"No one needs to get punched over food."
Is now a good time to tell my Noma story?
Good morning everyone.
I spent my weekend putting a dent into the “Yearning” programming on Criterion. Rachel Weisz’s hair in The Deep Blue Sea gave me a lot to think about, as I recently cut 9 inches off mine. On Friday, I also saw The Napa Boys, an absurdist comedy that I’d recommend to fans of David Wain movies. I spotted several moviegoers pregaming the movie with bottles of wine in the Angelika lobby. They have a decent bottle list.
In the middle of my mom’s surprise birthday dinner in Greenpoint on Saturday night, I got a text from J Lee: “Just wrote a thing about noma about to send it over.” Today in his column Expense Account, Jason remembers his first visit to Noma in 2015. He also tries to answer a bigger question: what happens to the restaurant in the wake of the New York Times exposé?
Today’s letter also includes: Goop Kitchen’s second New York City location (and Gwyneth’s IPO dreams), details on Rupert Murdoch’s 95th birthday cake, why Hamptons lobster roll prices are going up, and the Substack ghostwriter making over $100k.
Is now a good time to tell my Noma story? By J Lee.
Expense Account is a series on Feed Me by semi-anonymous restaurant critic J Lee. He hosts a podcast with the same name. Today, he reflects on his first time at Noma in the wake of a New York Times exposé that revealed a kitchen filled with blood, sweat, and abuse.
I once tried walking in at Noma. No reservation. Dressed like shit. Red-eyed and completely stoned off of my ass. It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life.
It was 2015. I used to be an artist and I was installing a big show of my paintings and sculptures in Malmö. I had a day off, and my girlfriend (now wife) and I decided to take the train across the Sound to visit Copenhagen for the day. It was summer, and we had no agenda. We decided it might be fun to check out Christiania, Copenhagen’s little anarchist village. I rarely smoke weed, I’m not good at it. But when in Rome! We bought a pre-rolled joint and smoked the whole thing. To the face. We got fucked up. We had no plans. What do you do when you’re in Copenhagen? You go to Noma. So we did.
We walked from Christiania to Noma, which I’m learning as I write this was a 24-minute walk. In my memory it was hours. My legs felt heavy. I had to sit down a few times. As we walked along the water approaching Noma, I felt confident that I was about to have the best $400-per-person meal of my life. We walked in and spoke to the host. She asked if we had a reservation. We didn’t. She asked if we knew that you have to book months in advance. We did – of course we did – but surely cancellations happen, or maybe they save a few tables for lucky guests who are brave enough to ask, who love food and came all this way. She laughed in my face. No. Cancellations are exceedingly rare, and for when there is a cancellation, there is a lengthy waitlist. But maybe there is a bar where we could have a drink? No. Please come next time with a reservation. We must have looked so insane. So clearly and visibly stoned. Sweaty. I was wearing shorts. I doubt I even had enough money to have paid for that meal.
“I guess the first step is de-normalization. Toxic culture, and abuse in kitchens is so commonplace, that it’s often accepted as ‘part of the job,’ when it’s not. It shouldn’t be. No one needs to get punched over food, it’s not that serious. Food should never be that serious.”
I think about this moment constantly. Every time I walk into a restaurant without a reservation, this moment plays in my head, and my palms begin to sweat. The woman was polite, she was doing her job, but there is just something so humiliating about wanting to eat food, and being turned away. Shaking a tin cup, I felt like Oliver Twist: Please sir, may I have some more sea buckthorn. That’s my own issue.
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