Women who run New York’s kitchens say they still struggle to command the same degree of authority as their male counterparts. mol_wilcox reports on the fight to stamp out sexism in the city's restaurant industry
Illustration: Lindsay Mound Last year, the chef Stephanie Bonnin prepared for a cooking residency at Deer Mountain Inn, a Catskills resort about two and a half hours north of the city. Reservations had sold out, and Bonnin was excited to share her menu, which was based on the cooking of Colombia, where she grew up. Quickly, the Institute of Culinary Education grad remembers, she grew frustrated with the way her male cooks behaved.
Carnesi is the executive chef of Nura, a Greenpoint restaurant that fits right into its trendy neighborhood. It’s a huge space with unfinished ceilings, stuffed with mid-century-modern furniture and dripping with greenery. Before Nura, Carnesi worked as the interim chef at Otis, a sister restaurant where she also had problems being seen as an authority figure. “If I tried to give directions to certain people — always men — they would kind of, like, roll their eyes,” she recalls.
Barbara Sibley is the owner and head chef of La Palapa, a Mexican restaurant in Manhattan that has been in business for more than 20 years with four locations. “I came up with a generation with, when you think about the Anthony Bourdain era, tons of drugs in the kitchen, you know, tons of craziness,” she says. “There’s a reason I didn’t want that in my place. You just can’t get as much done, and it’s not something I tolerate.
“I was the only female cook there. I definitely felt a vibe, like I wasn’t taken seriously by a lot of them,” Wagner remembers. “I always felt that I had to really prove myself, like I couldn’t let my guard down.” She says it could feel impossible to maintain that image: “You have to put on this façade of being super, super-capable, and you just sort of felt like you couldn’t relax. If you put that persona down for even a minute, people would jump.
After opening, Wagner says she had some difficulties with male prep cooks disrespecting her authority, but once she established a solid crew, her main goal was creating an environment where everyone felt their role was important.
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