In mid-February, with a certain yawning predictability, Michelin announced its stars for the year. Of the 22 new one-starred restaurants, only one was awarded to a female chef patron. According to the world's most respected restaurant auditors, of the many dozen female chefs leading restaurants across the UK and Ireland, only one woman could be recognised this year. 

That decision was as flawed as it was predictable. In the past four years, Michelin has been nothing but consistent in its near total disregard for the UK’s best female chefs: awarding only two stars to female chef patrons in that time.

However, this year, Michelin interspersed the awards with a now-infamous video about the importance of recognising female chefs. It’s been called an ‘embarrassment’ by chefs who once respected the opinions of these historic restaurant assessors; a ‘women can have it all’ cliché straight out of a 1980s deodorant ad. 

Days later, Jason Atherton was caught in the eye of a media storm: he’d been quoted as saying that he’d not witnessed sexism in his kitchens and that the worst of sexism in hospitality was over. If the Michelin awards were the gunpowder, Atherton’s archaic opinions were the touchpaper. 

A group of female chefs — dubbed ‘The 70’ — penned an open letter to The Telegraph and rallied to decry Atherton’s outdated take. Newspaper column inches were (rightly) dedicated to the chorus of voices sharing the very real and recent harassment that women continue to face in professional kitchens. 

But after the furore and the back and forth, the talk and the counter talk, where does the industry go next? As the wider hospitality industry cries out for progression and parity, the requirement to sing from the same hymn sheet has never been so imperative. 

But, what’s the song?

Articles over the past few weeks have talked at length about the need for ‘better representation’ and the need to do ‘more’, but what does ‘better representation’ and ‘more’ look like?

'What’s the next step? Well, that’s the 64 million dollar question,’ began Sally Abé, Chef Patron of The Pem in Westminster. Abé has become the standard bearer in this conversation. As a leading voice in the fight for gender parity in professional kitchens, Abé has championed a more equitable environment for all chefs.

‘We’re looking for systematic change, but that’s as a whole society: we can’t expect kitchens to change unless the country does,’ Abé continues, with her usual rebellious spirit. ‘The suffrage movement took 100 years to get women the vote, I don’t imagine [these changes] will happen overnight.'

A crucial next step for the industry must be male chefs not only recognising these issues but speaking out publicly against them; no mean feat when they exist within a system which benefits them either implicitly or explicitly. As Sally Abé notes, ‘It’s the same old story: the ones in positions of power don’t want to change. It’s how all privilege works, not just sexism.’ 

It’s a sentiment widely echoed in the industry. Men who work in powerful positions throughout hospitality have little-to-no incentive to progress or adapt a culture which has served them for generations. That being said, some are taking the first steps. 

Anna Tobias, chef patron of Café Deco, told us that the conversations of the past few weeks have led to ‘a willingness to publish responses and have real conversation — it feels slightly different this time.’ She continues, ‘What’s also felt positive on this occasion is the number of men who have been so supportive and thrown their hat in the ring.’ 

Tommy Banks, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Elliot Hashtroudi were among leading figures calling for change. Along with Chris Leach and Tom Kahir Browne, they countered Atherton’s claims of ignorance with their own accounts of witnessed sexism. 

First and foremost, argues Abé, respect is key, along with empowerment and rebalancing the gender split. ‘If someone is an employee, even if they make mistakes, they have a right to be treated like a human being. There’s pay, there’s hours, there’s holiday but that all comes from treating people with respect.’

Jess Filbey, Head Chef of Canteen in Notting Hill agrees, ‘I knew I wanted to build a kitchen that empowers women. We have ten women and four men here, so there’s a lot of women; we have a zero tolerance [sexism] policy in place and I feel very lucky that I’ve worked in some fabulous places.’ For Tobias, ‘It’s all about character and achieving a balance, 'We’re almost 50/50; we have [a couple] more women in the kitchen and on the floor we’re about even.’ 

On the gender split at Canteen, Filbey noted, ‘The implication here is clear: nurturing staff, recognising and calling out sexism and challenging the damaging behavioural norms which have seeped their way into kitchen life will result in a better and more equitable workplace — it’s a sad state of affairs that all these changes sound so obvious, yet often seem so far out of reach. 

In the family tree of restaurants, branches with progressive kitchen culture are minimal, but powerful. Many kitchens tend to breed the same level of vitriol and abuse from which they were forged — consider how Marco Pierre-White led to Gordon Ramsay and how Pierre Koffmann led to Jason Atherton — but there is opportunity for the reverse to also be true: for positive kitchens to breed positivity. 

Tobias recalls, ‘For me, my trajectory was Jeremy Lee then Ruth [Rogers] at the River Cafe, then Margot Henderson at Rochelle [Canteen]. I really looked up to them all and I want to inspire my team in the same way and be someone they feel proud to work for, backing your philosophy of kindness. There’s that hope that chefs take on some of this culture into their next place.’

Jess Filbey, head chef of Canteen in Notting Hill explains, ‘I feel very lucky that I’ve worked for [the likes of] Ruthie Rogers and Alice [Waters] at Chez Panisse and in my experience, the women in these kitchens are looking after each other, and making progress.’

The broad message is that in the coming years, the culture that Filbey, Tobias and Abé have created will filter into the future restaurant openings of their fledglings. 

While broad kitchen culture can be steadily improved through a greater number of new restaurants with higher standards, that change will happen slowly. For more immediate solutions, there needs to be immediate action. Conversations range from direct government oversight regulating gender equality, to organisations such as the Michelin Guide widening their accreditations to include the ethical treatment of staff. 

Abé agrees, ‘There should be some kind of accreditation to ensure that kitchens are an equitable place. This isn’t necessarily Michelin's job; the government could be the ones ensuring this. They check the food standards to make sure chefs aren’t poisoning people. In the same way all my chefs need a food safety certificate, why isn’t there some kind of certification about how we treat each other?' 

Tobias noted, ‘This is [now] the hard moment where suddenly mobilising and creating something for next steps is hard. There seems to be two aspects: one is huge promotion of women in hospitality, swerving tokenism, and for the women already in the industry to celebrate and normalise that success and achievement. The other aspect is promoting a better culture in hospitality, collating information and providing material or training that can help hospitality improve its ways and to help young chefs.’ 

It can be hard to think about how to address the lived inequality that exists as a result of generations of systemic inequality. But there are solutions to be found. 

Predicting what the future of in hospitality will look like is increasingly problematic when a changing political landscape seems to continually move the needle away from gender parity. But with recent calls for change gaining more traction and airtime than ever before, real progress feels not only essential, but within reach.