Why so few women make the cut

While they say success in the kitchen is gender-blind, women remain under-represented in the upper ranks of Singapore's culinary scene

- Cherie Lok

For years, women have been told to "get back in the kitchen." And yet, when they do, some find out they apparently do not belong there either.

"When I started out, some male chefs were kind of sexist towards female chefs," recalls 30-year-old Ashley So, head chef at Southern Italian Restaurant Sospiri.

"They had a very traditional mindset, thinking that women should stay at home and take care of kids, instead of working as chefs professionally."

During her early days in the industry around a decade ago, male chefs would try to test her. They made her and other female colleagues carry heavy items to gauge their strength or "set them up to fail" by throwing away ingredients they had prepared at their station.

Ms Ashley Keshaa, 26, junior sous chef at Marina Bay Sands sky-bar and restaurant Ce La Vi, similarly faced an uphill battle when starting out as a chef in 2023. She found it harder to be taken seriously compared with her male colleagues and was frustrated that bosses adopted only the latter's suggestions.

"I felt like women in the kitchen were treated in one of two ways: Either people want to get close to you because you're a pretty girl or they avoid you completely if you're the clumsy type," says the dessert specialist who previously worked as chef de partie at private members' club 67 Pall Mall.

Both chefs So and Keshaa eventually overcame these roadblocks and found their footing in the culinary world. They also note with some relief that kitchen culture has improved by leaps and bounds, especially in a highly educated metropolis like Singapore.

But women remain under-represented in the upper echelons of the country's culinary scene. Of the 47 Michelin-starred restaurants here, only one is co-run by a woman.

While Singapore does not track the number of chefs in the country, or the ratio of men to women, this discrepancy seems to follow a worldwide trend.