Would a sandwich shop forbid its staff from laughing in its pursuit of greatness? Maybe, but the fact that it probably isn’t striving for a spot on the 50 Best Restaurants list makes the possibility seem remote. That whole time, Hegde told New York Times reporter Julia Moskin, she was forbidden from either speaking or (especially) laughing in the kitchen. But imagine a pizza joint forcing an employee to spend three straight months tweezing dried jam into the shape of a beetle the way Noma did to intern Namrata Hegde.
That’s not to say that a great cheeseburger or gyro is artless or financially painless to produce.
