Copenhagen’s famed Noma restaurant to reopen without founder Redzepi at helm

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Denmark’s iconic Noma restaurant is set to reopen on Aug. 5 with neither its founder and celebrity chef René Redzepi at the helm nor its three stars in the Michelin Guide.

Redzepi announced he would “step away” from leading the Copenhagen institution in March following allegations of abuse and assault there, many from more than a decade ago. During his 23 years at Noma, the restaurant collected numerous international accolades, topping the World’s 50 Best Restaurants List five times for its innovative “New Nordic” cuisine.

But five months after Redzepi's public downfall, Noma says it is beginning a “new chapter” with longtime chefs taking charge and a menu that will change monthly to focus even more on the seasonality of ingredients.

“It’s been crazy tough,” new executive head chef Pablo Soto said in an interview Tuesday. “There’s been a lot of media attention and questions about what we’re doing, but we’re still here standing.”

Redzepi, arguably the world’s top chef, had for years been dogged by reports of mistreatment of his staff, as well as his yearslong use of unpaid interns to staff the pricey restaurant. Criticism came to a head just days before the opening of a Noma pop-up in Los Angeles, and an article in The New York Times detailed several former employees’ accounts ranging from verbal abuse to physical assault at the hands of Redzepi and his deputies between 2009 and 2017.

Redzepi, 48, later apologized and announced his intention to “step away” in a tearful video posted to the restaurant’s Instagram page. The restaurant declined to make Redzepi, who is now in a creative director role, available for an interview. In an Instagram video he said he was excited to see “fresh energy” come into the restaurant.

Aside from Redzepi in the open kitchen, another notable absence next week will be the restaurant's three Michelin stars. The third was awarded in 2021. In May, the restaurant said it would not be part of this year’s Michelin Guide, saying it didn't meet the guide’s requirements for being open long enough in 2026.

The Copenhagen location shuttered in January ahead of the Los Angeles pop-up and remained closed for much of the year.

Tom Sietsema, food correspondent for Washington-based news organization NOTUS, believes that Noma’s dedication to innovation and reinvention since its 2003 opening will help it weather the fallout — if its founder stays in the background.

“For years it’s been the number one restaurant in the world,” he said. “And that suddenly doesn’t just vanish. I think this is a rough time for the restaurant, but people are still curious about it. People will go just to see, ‘oh, is it really as bad or as good as people say it is,’ right? I expect it to remain in the conversation for years to come.”

Soto said the restaurant is almost fully booked for its first three months, up until the end of October. Guests will pay a set price of 4,500 Danish krone (about $686 USD) per head for the menu, with 2,000 krone ($305) extra for wine pairing.

Soto said the restaurant conducted an internal audit, and there are “many systems in place” to make sure staff are happy and “can grow.”

“We’ve gone through a period of crisis,” he said. “This means we need to be much more attentive to each individual.”

Noma, a contraction of the Danish words for Nordic and food, opened in 2003 dedicated to “a simple desire to rediscover wild local ingredients by foraging and to follow the seasons.”

While previous offerings were shaped around three distinct seasons, the reopening will see chefs embrace constant change in the menu.

“In this new iteration of Noma, we are opening up our creative process to a new seasonal rhythm,” the restaurant's website says. "This is the 12 seasons of Noma. We are building a continuous flow of creative output, evolving from month to month as the year unfolds. Each month will carry its own distinct seasonal rhythm, shaped by subtle shifts in ingredients, weather and landscape.”

During a visit to the Copenhagen restaurant on Tuesday, chefs practiced preparing pike perch, brown crab, shrimp, and mushrooms in Noma’s open kitchen.

Mette Brink Søberg, the head of research and development, delicately topped a berry gazpacho dish with colorful flower petals, recently plucked from the nearby garden, in the test kitchen.

“We feel that now we’ve done this for so many years, we’ve really become experts in all the flavors, the techniques, the concepts,” Brink Søberg said. “I think we’re ready to take one step further.”

Redzepi’s fall from grace was hailed by some as a reckoning over when “brigade de cuisine” becomes abuse, and whether the time is up on the storied bullying and intimidation of fine-dining kitchen culture.

Sietsema said he's noticed restaurateurs and chefs focusing more on how their staffs are treated and paid to get buy-in from the ground up. They are reevaluating the conditions in their kitchens, as well as rethinking time-off allowances so that staff might get two or three days at home in a row. Noma started fully paying interns in 2022.

“All those little examples add up to a big change in the industry, I think,” he said. “People are really rethinking how they want to work, how hard they want to work, and I think it’s resulting in some better restaurants — better hospitality — overall.”

Dazio reported from Berlin.

Noma's head of R&D Mette Brink Soberg holds a new berry gazpacho dish topped with flower petals in fine-dining restaurant Noma's test kitchen in Copenhagen, Denmark Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/James Brooks)

A woman enters fine-dining restaurant Noma's cafe and shop in Copenhagen, Denmark Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/James Brooks)

A chef shows a new fish dish in fine-dining restaurant Noma's kitchen ahead of its new season in Copenhagen, Denmark, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/James Brooks)

Chefs busily practice making dishes in fine-dining restaurant Noma's kitchen ahead of its new season in Copenhagen, Denmark Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/James Brooks)

A chef prepares a new fish dish in fine-dining restaurant Noma's kitchen ahead of its new season in Copenhagen, Denmark Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/James Brooks)

LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — An uncontained wildfire four times the size of Paris threatened to surge again in southwest France on Wednesday — as three firefighters died in Greece and crews across southern Europe confronted a punishing mix of heat, drought and strong winds.

