Women Chefs Chop to the Top

Back in the 1950s, British kitchen doyenne Fanny Cradock, was incensed by Raymond Oliver's views that women could not cook at the highest level, because they lacked the necessary discipline and self-confidence to be creative (no lack of old chestnuts on the menu there then). The theatrical prima donna, cooking in a ballgown ("only a slut needs an apron" she declared), held the French superstar TV chef and legendary owner of the 3 Michelin-starred Le Grand Vefour in Paris' Palais Royale to a draw in a cook-off in front of a large audience at the Cafe Royal in London. Fanny herself, however, was not herself a restauranteuse and it took another 50 years or so for a female UK chef to head a 3* Michelin kitchen - Clare Smyth, at the flagship restaurant of the far-from-mimsy Gordon Ramsay, no less. Ramsay also appointed the very-much-out-and-proud lesbian winner of 2012 Hell's Kitchen, Christina Wilson, as Head Chef of his
new venture Gordon Ramsay Steak at the Hotel Paris, Las Vegas. But
although 2011 saw a record 11 women holding head chef positions at Michelin starred restaurants in the UK, the overall scenario is of a male dominated profession - women hold less that 20% of the 187,000 chef posts. The Guardian illuminates. Raymond, btw, is no relation to Jamie, and yes, he did complain about the result.