Often, when we visit a restaurant, we don’t think too much about what goes on behind the scenes to get a plate of food to our table. Professional kitchens can often be stressful environments, and they remain one of the most heavily male workplaces at large. Sally Abé, one of London’s most seasoned head chefs, has revealed what a fine dining kitchen is like for the women who work there. She took some time with us to tell us all about A Woman’s Place is in the Kitchen and the work she is doing to make the hospitality industry a more inclusive place for everyone.
Please can you tell us what inspired you to write the book in the first place? Was there any specific event or experience that spurred you to write down your feelings and ideas?
My viewpoint on the hospitality industry and kitchens, in general, when it comes to the male-female split is something I’ve always been very vocal about. I’d never really put Pen To Paper until in 2022 I got approached by Little Brown (Sally’s publisher) about writing a book. They identified that there wasn’t anything in a female voice in the Memoir space especially in the UK. There are a couple of female chef memoirs in the US but to my knowledge, there’s nothing in the UK. I was working on a proposal for a cookbook at the time and I just jumped at this opportunity. It just seemed much more exciting.
A major theme in your book is the fact that while women are often designated as cooks in the home, they remain heavily underrepresented in professional fine dining kitchens – how did you reconcile the transformative power of cooking professionally with gendered expectations around cooking?
Professional kitchens are a very male-dominated environment and I think every female chef has been asked if they’re a pastry chef so often. There was a big article in an industry magazine a couple of weeks ago covering how delivery drivers and maintenance people will just walk into a kitchen and walk straight past us. They go to the nearest guy and ask for a signature or ask for the head chef or whoever it may be. I still find it fascinating that there is such a disparity between the kitchen at home versus in the big macho masculine area of a professional kitchen. I’m out to change that narrative and change that prejudiced disposition of what people think.
Given this is a large industry-wide issue, what is your personal insight into why women are so poorly represented in the field?
It is multifaceted but I think that when Michelin stars started to be given out and fine dining really started to blow up in the UK around the 80s and 90s kitchens had already historically been male-dominated environments. There are a few reasons, one of which I go into quite a lot in the book is that the organisation of a kitchen is based upon the army. There was a chef an army chef called Alexis Soyer in the 1800s who coined the way the kitchen works and then it was obviously taken on by other chefs and established modern kitchen culture.
I think one of the other biggest barriers that women have working in hospitality, certainly in kitchens, is motherhood. Kitchens have historically been incredibly difficult and run for long hours. Mothers need to be able to first of all be pregnant in an environment where they are comfortable. They then also have a small child and need to be able to breastfeed, which is hard in a professional kitchen. You obviously can’t work from home. Maternity packages have always historically been very very poor as well so I think that women tend to veer away from the idea of working in the kitchen if they want to be to be mothers. Sadly many kitchens can also be very toxic, so when women do try to work in them, instantly they don’t feel accepted and they don’t feel able to participate. They’re made to feel like an outsider and then they leave the industry. If you look at hospitality at the college level it is actually often a 50/50 split. Something happening between leaving college and going into the industry. They’re going somewhere, they’re just not coming into professional kitchens.
A recurring theme in your book is how, like most aspects of life, professional kitchens are made to suit male bodies (kitchens designed for taller people, uniforms usually being sized to fit average male builds etc). Do other chefs (male chefs) acknowledge this imbalance?
In the past, most women’s chef jackets only came with long sleeves so then you’d have to pay to have them shortened. The whole kitchen environment is just not set up for women to succeed. It’s mostly men that are there and they often think it doesn’t matter if it’s just an extra large jacket or it’s just an extra large glove or if you as a woman have to stand on a pot to reach something. It’s hard enough as it is working in a kitchen so then when you’ve got all these added obstacles before you’ve even started it is really difficult to succeed. They’ll then say ‘She can’t cope with the pressure’.
We just got a new kitchen put in in my restaurant last year and I was very very conscious of making sure that none of those things could come into play. Making sure that things are accessible to as many bodies as possible is important. That’s how we make it a more inclusive place to be.
In your book you talk about not questioning the gender imbalance in the kitchens you have worked in, what made you start to question this imbalance and what conclusions did you draw from your observations?
