You're listening to Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly today with Yishan and Feifei.
Coming up.
We've all heard the story that to be truly great at something anything, you have to suffer for it.
That the people who reach the top only get there because someone pushed them past their limits, sometimes harshly and sometimes relentlessly.
But recent reports are making us question that old assumption.
So when does high pressure come into harm or cross into harm?
And is pain actually the secret to excellence or just an excuse that we've accepted for way too long?
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And now, what does it actually take to be the best?
It's a question we've been asking for centuries, it seems, and for just as long we've accepted a pretty brutal answer that greatness requires suffering.
That the people at the very top got there because someone pushed them, sometimes screamed at them, sometimes broke them down in order to build them back up.
But recent reports are forcing us to look at the assumption differently.
One from the world of elite restaurants, the other from college sports.
And together they raise a pretty uncomfortable question.
When does encouragement become abuse?
And is cruelty actually necessary to become great at something?
We'll start with the world of food and elite restaurants.
The chef in question, his name is Rene Redzepi, and his restaurant was called Noma.
First, let's learn about that.
Yeah, so Rene Redzepi himself is a Danish chef.
He's quite famous internationally because of his restaurant called Noma.
I think probably some of our listeners have heard about this restaurant as well, because it was voted the best restaurant in the world five times.
It also became the North Star of gastronomy, especially for new Nordic cuisine.
So it has a lot of foraging fermentation, hyper-seasoning and almost I think for a lot of patrons out there it became almost a religious thing approach to a lot of ingredients coming from that region.
For many years Noma, that restaurant was the place where, young chefs, they would dream of working there.
They would dream of working for Rene Redzepi.
I know who he is.
I don't know him, but I know who he is because for many years I've watched a lot of food documentaries.
I like food TV shows like the high end restaurants, but also the street food stuff.
And from what I learned is that he is almost.
No, I wouldn't say almost.
He is obsessed with.
With the quality of his dishes, he's obsessed with presentation.
Like you said, his restaurant won best restaurant in the world.
In the world.
Five times.
Five times over.
Wow.
I've seen him in documentaries and TV shows before.
He's very serious about what he does for a living.
And now we will know that a lot of pressure was on him to maintain that image and he took it out on people in a terrible way.
Because recently the mountaintop that was Rene Redzepi, the mountaintop that was Noma started to crumble.
Yeah, that comes from reports published on some.
They have some major investigation based on interviews with 35 former employees who worked at Roma between 2009 and 2017.
This was a report that came out from the New York Times, and it was published very recently, on the 7th of March of this year.
Yeah.
And that report these kind of reports, detailed a lot of allegations of physical violence, like punching them, like jabbing them with kitchen tools, slamming them against walls.
And they're also they describe a lot of psychological abuse as well, like public humility.
Basically they said Red Zippy out.
There is built a culture of fear that enforced through threats of blacklisting.
For example, saying that if you cross the chef, your career in fine dining could be over before it even started.
Yeah.
I think among the Chinese audiences for shows in this genre.
Perhaps Hell's Kitchen is a better show, a program.
Gordon Ramsay.
Gordon Ramsay, yeah.
We kind of enjoy that show because of the fact of the verbal side of it, how it's presented and how
Anger is turning food ingredients into really delicate dishes that fits a very high standard.
But I also learned from back in the scene and on other shows alike, Gordon Ramsay is not really that kind of a person.
It's mainly for the show.
But here with Chef Rene's case, it's the opposite.
It's the opposite.
And, by the way, I don't want to spend all of our time talking about what's going on with Noma and with Renee Redzepi.
I just want to talk about a couple of different cases and then talk about this topic in general.
Prior to the New York Times report, there was a former Noma employee.
His name was Jason Ignacio White.
And what he was doing was he was gathering anonymous testimonies on his Instagram account called Noma Abuse.
And it brought renewed public attention to the issue.
Now, the investigation was published.
Only days before, Rene Rezepi was to open an LA, a Los Angeles residency restaurant for Noma.
It was going to be super expensive.
$1,500 a person, what's that, about 7,000 yuan?
Yes, almost one person's whole month of salary.
Yeah, crazy expensive, right?
And then this report came out and then he stepped away.
He admitted, by the way, that the shouting culture that he helped build was a type of bullying.
He confessed to being a bully who created an atmosphere of fear.
He admitted to some of the things that he was being accused of.
Now that's the restaurant example.
There's another example, too, from college athletics.
It's about basketball players in America.
Yeah, this one centers on Marta Gallick and Maria Gallick, who are twin sisters from Croatia who came to the US to play college basketball at the University of San Francisco all the way back in 2018.
So what happened is that both of them played on the women's basketball team under the same coach, Molly Gutenberg.
And it's kind of funny go bad very quickly that they later filed a lawsuit accusing their coach under the following terms because they have been reported being treated badly, being verbally and psychologically berated during practices, being forced to play through injuries, making those injuries even worse afterwards, having concerns ignored when they try to report the behavior.
So basically these two athletes are being treated very badly.
