Over these past few weeks, as people have been stepping forward almost daily to expose perpetrators of sexual assault, conversations are returning to the same question: Where do we go from here? To those of us who work in food, it’s no surprise that a chef—in this case John Besh —was one of the accused: The restaurant world has long been known as a boys’ club, and an aggressive one at that. As Dirt Candy chef Amanda Cohen recently wrote for Esquire, “Women are second-class citizens in the restaurant world,” with less access to investors, less press coverage, and fewer awards.
So how can we use this moment to move forward, and who is going to lead that charge? We asked three restaurant chefs and owners to weigh in: Gabriela Cámara, the chef-owner of Contramar in Mexico City and Cala in San Francisco, De Maria chef Camille Becerra in NYC, and pastry chef Pam Yung, who has been baking her way around the world since she left NYC’s Semilla last winter. After schedule-wrangling across time zones from Tasmania to San Francisco, we talked for over an hour about the cost of being outspoken, the Trump effect, what happens when women turn against each other in the kitchen, and how we can start to make a change.
– Christine Muhlke, Bon Appétit editor at large
Christine Muhlke: What did you think when the Besh story hit?
Camille Becerra: I felt a certain relief that people are starting to be vocal about the injustice that they have to go through in order to work for well-known chefs. When you have to undergo sexual harassment or people forcing themselves on you sexually, you don't want to say anything because you don't necessarily feel supported. It's reassuring that people are coming out about their experiences with certain chefs and being acknowledged.
Gabriela Cámara: I’m just waiting to see what others come out. We knew for so long, but nobody was saying it. I really think it’s the Trump effect. I think what happened to all of us is that, when Trump actually did become the president, it was so surprising, and it was so horrible, and it was so threatening. We kind of let it happen, all of us, because we never thought it actually would happen. But I think, now, it’s become fundamental to say more, because you know how bad it can be if you don’t. It’s like we’re saying out loud what we can’t say to him.
Muhlke: What are some of the things that you can’t believe that you still have to put up with from men at work?
Becerra: I’ve been accosted in the walk-in, and someone once showed me their erect penis. It goes on and on. I’ve had passes made at me by big New York City restaurant chef-owners, and they’re married.
Pam Yung: I can’t believe I still have to deal with huge egos, stemming from deep insecurities because a woman is better at something or perceived as receiving more attention. Not being able to take direction from a woman. Hazing and bullying. Insistence on cooking “dude food” for staff meal, the “bro” attitude.
Muhlke: Are things better now than when you first started in restaurant kitchens?
Becerra: When I first started cooking, it was very much all male. But, I think, more and more it’s becoming an equal environment where you see a lot more women in the kitchen, and a lot more women leading kitchens. So, in that respect, it’s really positive. But there is still that current of male-run restaurants and male-invested restaurants, and it still creates an environment where it’s very hard for women to actually do their job in a nurturing environment.
Yung: Eleven years ago, when I was just starting in kitchens, it seemed as if all the men saw you as fresh meat—literally. As a young cook, you’re kind of an easy target. Your role models are often the ones that end up putting you in compromising positions—because they can, and you want to make it so badly. When you’re young and naïve, maybe it feels flattering. You lose that naïvété pretty fast, though, and realize you’re in a world where the rules are made by men, and the way you must be to survive. I developed a lot of mechanisms for just dealing with it all, and eventually it becomes normalized, which is really not acceptable. And then one day I just decided…enough.
Muhlke: Gabriela, how did you find it coming to San Francisco [in 2015]?
GC: San Francisco is very evolved, I have to say. It is a town where the discussion is much more advanced. But you see who owns the restaurants with more Michelin stars, or the restaurants with more critical acclaim: It’s men. So I think it’s just a very manly atmosphere in general. But, then again, with Cala, I did something very different. And, as I work with ex-convicts, the sexual issue is humongous. They have no education as to how to even speak about it. Sexual equality is a discussion that is really a luxury.
Muhlke: Camille, you mentioned that things have changed for you recently. How do you experience that?
Becerra: I started cooking at what turned out to be vegetarian, women-run restaurants. I eventually opened a little restaurant [Paloma] in Brooklyn on my own, and I dealt with a landlord screwing me over. It’s hard not to feel like, if I were a man, I would have been treated differently. Losing so much took a toll on me, and I decided that I didn’t want to own anything. But I also very much wanted to continue cooking, develop a concept for a restaurant, open it, create menus, and lead a kitchen. And, in many ways, that’s been very fulfilling. But what comes with that is, for example, cooking at three fairly well-known, very well-received restaurants [Navy, Café Henrie, and De Maria], but never being critiqued by, let’s say, the New York Times. And at these restaurants where I helped to lay the foundation, there was a big ego thing with the men who worked there who were not getting face time in certain publications, and they really reacted, then chased me out.