It built up slowly, when you’re in your early 20s you just sort of go with it and do what you’re told. It took me a while for it to dawn on me just how much harder I was having to work because I was a woman. At first, because I’ve never thought less of myself for being a woman, I never thought I might miss a promotion or have my skills doubted because I’m a woman. When I became a head chef the first time I started to think about it because it was the first time that I could make positive change, that’s when those things started to become more apparent.
You make a point to discuss diversity in the closing chapters of your book, outside of gender imbalance, how do kitchens measure up for people of colour and the LGBTQ+ community in your experience?
There is a competition called the National Chef of The Year and they announced the finalists recently, there’s 10 finalists and it’s 10 white guys. That is so fucking heartbreaking for me to see. I messaged them to say it’s not good enough. They said ‘Oh we didn’t have anyone else apply’ and I them, you have to go and find diverse talent. London is such a multicultural city but doesn’t transfer into kitchens at all. There’s a really amazing initiative that was set up by a lady called Lorraine Copes called Be Inclusive Hospitality. She does a lot of work and consultancy specifically around getting minority talent involved in hospitality. I mentor for them, I believe it is very important to encourage diversity in professional kitchens.
When it comes to queer people as well I’ve seen a lot of bullying. Men will use the word ‘gay’ as a negative, you have to really educate people as to why that is an issue. I would hazard a guess that maybe queer people are put off from working in kitchens for the same reasons that women are. In terms of fear of getting bullied and singled out. Some great chefs are queer such as Jeremy Lee, Pip Lacey and Selin Kiazim.
One of your key messages is that you can’t be what you can’t see, and you talk about other women in the hospitality field who have inspired you. What does it mean to now be a mentor and inspiration to other women? How does this impact how you manage and develop young talent in the industry?
If I do say to myself it was quite a brave move for me to write this book because I’m sure that there are people that think that I should just shut up and be quiet. It was important for me to do it because I could have done a book like it when I was growing up as a chef. I’ve had hundreds of messages from men and women thanking me for writing it and saying they’ve had similar experiences.
When it comes to my team I live by my own rules. I practice what I preach and my kitchen is a very lovely, friendly, and inclusive place to work. I’ll give women applicants a chance too, they might not be the strongest chefs but I’ll always take them in for an interview. I do the same for chefs of other minorities as well. I’ll always give them the interview because one of the things that I say a lot is, you can teach skills but you can’t teach someone not to be a dick. Especially at the junior level I hire based on attitude, knowing I can teach the skills someone needs.
Along these lines, what is some advice you would give to women who want to follow in your footsteps and become chefs?
The biggest piece of advice is to find the restaurant that’s right for you. Do lots and lots of trials and then suss them all up and ask lots and lots of questions. Ask them what the pay is, ask them what the holiday pay is, ask what the maternity package is, ask them how many hours you’ll be working in a week, ask them how many breaks you get a day. All of this stuff this stuff that I had never asked and it’s totally valid to ask those questions. Then you can make an informed decision.
Significantly in your book you touch on the high prevalence of substance abuse issues amongst chefs, can you speak to how frequent this is and how the industry can combat the high prevalence of staff turning to drugs and drinking?
A lot of the time people in hospitality use alcohol and drugs as a release. Don’t put somebody under such pressure that they need that release, then they’re less likely to go out at the end of a service and get wasted. People needing to have a drink to be able to wind down from the day or forget what they’ve been treated like during the day is not okay. People should be able to finish to shift at work and go home, not constantly replaying all the shouting and screaming that’s been happening throughout the day.
Some people use drugs to be able to get through the day, but that shouldn’t be necessary. It all comes down to working conditions, when people work 16-18 hour days, they’re expected to finish work at midnight and then be back again at seven or eight o’clock the next morning. It’s no wonder that some people do turn to substances to bridge that gap of where energy is going to come from.
You also discuss how you and other chefs face anxiety and depression due to the stress of the environment, within reason, how can this be mitigated within the kitchen environment?