Yeah, and that ended up going to court.
So these two reports I mean that was years ago, by the way that that started and I think it went on to like 2023, 2024 carrying through the court system.
But this is what I wanted to discuss. those chefs, again, it was the dream to work at Noma.
And I chatted amongst a few of us before the show about this type of behavior within the restaurant industry.
In Western culture this is kind of well-known and almost accepted and almost viewed as a form of entertainment.
You mentioned hell's kitchen, the popular television show, as one example.
There's another example of a tv show called the bear.
Yeah, the bear, i'm thinking about that too.
Yep, and i saw quotes from chefs saying watching the bear was triggering for them because it was too realistic.
I Which is what they wanted to do with that show.
And if you're not familiar with The Bear, it's about a chef who was abused by a master chef to the point where he can't function properly in his own restaurant because of the damage that was done to him by the master chef.
Yeah, the same thing can also happen in Hell's Kitchen where young chefs just crumble.
If you follow, I watch every season of Hell's Kitchen.
I love it.
Yeah, me too.
If you watched every season, I think you would notice Gordon Ramsay in the beginning seasons of Hell's Kitchen, because it's on like season 24 or something now.
In the beginning seasons he was abusive.
He would insult them.
He would call them names.
He would scream at them.
Throwing things.
Yes, throwing food.
Smashing dishes sometimes.
Now, it's toned down from season to season.
That's my observation.
I'm not quoting any report there.
But he's a lot less mean than he used to be.
My point is that in the Western kind of kitchen culture, this is...
It's kind of well known and it's been accepted for a long time.
This is not a part of Chinese kitchen culture at all, correct?
Not that I'm aware of.
Because in our documentaries, especially when it comes to the back of the kitchen, it's always the master chef demonstrating how amiable they are able to become in training trainees.
Of course there's the stricter side, but it doesn't equal to any sort of chef culture that can be named shelling culture.
It's about you know how we really pay attention to the process of making a meal happen, and that it gathers a lot of the techniques and the flavors that we chose for this dish.
It's yeah, more on that side, instead of how verbal, how loud, how really dramatic it's happening behind the scenes in order to make this dish.
So I think the emphasis is a bit different and the culture is totally different.
Yeah, but what I think the similarity between, for example, in the Chinese kitchen with Western is that they are all working under stress and they're all very, very tired by the end of the day.
So maybe I think this is one of the reasons that this recipe chef from Noma is so onto the level of bullying is also because he's also under a lot of pressure.
You know, especially after you've been crowned five times as the world's best restaurant and possibly the world's best chefs, there is an expectation out there that you at least maintain the same level as before, if not exist exit.
But when it comes to these kind of stress, I think on some level is understandable that one person is also can tend to shout a lot.
Can um react over fiercely when he saw you know food that's been presented not to their standards up there?
The basketball example from the united states, the college example, was just one.
Yeah, there are other stories of this as well.
Um, That's restaurants and sports.
If you watched the movie Whiplash, this topic was covered again.
It's about a young jazz drummer.
It's an incredible film.
It's about a young jazz drummer who is at this elite school and his teacher is abusive.
Now, the question in the film is, and this is what I want to talk about now.
The question in that film is can he become the best jazz drummer in the world without that level of abuse?
In the movie, the teacher, he threw a chair at him at one point.
Can these chefs so that's from that film in real life?
Can those chefs at Noma become the best in the world if they are not treated?
And I'm not talking about being shoved up against the wall or being jabbed with kitchen utensils, which is also documented.
That's physical abuse, right?
I'm sure Rene Redzepi would say, I was just trying to make them the best version of themselves.
So this is what I want to discuss.
Tiger Woods.
The golfer.
One of the most famous golfers.
One of the best golfers in the history of this planet.
Well known when he was a kid.
His father was tough on him.
Michael Jackson.
There's so many examples, right?
And also Lang Lang, the pianist.
He was also, I think when he recalled his experience of learning piano, he also went through a lot of suffering, with a lot of pressures, coming from his father in particular.
And so I think, generally speaking if we're not only talking about these two cases in particular I would say that if you are really looking for something good, something extraordinary, that you want to be the best of the best, it normally means you need to suffer.
You agree with this?
Yeah, I agree with it, because nothing would come.
You know, nothing meaningful, nothing great would come, that easy.
It's not like you snap a finger. the next minute the best food of the world arrives at your table.
It must go in through a tremendous effort of looking for the best ingredients out there you know cooking them, looking for the best temperatures, so on and so forth, to achieve that.
Okay, then let me ask you this question.
Why can't that be achieved without screaming...
And shouting and name calling and abusive types of behavior.
You see, not every top chef in the world, not every top musician or athlete in the world goes from this same mode of being built.
Not everybody is under the same pressure when it comes to become one of the best pianists in the world.
Me personally.
When I was like eight years old, I sat with among like 10 other kids in the class practicing violin.
My mom was among the parents who are very strict with me practicing at home.
But there are other types of mom.
