So I can't speak for the practices at Noma, but I used to work fine dining (front of house) for an upscale restaurant group based out of NY. There was a young m

So I can't speak for the practices at Noma, but I used to work fine dining (front of house) for an upscale restaurant group based out of NY. There was a young man who started working prep / Garde Manger when he was around 15. He was a great worker, got put on the line, and around his 19-20 birthday the restaurant owner sat him down and asked him his goals. No idea the conversation, but it must have gone well because a week later he was on a plane to England to staj at The Fat Duck (three Michelin star, at time one of the top if not the top restaurant in the world). Not sure of the deal entirely, but my impression was his plane, lodging, and food (when he wasn't eating at the restaurant) was all paid for by our restaurant group. Probably a small stipend as well as he didn't come from money and had minimal means. I think if we look historically, this sort of arrangement was a lot more common in the past. The top restaurants and chefs would sort of send their talent to other places to pick up new techniques. It was very much a rite of passage. Now it seems like everything, our late stage capitalism has bastardized it into more of a sweatshop mentality. Instead we have swarms of individuals out of cooking school sending their resume off to all the top restaurants. Chefs can then offer them unpaid internships with the promise 1 out of 20 may get a paying job if they are good. If anyone complains then there is another 100 resumes to choose from. Sad...