I wrote this after attending a beautiful dinner at the 2017 Atlanta Food & Wine Festival prepared by six renowned women. It was one of those women-only affairs and I went into it asking why we still need these gender-specific events. What I discovered surprised me and I was pleased with how the piece turned out. Then I couldn't get anyone to publish it. So ... here it is!
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Behind the scenes at the Atlanta Food and Wine Festival's "Powerful and Delicious" dinner at 2017, which featured an all-female roster of food and beverage professionals.
Whenever chef Katie Button thinks she’s had enough of the tendency to single out women in the kitchen, something happens to remind her of women’s overall standing in the industry.
The owner and executive chef of two acclaimed restaurants in Asheville, North Carolina, Button is a success in her own right. But, when she’s with her business partner husband or male sous chef, strangers often assume she works for them, not with them.
“It’s happened like four times since I've been here,” Button said, chuckling as she peeled tomatoes in the prep kitchen of the Atlanta Food and Wine Festival in early June. The din of clanging metal trays, sizzling grills and knives knocking on cutting boards echoed through the cavernous space as Button and four other women prepared for the main event: a lavish five-course dinner with pairings hosted by women for women, aptly named “Powerful and Delicious.”
Toward the back of the room, Whitney Otawka was peeling white Georgia shrimp while her husband pressed mini hot dog buns on a grill for a Southern twist on a lobster roll. Otawka is the name and face of their partnership, having built her reputation on Top Chef Season 9 and high-profile stints in Hugh Acheson restaurants. Now, she’s the culinary director of Georgia’s historic Greyfield Inn on Cumberland Island.
Yet, just like Button, those who don’t know her often assume she’s her husband’s pastry chef.
Such is the lot of an acclaimed woman chef even in an era when there’s more opportunity for them than ever in food and wine. The slights bring to mind Time magazine’s infamous 2013 Gods of Food issue featuring three men on the cover and not a single woman on its list of “influencers.” Four years later, women chefs are still fighting to be recognized as chefs first and foremost, free of a gender label just like their male counterparts, as if the kitchen were a microcosm of struggles against gender bias playing out in American on a near-daily basis.
Organizers of the annual Atlanta Food and Wine Festival say this dynamic shows the need for events by women and for women, and they’re not alone. Mimicking the business world, women-centric events are common at food festivals and they make up a growing number of industry conferences, intended to inspire and uplift women and build community.
The “Powerful and Delicious” dinner boasted an lineup of six women with impressive credentials: Three Top Chef contestants with five successful businesses under their direction. The first woman sommelier of Tampa steakhouse Bern’s was curating the wine list and the first vice president of Murray’s Cheese was doing cheese pairings.
But even at their level it’s hard for them to escape gender politics— especially when they keep getting invited to events based on their gender. So, why do they keep doing them? The short answer is because they’re fun (most of the time) and they build communities.
“It’s the best company,” Otawka said. “It's just a different sort of vibe across the board when you're surrounded by other professional women.”
Women tend to be more collaborative and supportive of each other in those settings, she said. Often, there’s more direct compliments and less bragging about one’s own work.
But, she and the other chefs long for the day when they won’t have to explain what it’s like to be a female chef. But as their stars grows so does the tendency to make them ambassadors for their gender.
Otawka said women-driven events take up most of her schedule and it drives her “a little crazy.” She appreciates the recognition but she wishes it were for something more, say, gender-neutral. After all, when five men get together to cook it doesn’t become “the dude dinner,” she pointed out.
She co-signs Michelin-starred chef Dominique Cremen’s famous lament that she may well always be a “woman chef” first and a chef second. Even Cremen has said she was tempted to refuse a patronizing award for “the World’s Best Female Chef” until she decided she was better off using the prestige to help normalize the idea of women chefs.
Similar motivations inspired Otawka and her husband to make her the face of their brand. It was the obvious choice for their personalities— she’s the outgoing architect with the big ideas and he’s the quiet carpenter who executes their vision. But it was also a conscious decision to ensure she would never be mistaken for less than an equal partner.
“I didn't want people to overlook the fact that I was also a chef because I still get questions like “Oh, you’re the chef?”
A few feet from Otawka, pastry chef Rebecca Masson sliced peaches into razor-thin half-moons for a tart. Though she’s “a little over” the whole women in the kitchen thing she acknowledges expectations can be different for women.
While working in New York kitchens db Bistro Moderne, Daniel and the Red Cat, she realized she had to develop a hard shell against gendered criticisms if she was going to make it. Now, as owner of Fluff Bake Bar in Houston, she gets flak for not embodying the stereotypical “apron-wearing,” happy-go-lucky pastry chef.
“Like, why do you expect me to come out of the kitchen and fawn over you while I’m working? You don’t expect Chris Shepherd to stop running the line and come out of the kitchen and do a song and dance.”
The slights Button experienced earlier that day remind her that the equitable treatment she’s experienced over the years isn’t necessarily the norm. She took a chance in giving up a prospective career in engineering to wait tables in DC. She worked her way up to the world-renowned kitchen of elBulli in Spain and returned home with her husband to start a hospitality group.
But she realizes that life gets in the way for a lot of women, especially for working mothers. If sharing her story at a $150/plate dinner helps normalize women chefs others then it’s worth being singled out as one.
“I hope it inspires someone,” she said.
But there’s no denying the energy is different in a room dominated by women, whether it’s the kitchen or the dining room, said cheese expert Liz Thorpe, who worked with Masson on cheese and dessert pairings. The events themselves can be beneficial to chefs and guests. Like businessmen hitting the green for a round, getting women together builds relationships that open the door to opportunities.
“The things that motivate and inspire and drive women are not the same for men, and that’s worth talking about,” she said. “Women are interested in the stories behind the people. They want to know how and why they got there. Women share a lot of commonalities that they can benefit from talking about.
Annie Pettry, the owner of Decca Restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky, said she cringes at the “female chef” distinction because she’s never felt as if she was treated differently for being a woman in 23 years of working in kitchens, mostly under other women.
The fact that women chefs are still considered worthy of singling out underscores the need for more visibility, she said.
“If we’re still talking about it it’s still an issue,” she said. “We’ll just have to keep talking about it until it’s not anymore.”