This week saw the crescendo of some wildly disturbing chatter, where the women of restaurants started to rise up and use their voices against sexism and sexual assaults in the industry.
Firstly, the 2025 Michelin Guide came out, with a very poor show for female chefs everywhere. A week later, when asked if he “saw sexism” in the food world, chef Jason Atherton told a journalist: “I think there’s too much on the negative side of our industry, rather than what’s great, like you can be any gender now and flourish”. He added: “It’s fully accepted that we’ve banished the past and we’ve moved on. The more we talk about the past, the more we hang onto it”.
The internet erupted and so did a WhatsApp group started by chefs Dara Klein and Sally Abe, which is dedicated to supporting women in the industry. Restaurant writer Jo Taylor helped the group of 70 women chefs pen a letter to the industry explaining the vast majority of women have felt sexism, been bullied or sexually abused during their experiences in kitchens or front of house.
It makes me conscious of my own experience and the fact is that the men I worked alongside in kitchens were great – they were chivalrous, shared their knowledge and helped me with the things that I found difficult physically, like lifting massive pots of stock or 20kg bags of rice.
I felt secure in my role and skills and earnt my nickname “The Assassin”, for my knife skills and how I took to butchery. I have never felt any sexism or had anything inappropriate happen when I was working in restaurants.
I’ve been incredibly lucky that I’ve worked at restaurants with very good ethics. I’m also 5ft 10in and probably the gobbiest person in the room – I don’t shut up and I’m probably grosser than most of the boys, jumping in before anyone could say anything to me. It’s an exceedingly annoying habit, but it does seem to have protected me.
The celebrity chef circuit and business, on the other hand, have been a horror story.
When I became a restaurant owner, things changed. Every time I tried to use my voice, I was told I was “wailing like a banshee”, “hysterical”, “losing my head”. I was regularly asked if I was “on the blob”? I was made to feel like a little girl who had been naughty and emotional, I was told I was “silly”. This became the reputation I had to live with.
I’m the first to admit that I’m hot-headed. I lost a job because I lost my temper on the pass – behaviour I saw male chefs get away with every day. That doesn’t excuse my behaviour but I was treated differently because I was a woman.
Media was the worst though.
I’ve always struggled with questions about me being a female chef. Sure – I am one, and I’m incredibly proud of the fact, but when your whole career gets diminished to that, it gets annoying pretty quickly. I was constantly asked about whether I was married and had children, and compared to Nigella Lawson, who I adore but who has a completely different career to mine.
One of my great friends who’s a famous chef applauded me wearing a chef’s jacket at an event I was working on the other day, because I think he sees me as a media cook, even though I’ve been cheffing longer than him. I love him, he didn’t mean it, but the message was: I’m just a woman so therefore I am a cook and not a chef.
On one live TV show an older chef told me I was a very good listener, thinking I was just the presenter and not his peer. I didn’t say anything – I just seethed.
The professional undermining was one thing – but the sexual harassment another.
In the celebrity chef world there are two types of male chefs. The ones who have families and are devoted to them, and the ones who have families and run around like dogs with two dicks. I was absolutely treated inappropriately by these man-children. Groping and inappropriate text messaging was rife. I have been sent so many dick pics from famous chefs I’ve become immune to them.
Some chefs had such bad reputations that production teams would warn me not to be alone in the room with them.
The culture is changing and I guess Atherton is right about that, but he needs to understand that it is not his place to speak for female chefs everywhere and in doing so it diminishes all the individual plights of the women who have been abused. Kitchens will only ever be equal when more women are in senior roles and opened up to the possibility of Michelin stars.
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