this institution is closing.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Tell me why a person who might never have the opportunity to eat at Noma should care about Noma?
--:-- Evan Kleiman: The apex is really important to any discipline. The people that are creating the best, the most interesting, the constantly changing.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: You know, a lot of restaurants, their menus never change. My menu never changed or changed very little over the course of its 30 year existence.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: You know, it was a snapshot of a certain thing. Their menus change constantly. To me, one of the saddest parts is, in a way, Noma acted as an incubator for so many chefs and cooks who wanted to have that experience of being in this rigorous environment where they could really hone a particular type of craft and then go out into the world and internalize it and create something that would be wholly theirs.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: So that will be, to a lesser degree, available. And that is something that really affects everybody.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Your answer makes me think of something. So did you ever see The Devil Wears Prada?
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Yes, of course. Okay, remember where Andy is wearing this blue sweater, and she says something flipped. Something funny?
--:-- Evan Kleiman: No, no, nothing's, you know, it's just the... And Meryl Streep then lays out how three years ago, that color blue was super popular in very high fashion.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: What you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue it's not turquoise it's not lapis it actually cerulean.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And you also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002 Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets?
--:-- Evan Kleiman: I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Do you think there is a comparison here that fine dining starts at an apex, But then it might trickle down into the sort of place I might go and pay $40 or $50 or $60 for dinner.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Absolutely. 100%. That is a really, really good analogy.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Fermentation is like the first thing I think about. 20 years ago, you didn't see all these, you know, lacto-fermented pickles made out of many, many different kinds of foodstuffs on millions of different dishes and, you know, thousands of restaurants all over the world.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: But you do now. The idea of foraging and finding unusual ingredients out in nature that maybe you wouldn't expect, now, you know, they'll pop up.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: What are some other things? I think the idea of playfulness, because if you go to Noma, it's not a palace of fine dining in the sense that three-star Michelin French restaurants have always been.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: There aren't linen tablecloths. There aren't little poofs sitting next to your seat for your purse. There isn't this hushed environment like a church where you're afraid to laugh.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: It's a very, very playful, informal, extremely beautiful, but in a very rustic, informal way.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And I know that at least here in Los Angeles, I mean, that totally you can see in every high-end restaurant. There are almost no white tablecloth restaurants anymore.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Let me ask you, Leslie Evan, did you see the movie The Menu?
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Yeah, of course. Welcome to Hawthorne. I'm Julian Slowick, and tonight it'll be our pleasure to feed you.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Over the next few hours, you will ingest fat, salt, sugar, protein, bacteria, fungi, various plants and animals, and at times, entire ecosystems.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: This made me think a lot about Rene Redzepi. This poor chef has been so put upon, and the creativity has been stripped from what he does, and he is accountable to an angel investor, and he goes nuts.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: I've allowed my work to reach the price point where only the class of people in this room can access it. And I've been fooled in trying to satisfy people who can never be satisfied.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: But that's our culture, isn't it? And my restaurant is part of the problem.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Is there anything to the idea that the way this system is set up is so stressful for chefs and for the people who work with them?
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Is there something to the idea that this kind of stuff drives people crazy?
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Well, first of all, Chef Julian Slovic in the movie is not Rene Redzepi. Fair play.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: I'm glad you cleared it up. Yeah. And Hawthorne is not Noma. I would say the menu is the opposite of Noma and Redzepi.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: But to me, watching the menu, it felt to me like it was workshopped by servers who wanted to get their revenge on all the people that they waited on.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: But I do think that the idea of mental health in the restaurant world is a very real challenge right now and something that is finally, after way too many years, being addressed.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: You know, the nature of the work is long hours in the kitchens, in very trying physical environments, under a great deal of pressure when you're actually doing service, getting constant reviews, you know, minute by minute by diners.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: I mean, just like any job where you are pushing yourself and you're being pushed simultaneously. I mean, it's a pressure cooker.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: Cooking in a kitchen is a young person's game and especially at that level and you have to have the stamina the energy and in some ways the ability to absorb things that are injurious to yourself you know that kind of devil may care young person's attitude of just flinging yourself into something with your whole heart and soul.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: And then you grow up and you take your eyes off the plates and you look outside the windows of the restaurant and you see that there's a world.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: You know, some people want more balance. And I think all of the restaurant world is trying to figure out what that balance looks like and how to achieve it.
--:-- Evan Kleiman: It's a challenge.
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--:-- Noelle King: Today's episode was produced by Hari Mawagdi and edited by Matthew Collette.
--:-- Noelle King: It was fact-checked by Laura Bullard and engineered by Paul Robert Mouncey.
--:-- Noelle King: I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. Thank you.
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