Yung: In the last five years, there has been a shift. More and more kitchens are being helmed by thoughtful, intelligent people who put as much consideration into the culture of the kitchen as the food on the plates. But much remains the status quo. I’ve asked younger female chefs and, unfortunately, many of them are still dealing with some level of abuse and harassment—in some cases, pretty severe—at places ranging from super-casual to fine dining. A young female cook told me that it’s been an issue at every single one of her jobs, and that often the people that she is supposed to go to for help are the perpetrators. So, then, where do you go? She took it for as long as she could…and then left.
Muhlke: What has allowed this behavior to continue?
Yung: Working in a kitchen is hard enough. Fighting this other fight sometimes is more than many women want to deal with, or at least have the energy to do so. But if hard conversations are happening, then I think other women will find power and solidarity and start to feel they can actually stay.
Becerra: We were almost like Sleeping Beauty, you know? We were okay with being asleep because we didn’t want to cause more trouble, we didn’t want to lose our jobs, we didn’t want to lose the support of somebody. And now we’re waking up. It’s not about feminism. It’s about who is controlling that money and that power that I feel is the bigger problem, and we have to talk about it.
Cámara: Unfortunately, I think that men, and this applies to men in the restaurant industry as well, they really love “pretty women” who aren’t a problem. People who just go by and are lovely to look at, and nice to work around, because they don’t cause trouble. Which is so pathetic and lame and every adjective that we can add to that.
Muhlke: It’s like being a celebrity. Look at how fucked up celebrities are because everyone just says yes to them.
Cámara: You realize that Trump is the most pathetic caricature of this. He just wants to be famous. And that’s why he wanted to be President.
Muhlke: Camille and I were speaking recently about men taking pleasure in pitting female cooks against one another and watching it as sport.
Yung: I’ve seen intelligent, driven women pick up awful habits from men in power; it's pretty common to behave like those around you, especially if you look up to them.
Muhlke: So how can you ensure that women are treated equally in the kitchens where you work?
Yung: The responsibility that we hold is enormous. Young cooks often regard their chefs as idols in some way and pick up habits, good and bad. The habits they carry with them into their own kitchens come from us, which goes a long way in explaining the longevity of a backwards kitchen culture. We need to set a good example; provide a nurturing culture that is respectful and professional—which doesn’t mean it can’t be demanding and aspirational. From a partnership perspective, just having the talk about work culture is important. The bottom line is, if you don’t share the same moral compass and base values, it will never be a good partnership. In the end, that’s part of what tore it apart for me [at Semilla]. Having a shared creative vision just wasn’t enough if the other parts weren’t aligned.
Cámara: In my own world I was always very public about criticizing male behavior that I didn’t agree with. And I was always in a very comfortable position to do that, because I had nothing at stake. I don’t care if I’m on whatever list or not. But this moment is totally different. It’s about collective support.
Muhlke: Have you ever thought about what a future of gender equality in the kitchen would look like, and what your career would look like?
Becerra: It literally wouldn’t be that much different than what I’m doing now. I feel like I have the ability to create an environment where a young female cook could come in and feel like she’s learning. When I was in male-run kitchens, I didn’t feel like I was actually learning, because men would be screaming at me, men would be judging me, men would be in love with me, but then the next day they would hate me so much. It’s such an intense environment as it is, trying to make beautiful food, dish after dish, when it’s busy, but then to have somebody throwing something at you, or you being so nervous that you’re burning yourself. Right now, seeing that I can make that different for other people is really everything.
Cámara: We can make that difference in the work space, right? But you can’t pay them as much as they need so that they actually only have one job. There’s a limit to what one can do. And unfortunately, we’re part of this society that needs to figure out so many things out about equality, that also, of course, includes the same rights for women as for men, but it includes more rights for those who have been less fortunate.
Becerra: Yes, exactly.
Cámara: I think it really is a broader problem. It’s an industry that has been sustained by people who have been historically underpaid and not well treated.
Muhlke: How do we keep this conversation going?
Cámara: We need to talk about this with men.
Muhlke: Whoa. When? Where?
Cámara: More publicly. I would love to know what René Redzepi and David Chang and Alex Atala think about this. How are they ensuring that it doesn’t happen in their kitchens? How are they making their work environment better? I think we have to start making sure that this actually is a generalized discussion. That no women or male or anybody in a vulnerable position will be abused in chefs’ kitchens.
Yung: Let’s not hide anymore. Women aren’t the only ones who should be talking—men too. I’m not saying men should come out and admit their possible missteps; I’m saying that powerful men who have the ability to create waves should stand up and say how they intend to solve these problems alongside us.