The last issue of Food & Wine magazine has an article about the “best new chefs” and a picture of 11 of them in the cover. Mika, my 7-year-old, took a quick look at it and noticed “there is only one girl”. And indeed, she’s right. There are also no noticeable minorities. Do you need to be male and white to be noticed as a chef in America? Or are only white men becoming chefs?
Top Chef, the Bravo TV reality series, seems to have little trouble finding a good number of women and minorities for its show (though most winners have been white males) – so I don’t believe that good, new women & minority chefs are not there, perhaps they are just not cooking at the “bistro”-style restaurants where many new chefs establish their reputations. Or perhaps they are cooking more ethnic cuisine.
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