For example, there was one girl standing practicing violin.
We were taking turns, of course.
And her mom just was very verbal and she slapped her like in front of everybody, in front of the teacher, in front of all the rest of us, to imply fear in the process that you have to do better and you are being punished for the fact that you are not.
Growing up under that kind of scene.
It makes me really think that, when it comes to education, we're really looking at how things are made easier for the kids to become what you expect them to be.
Through fear.
That's one way, if I'm allowed to say I don't have any kids.
But if I'm allowed to say this, I think that the harder and more violent, more verbal way is the easier way for the people in control, in this case the parents.
But when it comes to training them to become the best of what they can be, But in the other way around, with love, with patience, that comes with a lot more efforts than shouting at them, than implying violence and control over them.
That's my take.
Well, for me, I think it depends on the area that you are working on.
For example, in competitive sport or in the kitchen in dining industry.
They are already the coach themselves or the chef themselves, already under a lot of pressure.
So I think on some level we would be asking for too much.
That they first of all need to handle all the pressure.
They are the names that been putting out there, because if somebody, for example, this dish fail, that means Rene Rezepi failed.
And then so we are asking them to handle all this stress and, at the same time, be compassionate, be empathetic, encouraging.
What's wrong with that?
You think it's not possible for a human being?
To handle all this all together as well.
At the same time.
Asking for too much maybe.
Yes.
So that's why I think for a lot of, I'm not saying it's okay to bullying people, to creating this culture of fear so that you can exceed in this particular field.
But it's also...
I think it's something with the system itself that is pushing that person also to the level of you need to create that culture so that it's easier on you to produce something extraordinary.
I can tell Steve is not agreeing with both of us.
I don't, I don't know.
I grew up playing sports in Canada, ice hockey, right?
That's very competitive.
Very competitive.
The coaches were sometimes screaming, sometimes angry.
I didn't personally take any offense to that.
Because I don't remember being singled out in front of a group.
And that would be a whole different story, I think.
When the coach is yelling at a team, or if the head chef is yelling at the team of the chefs under him or her, then maybe
That's different to me.
To me, that's to me, that's different.
If somebody gets singled out in front of a group of people and gets verbally assaulted, I mean I forget physical.
Physical assault in any situation, in any industry, in any job.
No, that's not OK.
There's no doubt about that.
Part of me agrees with feifei that you kind of have to be, you kind of have to be pushed.
Let me give you a line from that whiplash film.
The teacher uh fletcher was his name.
This is the quote.
There are no two words in the english language more harmful than good job.
What does that mean?
It means harmful.
Yeah.
So what that means is, if I'm your teacher and I just say to you good job, that's not helping you at all.
Ah, I get that.
I'm actually hurting you, according to his theory.
So, according to him, rather than simply treating the person like a child and say well, you did a great job today, but there are a couple of things that we can work,
No, we're not doing that.
Here's what you did wrong.
Here's where you need to improve for me.
I think the biggest thing is that perception is reality.
And Rene Redzepi could argue that he was trying to get the best out of his chefs.
And that was his way, albeit a mistake or not.
College sports coaches would argue they're trying to get the best out of their athletes.
They're trying to prepare some of them to become professional athletes.
But their intent doesn't matter if it's not perceived in a loving or constructive or helpful way.
If those chefs don't perceive what Renee was doing as constructive, then they see it in a harmful way to their emotions and their confidence.
And if those athletes feel that the coaches were going too far... then they were going too far.
Because it's all down to the individual, right?
And I, as a young hockey player, I didn't take it bad.
But that doesn't mean my teammate didn't take it bad, right.
And now it's 2026, and I think that this topic needs to be addressed seriously, and it is being addressed seriously.
And the restaurant industry in America and around the world I think is going to see some major changes coming from.
And also, I think the singling out, you know, a point that Steve brought out really, you know, rings a bell with me is because I also had a math teacher that's, according to a lot of my classmates, was very, very abusive to a lot of students in his class.
Of course he was also trying to get the best out of us at Maths, but they refused to go back and meet him after graduation.
And they hated him.
But I didn't really feel that level of hatred towards him.
And I think the reason is precisely I was never singled out.
And also because every time he yelled at me or a bunch of my friends.
After we finished this part of argument, he would come back and start to sort of comforting us in another way, for example inviting us to ping pong or buying us some drinks.
And I think that would have freaked out.
I think that compliment supplement back to the fact that I was just psychologically or verbally abused by him.
And then he came back, even though he didn't really said I'm sorry directly.
But by, for example, buying us some drinks.
Inviting us to a ping pong game is another way of seeing softening things.
Yeah.
But I think in 2026, we need to change that.
The reply would have been, yeah, that doesn't make up for what you did already.
Precisely.
Times are changing and that's that's got to be seen as a good thing.
I could talk about this for another couple of hours, but we're out of time for Roundtable 4 today.
Thanks very much for sharing your time with us.
Thanks to Feifei and Yushan.
I'm Steve.
Have a good one, and come back again next time, please.