The deaths on Crete brought a fatal new dimension to a wildfire emergency stretching from the Atlantic coast to the eastern Mediterranean. At the peak of the evacuations, a third of a million people were driven from homes and vacation sites in France and Spain.

In France’s Gironde region, the country’s biggest blaze had not spread during a calm night, authorities said. But as temperatures approached 40 C (104 F) Wednesday afternoon and winds strengthened, the reprieve threatened to be short-lived.

The landscape was so combustible that investigators believe routine brush-clearing work near a high-voltage line may have sparked the inferno, even though the work appeared to comply with regulations.

At the command center in Lège, firefighters bent over maps spread across a car hood, tracking three danger zones: northern Cap-Ferret; the wooded corridor around Marcheprime, Cestas and Saint-Jean-d’Illac; and a military site near Martignas, where a major outbreak forced a large deployment.

More than 2,200 firefighters and over 20 aircraft remained mobilized, backed by crews from across France and European partners.

“We strike quickly and strike hard at any new smoke emissions,” Gironde fire commander Matthieu Jomain said.

Beyond the command center, civilians were trying to hold the line themselves. At Souge, volunteers flooded the edges of dirt tracks while a local digger driver plowed through still-burning soil, trying to keep flames from crossing back when the expected west wind arrived. In Lacanau, residents pumped water from a lake into tanks headed for hot spots and firefighters’ cisterns.

“If one day the fire starts in our neck of the woods, I know very well that all the people here would do the same for us,” said Flavien Dubuch, 33, who drove from Saint-Émilion with his father to help.

The advance of major fires in the Landes and Var regions has been halted. That left Gironde as France’s biggest remaining wildfire battle, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said.

The Gironde fire forced 220,000 people to flee at the peak of the crisis. Tens of thousands have since been allowed home, but authorities warned that the danger had not passed.

Extreme heat strips moisture from vegetation and drives down humidity, turning grasses, brush and forest litter into faster-burning fuel.

Investigators believe contractors working near a high-voltage line for power-grid operator Enedis ignited the blaze while using a brush-cutting machine, Bordeaux prosecutor Renaud Gaudeul said.

Météo-France said Wednesday would be the hottest and driest day of the week, with elevated wildfire danger across every region of France. Drought now covers mainland France and Corsica, with soils nearing the record dryness reached in August 2022.

Smoke from the Gironde and Landes fires also pushed particulate pollution higher across both departments, regional air-quality monitors said.

Gironde authorities ordered 4,000 more people out of tourist sites along the Atlantic coast on Tuesday, widening what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation.

“The situation remains complicated. That’s clear. We’re not out of the woods,” said Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas, who also authorized 60,000 evacuees to return to three Bordeaux suburbs untouched by fire.

The opposing movements — thousands ordered out of coastal resorts as others returned with mobile phones on and emergency bags packed — captured how precarious the situation remains.

The disruption was spreading beyond the burn zone into Bordeaux’s peak tourism season.

Edouard le Grix de la Salle, who runs Château du Grand Verdus with his brother, said official appeals to avoid the region threatened its wine-tourism trade. “How did they not think about protecting that sector?” he told The Associated Press.

At one point the Gironde blaze created a black thundercloud, electrified and lit from within, that generated lightning, violent winds and new fires beyond the original front. The pyrocumulonimbus was the first recorded in France.

Two firefighters died Wednesday while battling a wildfire in the Rethymno region of Crete, Greece’s fire department said. They were among about 125 firefighters confronting flames fanned by strong winds, with four helicopters and four water-dropping planes deployed.

The circumstances of their deaths were not immediately clear. The department said they died “in the line of duty to protect the lives and property of citizens and the natural environment.”

A third firefighter also died Wednesday outside the fire perimeter, after tackling a separate blaze in Greece’s southern Peloponnese region.

At the height of the crisis, roughly 330,000 people were driven from homes and vacation sites across France and Spain.

Tens of thousands of people began returning home in central Spain after firefighters made progress around Madrid and Ávila. Evacuation orders were lifted for about 20,000 people in the Madrid region, while stay-at-home restrictions ended for another 14,000.

But 10,000 people remain under evacuation orders in Castellón, where a fire was still out of control as Spain braced for its fourth heat wave of the summer.

More than 1,160 square kilometers (448 square miles) have burned across France this year, according to the Interior Ministry.

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, warming at more than twice the global average, according to the European Union’s Copernicus climate service. Western Europe recorded its hottest June on record, with extreme heat and widespread dryness contributing to the spread and intensification of fires in France and Spain, Copernicus said.

Adamson reported from Paris. Elena Becatoros in Athens, Suman Naishadham in Madrid, Alex Turnbull in Souge, France, and John Leicester and Masha Macpherson in Paris contributed.

Wildfires advances near Le Proge region, western France, Thursday, July 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Caroline Blumberg)

A fire burns in a forest near Claouey, during wildfires in southwestern France, Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)

A car burned by a wildfire sits in Piedralaves, Ávila province, Spain, as the fire continues to spread, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Firefighters use controlled burning to halt a wildfire that continues to spread near Cebreros, Ávila province, Spain, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Firefighters battle a blaze outside Lanton, during wildfires in southwestern France, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)

A De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400 drops fire retardant over a forest near Saint-Jean-d'Illac, during wildfires in southwestern France, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)

Firefighters battle a blaze outside Lanton, during wildfires in southwestern France, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)