Money blog: ‘They called me Tit Mouse’: Why are there so few women in top kitchens? | Money News

With Megan Harwood-Baynescost of living expert

During a busy lunch shift, when chef Sally Abe was asked to replace her male colleague cooking the old sirloin, the chef responded by pouring a pan of boiling oil into Abe’s hand.

The man claimed it was an accident, “something we all knew was a lie,” Sally wrote in her memoirs: A Woman’s Place is in the Kitchen.

The book lifts the metaphorical pot lid on what it is like to be a woman in male-dominated professional kitchens. The story he tells, with its 16-hour workdays, rare toilet and meal breaks, and a culture of not calling in sick unless you’re on your deathbed, is a brutal perspective on the hospitality industry.

The book explains why only 17% of professional chefs in the UK are women and only 8% of Michelin-starred restaurants are run by women. Despite the playground insult telling women and girls to “get back in the kitchen”, when they try to pursue this as a career they are faced with almost non-existent maternity leave, white chefs not being made for women’s bodies, and a culture of hyper-masculinity. .

Starting out at the Savoy Grill before moving on to Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant Claridge’s, Sally was often the only woman working behind the kitchen aisle. She was also the only woman (as far as he knew) working in the meat department at the latter.

It was often a “toxic work environment.”

“I think it’s quite shocking to people who have no idea what hospitality is like,” Sally told Money. “If you tell someone to fuck off in a normal office, you get fired.

“But that just happens every day in the kitchen.”

‘They named me Tit-rat’

His colleague’s attack was a rare moment when mental insults turned into physical insults.

“I think that person was a really terrible person, and luckily you don’t meet too many of those along the way,” says Sally.

However, the obstacles women face while working in professional kitchens are very common.

Sally was christened “Tit Mouse” by her male colleagues.

“There was no real explanation as to why. I was the only woman working in one of the best restaurants in the UK and I was surrounded by men: super masculine, super fast and holding back,” she wrote in her book.

‘My colleague told me to stay in the kitchen’

TV chef Judy Joo, who co-owns the popular Seoul Bird in London, has been suspended from the industry; He attended engineering school and later worked in finance before shifting his career to cooking. But working in these male-dominated industries prepared her for what was to come.

“During my internship at Bell Labs, I asked where the ladies’ room was on my first day and no one knew. I had to walk to another building where the auditorium was just to find the one room; it was crazy.” he tells Money.

Later, while working on the trading floor, she was the only female professional at her desk.

“I never doubted my ability to do this job, but it would be great to have more female role models,” she says. “Seeing women in leadership makes it easier to imagine yourself there.”

Sexism in the culinary world is “almost expected” and, as a result, “incredibly frustrating and insulting”, she says.

“Sometimes you don’t even realize it until later, and then you find yourself angry, wishing you had reacted differently in that moment. As women, people tend to second-guess our abilities, whereas men—especially a white male—do not face the same scrutiny for their experience or skills.” They won’t face it.”

Recently, a colleague was telling her to “stay in the kitchen.”

“He told me that ‘I have no business making business business decisions for my company.’ I’m the CEO!

“I have an engineering degree from Columbia University and worked for five years at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley before becoming chief. My business and financial education is probably more rigorous than his! This boldness… is so humiliating! He no longer works, at least with me.”

‘Where are all the women?’

Dipna Anand was born and raised in the kitchen; His grandfather opened the first Brilliant restaurant in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, in the 1950s. The Brilliant in Southall was founded in 1975 and is currently run by Dipna and her father. The restaurant was once declared the King’s favorite curry restaurant (by the man himself).

“I grew up behind the counter, trying to look over my shoulder and make myself useful while my family ran the restaurant,” he says. “My brother and I would stack the cans under the counter and wait for the customers to leave and set up the tables.”

He knew from a very young age that he wanted to be a chef.

“My parents would ask me what I was going to do, and I’d say I wanted to be a chef, but they’d say, ‘Don’t you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, or an accountant?’ “They would ask. In my culture, this was not considered a right thing,” he says.

When she first entered the industry, she says, she was “shocked” to see how many men there were: “Where are the women?”

She more than held her own for the most part, but cooking is physical work.

“I would need help carrying the onion box or masala and male chefs would be happy to help me. But that’s the only difference between me and the male chef.”

She says traditional gender roles still influence professional kitchens, especially in the Asian community, as they pose a barrier to long working hours, weekend work and late nights (she makes a point of asking her female colleagues how they will get home if their shift ends late at night).

“Even today, women have more responsibilities when it comes to family-work life balance, and it is difficult for them to choose between career and family,” she says.

Women ‘kept away from the heat’

Starting out as a commission chef in the banquet kitchens of the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, Neuza Leal rose to the role of executive chef at two restaurants in London.

She says female chefs are often pushed to work in pastry and salad departments “to get away from the heat.”

“They don’t think you’re strong enough, and you want to prove them wrong,” he says.

At the beginning of her career, a senior colleague told her: “You’re going to have to work harder than most people in the kitchen, just because of who you are, because you’re a woman, because you’re black, and because you’re young.”

Even now, the senior says, “people don’t assume I’m the head chef – they always go to my male colleague nearby”.

‘They want to talk to my wife, not me’

According to Anya Delport, the problems in the industry extend beyond the kitchen doors. The 34-year-old South African founded Interlude, a Michelin-starred restaurant in West Sussex, with her husband, an executive chef.

“One of the biggest things I encountered was customers reacting to me differently because I was a woman,” she told Money.

“There were times when I had to send some staff to tables because I thought guests would have a better experience.”

In some cases, clients request to speak to their spouse instead.

She recently lost her pastry chef, who moved to be closer to her husband: “I think society sometimes thinks that a woman’s career in a relationship is something that has to be sacrificed.”

But she is hopeful that things will change and more women will emerge in the industry: “You don’t have to conform to what society thinks you should be.

How Gordon Ramsay helped Sally overcome burnout

During her stay at Claridge’s, Sally was driven to the brink of burnout when Gordon Ramsay stepped in to seek therapy; it’s something he describes as “life-changing.”

He repaid this by creating his own employee assistance program while head chef at the Harwood Arms.

Sally now serves as executive chef at Pem, where the staff is female and only one chef is male.

“There is no ego, no one is competing and everyone just wants to do a good job,” he says.

“It’s not that hard, if you want, and I’m starting from the top. If you’re a respectful boss and you lead with love, guidance, and empowerment, then that just filters through. That’s probably easier to do than to stand around yelling at people all day.”

“I tried that and it was exhausting. When I went home at the end of the day, I felt like a terrible person.”

Like Sally, Judy is optimistic about the future: “We all need to help each other, lift each other up, and be advocates for each other. We will rise together. That’s so important. I attach great importance to mentoring; it’s so important.”