Mumbai restaurateur and chef Devika Manjrekar recently posted a story on her Instagram page, citing two instances of discrimination. One story is about a young chef who didn't join the team because it was run by a woman. Another one is about a disgruntled diner who persistently tries to talk to the “male” head chef. Manjrekar is the head chef at her bar, Toast Her Pasta. These two are sexist,” she wrote.
Experiences like this are not uncommon in restaurants and bars across India. These fast-paced, high-stress spaces are traditionally male-dominated, where impatience can run high and even the slightest mistake can be called out. The kitchen is plagued by gender stereotypes. Women can be good cooks, but they can't do the heavy lifting that goes into becoming a chef. Women can't stand a hot kitchen, so pastry chefs are more suitable for them. And women drink wine, but they don't make good bartenders.
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This wasn't Manjrekar's first experience with sexism in the kitchen. In 2015, she completed a culinary degree at Le Cordon Bleu in London and returned to India full of enthusiasm, but she became disillusioned with its working culture. In 2016, she read an article. guardian Featuring Indian-born British chef Sabrina Gidda. “The next generation of chefs and restaurateurs are not going to be people who dropped out of school at 15, worked as three-star (Michelin) commis chefs until they went bankrupt, and then continued to do the same thing in the kitchen.” These are people who gave up their degrees, their businesses, things like that to do something,” Gidda said. Manjrekar was so inspired by this that she wrote to Gidda and found her a job. There she learned to run a kitchen with empathy. “You can look great and still have great dinner service.”
Chef Anahita Dhondi, former chef-partner at Soda Bottle Opennawala, the Parsi restaurant chain owned by Olive Hospitality Group, recalls her early days working as an intern in a professional kitchen. This was in the late '80s, when she was 19 years old. A senior chef in her 40s would comment on her appearance and say that her skin was damaged in the hot kitchen. She was scared at first, but she said that if it happened again, she would report it to human resources because it would be tantamount to sexual harassment. These are just one of her many instances in her 14-year career as a chef. Dondi is now 33 years old and she believes the only way to stop sexist behavior is to speak out in the first place.
Sexism is ingrained in the language of the kitchen and spills over into the bar. For example, the term “female bartender” comes from Irks mixologist Kimberly Pereira, chief operating officer of Maya Pistola Agavepra liquor brand. “It's just bartending. It's an era,” the 37-year-old says.
She explains that sexism is prevalent in the alcohol industry, reinforcing gender stereotypes among both professionals and patrons. She found that female brand ambassadors were not taken as seriously as men for whiskey and dark spirits compared to wine and gin. “Women behind bars are heavily scrutinized for their appearance. This can take the form of lewd comments or unwanted advances. The situation is difficult for women.”
Ferzan Bilimola, 29, a bartender at local alcohol company Third Eye Distillery, works freelance in bars and nightclubs. She said women who could bartend were hired for freelance work to add “glamour” and it was a bonus if she could speak English. , I built my own personal brand. That's what we encourage everyone in this industry to do. ”
The culture of not allowing women in leadership positions shocked Thai chef Seefa Ketchaiyo, 40. She moved to India about 12 years ago as a 27-year-old sous chef at a five-star hotel. “I worked in China and didn't have much trouble there, but here I had to fight a lot. I knew what I was doing, but no one reported to me. People kept pointing out my mistakes. One of “my mistakes” was my English with a strong Thai accent. I got the support of the head chef and gave myself a month's grace for her. I told the team that I'm here to run the show and they need to be heard. I had to keep repeating this until they understood and the tables turned. ” Kechaiyo worked there for several years before striking out on his own. Currently, she and her husband Karan Bain run Shefa, one of the most successful Thai restaurants in Mumbai.
Even if you make a name for yourself, the patriarchy can rebel. Amninder Sandhu, 45, who runs Palaash in Tipai near Bauri and Nagpur in Goa and Mumbai, was an apprentice chef at a hotel in Delhi in the early 2000s. He became disillusioned with the toxic work culture and sexism and moved to Mumbai, where he worked at the Masala Bay of Taj He Lands at his end. Over time, she has opened and run successful restaurants and delivery kitchens in multiple cities, but she says she still hasn't broken free from sexism. In 2019, she was invited by a five-star hotel in Delhi to a collaborative pop-up with eight chefs, making her the only woman. “They messed up my ingredients, gave me a corner of the kitchen to cook, and rushed me, telling me a celebrity male chef was coming and I needed to finish quickly.”
Women-owned restaurants have made it onto prestigious lists, with co-founder Niyati Rao's Ekhar in Mumbai ranked 98th on Asia's 50 Best 2024, but there's still a long way to go. long. Sandhu points out that only 9% of female chefs are ranked in the top ranks around the world. And not many women, especially young women, can call out sexist incidents on social media for fear of losing their jobs or future opportunities.
Manjrekar found his beat when he worked with Gidda's team. Similarly, Sandhu also found hope when he joined Bay Masala in Mumbai in 2005. She says her chef, Jaspal, and her Arora treated everyone equally. Therefore, change must come from the top. Bilimola says, “In a work environment, breaking the cycle of sexism is always done from the top down. There's a trickle-down effect.”
