Fine dining needs a therapist. Restaurants at the high end of the spectrum — ambitious chefs, multiple courses, impeccable service and prices that reflect all the effort — are having an understandable identity crisis. Getting to the top of the mountain takes a toll. Staying there can mean a world of pain.
Chef David Kinch closed his lauded Los Gatos, California, restaurant, Manresa, on Dec. 31, after 20 years and three Michelin stars. The work, he said, had been “backbreaking.” He’s ready to shift his attention to his bread bakery and two casual places.
Chef René Redzepi, who runs Copenhagen’s Noma, also a recipient of three Michelin stars and widely regarded as the best restaurant in the world, has announced that he will shut it down at the end of 2024. Serving customers at Noma’s stratospheric level is “unsustainable,” he said, amid criticism of the restaurant’s reliance on low-paid staff and unpaid interns. He’d rather oversee a laboratory kitchen and focus on e-commerce and the occasional pop-up.