My anxiety started when I was a head chef for the first time. The kitchen environment is always going to be stressful but anxiety shouldn’t be as common as it is. There’s a lot more awareness around mental health issues now and there’s a lot more help available out there than there ever has been before. There are quite a lot of groups in hospitality like the Burnt Chef Project who offer mental health support for free. For head chefs, it’s important to recognise the warning signs such as a change in your behaviour. I can’t give specialist advice but I can point someone in the direction of where they can access professional support.
You state that confidence and imposter syndrome are the biggest barriers for women in the culinary field. How do you overcome confidence issues yourself?
Therapy. I don’t know whether we’d be sitting here having this conversation today without therapy. It was the main thing that helped me realign my brain to understand why I was feeling the way I was feeling. I still struggle with Imposter syndrome now and then, and so do a lot of other female chefs that I know. It’s been important having the tools to be able to hit that Imposter syndrome on the head and be like ‘No get back and your box, I meant to be here and deserve to be here. I’ve worked really hard.’
Your restaurant, The Pem, is named to honour Emily Wilding Davidson, the Suffragette. What made you decide to name your restaurant this way? Pem was a nickname used by Emily’s friends and family.
When naming the restaurant the suffragettes came to the front of my mind because the restaurant is in Westminster, so obviously it’s in the political hub of the UK. I know the suffragettes have had a major impact when it comes to politics. They did something that nobody had done before and what they did was really important. I’m forever grateful to them for that, they were actually incredibly militant and they did actually blow shit up. Had they not gone to those lengths then we would never have got the vote. You know Winston Churchill voted against women’s suffrage eight times, and everybody thinks he’s a hero. Having those strong political links, it seemed very appropriate to dedicate the name to somebody like Emily.
You have since used the space as a hosting location for panels about women in hospitality, what led to your decision to do this? What are the plans for the future?
When we opened The Pem I wanted to do what I do on a day-to-day basis, but go beyond just my regular role. International Women’s Day is very poignant and significant, so I wanted to do an event to encourage women to network and come together. Society pits women against each other and encourages them to fight essentially, as a result, women aren’t brought up to empower each other and to stand up for each other. I want to make these events safe spaces for women to meet and to be able to get to know each other. To build a network essentially.
Can you tell us about your journey with feminism?
First of all, I am an intersectional feminist. I’ve always had a very strong feeling that women could do anything. I’ve seen the disparities over the years. Growing up I didn’t like the way the girls were treated, being given dolls when I wanted to be outside and I wanted to play the mud. Gender is just a social construct, to begin with, so when we force each other into these narrow boxes we limit ourselves. My mum is a very strong feminist as well, and she’s always said my sister and I can do anything we put our minds to. I’ve never had any doubts in that matter.
I suppose it was probably in my late 20s I started thinking about and researching feminism. I got married quite young and I think that expectation of when I was going to have kids spurred me to question things. I don’t want kids, I’ve never wanted kids. Having that expectation placed on you and having people getting upset when you tell them ‘No I don’t want kids’ was a major point for me. I started to buy books and literature about feminism and explored it. The more and more you read, the more and more angry you get because you see how skewed the world is toward men.
For some fun questions, can you tell us your favourite things to cook and your biggest points of inspiration when developing new menus?
I really love cooking Thai food at home, it’s just so fresh and delicious! I love spice, I visited Bangkok a few years ago and it totally blew my mind.
Seasonality is very very important to me and I try and use that as much British produce as possible. I’d say probably around 90% of the stuff on our menu is from the UK. My two big pillars in terms of creating the menu are seasonality and highlighting British produce. I think when you’re looking at the menu as a whole it’s important to have variation too. I think sometimes chefs fall into the trap of getting obsessed with a particular ingredient or particular cooking style and then you look at the menu and lots of the dishes seem like a similar theme. If there are five very different dishes on a menu I think it makes it easier to pick.
One time I was in the walk-in fridge and I was bending down to get something. My sous chef reached over me to get a bucket of eggs that had been cracked, he missed pulling it down and he dropped basically a hundred eggs all over me. Eggs soaked me to the point I had to go home and get changed.
A Woman’s Place is in the Kitchen is available now here and where books are sold. Check out Sally Abe on social media here: Instagram, Twitter and dine at her restaurant The Pem here.
