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At a time when gender equality is firmly in the spotlight in the restaurant industry, a London-based team have taken action to raise the visibility of female chefs running restaurants in the UK by launching new initiative: Women of Food.
The site, which went live this month, houses a free-access UK female chef database encouraing female chefs from restaurants up and down the country to first register their contact details which will be collated into a directory in the coming months. Once the list is in place, media and foodies to festival organisers and investors will be given acess and the opportunity to tap into the pool of female chef talent, ultimately giving female chefs more visibility and exposure at external events.
If you're a female chef running a restuarant in the UK you can register here.
The initiative was founded by passionate creatives, food and restaurant journalist and event curator Sudi Pigott, filmmaker Vérane Frédiani, and arts and event producer Vivienne Huang, with a shared goal "to empower women in food to network, collaborate, inspire, mentor and simply have good and delicious fun."
The overarching aim of the project is to give female chefs greater visibility with the intention of harnessing greater restaurant investment opportunities for women: "Historically they don't have the investment to be able to afford PR or to lose money for a couple of years in pursuit of putting their all into Michelin stars should they choose to go this route of creating their restaurant," says Pigott.
Once the initial list is rolled out in September there might well be the potential for the database to be extended to capture other restaurant roles. Watch this space!
In the meantime, here's a trailer from Frediani's film, The Goddesses of Food, which first inspired the project:
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