In some cultures, women were not allowed to cook food, and among eminent chefs, the percentage of women is lower. Unlike everyday life, where a woman is at the stove is a standard picture. Really, with all the love of the weaker sex for cooking, they have no place on the star Olympus?
In conservative France, chef Anne-Sophie Pic (Maison Pic) has won her third Michelin star.
Back in 1926, excellent cuisine began to be marked with an asterisk next to the name of the restaurant. In the early 30s, two more stars were added. Today, Michelin stars are distributed as follows:
* – a very good restaurant in its category,
** – excellent cuisine, for the sake of the restaurant it makes sense to make a slight deviation from the route,
*** – great job of a chef, it makes sense to take a separate trip here.
A little later, Rugu Dia, a young female chef, took over the cuisine of the Parisian caviar restaurant Petrossian. Women also became famous in the cuisines of Italy, Portugal and Britain. They run their own business, write books, participate in television programs.
In the 20s and late 40s, many women started to open small restaurants in and around Lyon. After the world wars, men considered working in the kitchen a hard labor, and it was the lot of women to set the tables.
The most famous of the “mothers of Lyons” were Eugenie Brasiere, Marie Bourgeois and Marguerite Bizet. They built a kitchen based on family traditions and carefully guarded the recipes inherited from their grandmothers. The dishes were dominated by game, as agriculture was still in decline.
The restaurants of all these women have won three Michelin stars, their owners published cookbooks and were very popular among the people of France.
Despite this history, today the restaurant business is still in strong male hands. They say that it is an unbearable burden for women to carry boilers and spend the whole day on their feet, preparing large volumes of blanks. And the atmosphere in the kitchen is often very “hot” – disputes, sorting out the relationship, a fast pace of work.
However, in spite of everything, the first restaurants opened by women began to appear – very small, since it was difficult to cook for a large number of visitors. One of these restaurants is owned by Italian Nadia Santini, who has won three stars for her brainchild, Dal Pescatore. She puts a piece of her soul into each dish – the traditional position of Italian cooks.
In Britain at this time, female television chefs were gaining popularity. The most famous among them is Delia Smith. In the 90s of the twentieth century, men appeared on the screen, but women quickly switched to professional cuisine.
Himself Gordon Ramsey, the legendary chef of Britain, said that “a woman cannot cook even under the threat of death.” Now a woman, Claire Smith, runs the kitchen at his main restaurant in London.
Another of his kitchens at the Verre restaurant in Dubai, until recently, was run by Angela Hartnett. She now lives in London and runs the Connaught Grill Room hotel restaurants, for which she has already earned her first Michelin star.
The most famous female chefs
Anne-Sophie Pic
Her grandfather was the founder of a small roadside inn by the sea, he served travelers who went on vacation to Nice. The dish that made Maison Rice famous was the crayfish gratin.
Ann-Sophie actually grew up in a restaurant. Every morning, she tasted the fish that was brought to the inn. Parents encouraged their daughter’s interest and did not interfere with her culinary education. Despite this, Ann-Sophie did not want to be a chef and chose the management profession. While she was studying in Paris and Japan, her grandfather won 3 Michelin stars, and her father continued the business. After a few years, Ann-Sophie realized that her real passion was cooking and returned home to study with her father. Unfortunately, her father soon died, and the girl had to withstand ridicule, because no one believed in her culinary success.
In 2007, she received a third Michelin star and became the only “three-star” female chef in France, as well as one of the twenty richest chefs in France.
Her specialties: sea bass meuniere with delicate onion jam, caramel-nut sauce made from local walnuts, yellow wine.
Helene Darroze
The heiress of her father’s hotel and restaurant in Villeneuve-de-Marsan in southeastern France, she, too, at first in every possible way rejected the parent’s case. After graduating from business college, Helene became the PR manager of Alan Ducasse, managed the staff of the Bureau restaurant. But then she decided to become a chef herself and returned home. A few months later, the father retired, and the daughter remained in the main
In 1995, the family hotel was named after her, and a year later she returned the Michelin star lost by her father to the establishment. Helene became Champerard’s Youngest Chef of the Year, moved to Paris, opened Helene Darroze (2 stars), and then went to London to run the Connaught’s restaurant.
Her signature dish: ratatouille.
Angela Hartnett
Angela loved to cook since childhood with her Italian grandmother, despite this, she graduated from the institute with a degree in modern history, after which she left to work in a restaurant on the island of Barbados. From Barbados, Angela came to work for Gordon Ramsay at Aubergine, and from there moved on to Marcus Wareng at L ‘, and then to Petrus.
Angela did not stop there: over time, she headed the Ramsey Verre in Dubai. Today she is set to open her own restaurant, Murano, while also heading the York & Albany gastropub.
Her specialty: royal hare with growth, own sauce and foie gras.
Claire Smith
This girl is not the heiress of restaurateurs and did not grow up in the kitchen. She had to prove her skill from the very bottom. A provincial from Northern Ireland, she read the biographies of great chefs to the holes. After leaving school, she fled to London and graduated from a culinary college. Soon she managed to make her way to an internship in the kitchen of Gordon Ramsay.
A few years later, Ramsay gave her an internship at Louis XV of Alan Ducasse. There, Claire, who did not know the language, had a hard time: she had to quickly learn speech and cooking to the ridicule of the cooks. Returning to Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant, a few years later Claire took over as a chef.
Her specialty is ravioli with lobster, salmon and langoustines.
Rose Gray & Ruth Rogers
Rose and Ruth are two middle-aged Ialyans who, in the 1980s, “lifted British cooking from the ruins.” Their restaurant, River Cafe, was planned as a dining room for an architectural office on the banks of the Thames. But because of the incredibly tasty cuisine, not only employees began to come here to dine.
Then the cafe was renovated, and it turned into an expensive restaurant with 120 seats with a summer terrace. Ruth and Rose have directed a series of television programs and written numerous cookbooks.
Elena Arzak
Elena runs the Arzhak restaurant in the city of San Sebastian. She grew up in a matriarchy setting and learned to cook in a restaurant from her mother and grandmother. The family restaurant was founded in 1897, and Elena started working there as a schoolgirl, peeling vegetables and washing salads.
In Arzhak’s stellar kitchen, six of the nine head chefs are women.
Her specialty: seafood from the French coast with seaweed in butter and miniature vegetables, light potato soup with herring caviar.
Frenchwoman Annie did not even think of becoming a chef until she married an Italian. Her husband, Giorgio Pinocchorri, opened a winery in an old Florentine palazzo in 1972, where people mostly drank wine and took part in tastings. Annie decided to serve snacks to the wine – canapes and sandwiches. Over time, the menu expanded, Annie began to be invited to television.
The chef was not given complex Italian dishes in any way, and she changed the recipes in the French manner, thereby inventing new author’s ones. The cross between French and Italian cuisines gave a stunning result: Annie was awarded Michelin stars.