French female chefs lift lid on sexism and abuse in the kitchen 

French chef Laëtitia Visse is one of several speaking out about a culture of sexism, misogyny and even assault in top French restaurants

Credit: Instragram

A group of female French chefs is lifting the lid on what they say is a culture of misogyny, sexism and even sexual assault in the kitchens of some of the country’s top restaurants.

The issue of sexual violence in the upper echelons of Gallic gastronomy hit the headlines in September when Japanese chef Taku Sekine, at the helm of two high-profile restaurants in Paris, committed suicide after being accused of sexual assault.

Mr Sekine had trained with superchef Alain Ducasse before opening Dersou, known for mixing food and cocktails, and Cheval d’Or, which combined Japanese and Chinese cuisines.

His family denied the allegations, saying that he had “never been prosecuted or the object of a complaint.” They blamed social and news media, saying that it had pushed him into depression.

However, since then several female chefs have spoken out in French media about harassment, abuse and a culture of impunity in the French culinary world that must change.

Chef Taku Sekine who took his own life in September in the wake of allegations of sexual assault 

Credit:  Foc Kan/ WireImage

One of them, Marion Goettlé, 26, told the Daily Telegraph that the Sekine affair acted as a catalyst.

“Lots of girls testified against this chef without citing him by name necessarily,” she said. He was later named by Atabula, a French website dedicated to food, adding that several sources had corroborated the accusations.

“I feel sorry for him but you can’t hold it against those who gave his name in order to end the law of silence,” said Ms Goettlé, who said she had suffered misogyny and sexual harassment when she worked as an intern at a two-starred restaurant near the Eiffel Tower. She now runs the Café Mirabelle in Paris’ 11th arrondissement with all-female staff.

“We’ve been saying to ourselves it has to stop for a long time. Such acts have taken place in a huge number kitchens. That’s why we and some culinary journalists decide to lift the lid.”

French female chef Marion Goettlé says the days when sexism and harassment were considered normal in French restaurants must end

Credit: Telegraph

The movement started last year, she said, with an Instagram account called “Jedisnonchef” (I say no chef), which gathered more than 30,000 accounts from women who said they’d suffered sexism or abuse in the kitchen. Two national newspapers, Libération and Le Monde, have just published in-depth investigations into the phenomenon.

Laëtitia Visse, 30, a female chef who has just opened her own restaurant in Marseille called La Femme du boucher (The Butcher’s Wife), told Le Monde: “A chef told me one day, apprenticeship in the kitchen is like being raped.”

She recounted how she was cornered on the second day of an internship at a gastronomic restaurant in Paris by the sous-chef in the cold room. “He grabbed me by the collar, and came within two centimetres of my face. He looked me in the eyes and said: “You’re my apprentice. I can do with you whatever I like.’ I was 17. I slept with him to keep the peace.”

She has just brought out a book called “Balls, ten ways to prepare them” on how to cook the male genitalia of a string of animals. The symbolism is clear.

"Everyone turns a blind eye to (abuse) and everyone’s scared," she told Le Monde.

French chef Laëtitia Visse said: "Everyone turns a blind eye to it because everyone is scared."

Credit: Instagram

"There are extremely violent threats like: ‘If you open your gob, you’ll never work anywhere again.’ So everyone participates in this system. In fact, when you are woman in the kitchen, you are programmed to accept everything."

In the wake of the Sekine affair, Florence Châtelet Sanchez, who runs a fine food business, accused Guy Martin of the Michelin starred Paris restaurant Le Grand Vefour, of raping her in 2015 in Atabula. He categorically denies the allegations. She told Libération she intends to file a legal complaint at a later date but is “keeping quiet” for now in the wake of the Sekine suicide.

Atabula founder Franck Pinay-Ribaroust told The Telegraph he had no regrets naming both chefs.

“People didn’t speak out but now it’s starting to snowball, even if they more often than not don’t want to name names," he said, adding that the female chef revolt was part of a wider movement against a culture of violence in French kitchens — against both men and women — in the past five years. 

Ms Goettlé said that personally, “I’m less angry against individual chefs than a system that has long considered such behaviour as normal. We must stop thinking and making people believe that sexism is a right of passage.”

She expressed optimism that a new generation of chefs would “break the cycle” of machismo and misogyny through “education”. She is in talks to speak at one top Paris cooking school Ferrandi about speaking out about sexism or abuse. 

“It’s hard to change old school chefs but not the new ranks coming through cooking schools. I’m hopeful that within a decade it will be stamped out,” she said.