The women are showing off their scars at the bar in Oyamel, a new Mexican restaurant in Crystal City, Va. They flash hot oil marks on the backs of their hands like badges of honor and expose frying pan blisters on their arms.
They are a tough lot, even when applying makeup in a limousine. For the moment, the newer girls are quiet. But soon they, too, will toss back margaritas like the veterans and tell tales about being a woman in a man’s world: the kitchen.
The seven are enjoying a rare break, an orgy of entrees and appetizers at three Virginia restaurants in one evening, with a stretch limo to take them home. The purpose: camaraderie and shop-talk therapy.
Leading the pack was Ris Lacoste, a prominent female executive chef in Washington and a local powerbroker of a different sort. Most nights, she runs the show at 1789 in Georgetown, but on this night she was simply jefa. Spanish for boss.
The female boss.
“I grew up with lots of girls in the kitchen. It’s rare,” said Lacoste, 49, who trained three of the women in the group but eventually lost them to other restaurants.
Hearing from other women crazy enough to be in the same business strengthens them. They all live in a world where hours are long, varicose veins appear early and profit margins are thin.
The venting began in the relaxed moments after their first smoking break. How hard it is just to get out of the house on a day off when they’re exhausted. How customers arrive half an hour before their reservations and expect to be seated. How they all take deep breaths or offer free dessert instead of blaming slow service on a waiter who has called in sick.
The lesson? Learning how to deal with the pressures of the job, especially working side by side with men, the kings of the kitchen.
“I find a lot of the men are weaker, not as good at multitasking. It’s harder for them to see the big picture, but they can put blinders on and focus on the dish,” said Andie Keller, 30. Formerly executive sous-chef at 2941 in Falls Church, Va.–essentially the No. 2 job in a restaurant–Keller now manages the front of the house, or the public portion of the restaurant.
In the past decade, women have increasingly landed starring roles in the kitchens of some of the nation’s best-known restaurants. But government statistics are unequivocal. While women make up more than half of the food-preparation work force, fewer than one in five is a chef or head cook. The industry’s most prestigious awards go mostly to men. Most of the recognized top chefs in the country are men. Most of the students at the L’Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg, Md., are men.
No wonder the women vent.
“The single-mindedness of men, their ability to focus on one thing, creates a great one thing,” said Lacoste, who believes a smoothly run kitchen needs a balance of men and women. At one kitchen, she would “go around feeding the men ice cream, saying, ‘You need to chill. You’re not that important.”‘
Lacoste checked her watch and called the limo driver on her cell phone. “They may do things faster and better than the women,” she said of male cooks, “but they can’t do two things at once.”
“The biggest mistake men ever made was thinking they could do it without us,” said executive chef Michelle Giroux Russell, 39. Underestimated by men as she rose through the ranks, Russell developed a reputation for speed. She disdains the intense focus of some male chefs when it comes at the expense of time. “That’s why you have to wait two hours for your dinner,” she said.
To cope, Keller said, she sometimes has to raise her voice. Knowing what you need and when you need it is as important as demanding, “Don’t ask me why I need it,” she said.
Keller recently gave up the 11 a.m.-to-midnight shift of an executive sous-chef and now works from 3 p.m. to midnight as manager. But she is not sure that the life of a cook is compatible with her plans to raise children.
“That’s a huge thing I’m having right now,” she said. “Is this the direction I want to go in?”
If restauranting is in your blood, you can have children and do it all, Lacoste said. “I was one of seven kids. My mother might as well have been running a restaurant.”
