'Best Female Chef' award is sexist, chefs say as they complain 'this isn't like sport'

A female chef of the year award is sexist, chefs have complained, as they said that cooking "is not like sport".

The World's Best Female Chef accolade, which was won this year by British chef Clare Smyth, is awarded by The World's Best 50 Restaurants, but there is no equivalent prize given out to male chefs. 

Pip Lacey, former head chef at Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurant Murano, described the women-only award as "odd", adding that unlike in sport there is no reason female chefs can't compete on an equal playing field with the opposite sex.

Ms Lacey, who is opening her own restaurant in central London this summer, told The Telegraph: "I don't get why we have to segregate the award - it's a bit odd.

"I don't see why you can't compete with men, why there's not just one category. 

"It's not like how in sport you are competing at a different physical level, I don't think cooking is like that."

The chef added that although "any award is nice to win", treating female chefs as a curiosity is "going backwards a bit."

She said: "It's like we weren't considered in the years before. Now it seems to be going backwards. Every female young chef is being asked about females in the kitchen and it's getting boring. 

"We never think of it like that. We never think 'there's loads of men in this profession'."

Chefs from across the world have agreed with Ms Lacey's appraisal of the prize. In response to a tweet asking "I am sitting here wondering who will be the first to Tweet that there shouldn't be a world's best female chef award", Michelin starred Scottish chef Andrew Fairlie posted "Probably most female chefs."

Aditi Dugar and Prateek Sadhu of Masque in Mumbai, which has won the award for best restaurant in India multiple times, told The Telegraph: "Cooking is based on skill, and not physical strength. This category is unnecessary."

San Francisco based chef Dominique Crenn, who won the award in 2016, also criticised the prize in an interview on Tuesday, telling the Washington Post: “If you give a chef a female award, you’re going to alienate that gender to the other gender.

“We are not a sport. They’re treating us as if we are a sport.”

The World's Best Female Chef Award has been running since 2011 and has in the past been won mainly by chefs from mainland Europe. It was started by the prestigious World's 50 Best Restaurants award body which spawned from a trade magazine in 2002. 

US celebrity cook Anthony Bourdain was one of the first to criticise the award, tweeting in 2013: "Why—at this point in history—do we need a “Best Female Chef” special designation? As if they are curiosities?"

This is the first year that a British chef has won the award. Speaking to Bloomberg, Smyth defended the prize. 

Commenting that women are under-represented on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list she said: "There is no right and wrong way to address this but things won’t change if we do nothing.

"When we see women represented in numbers in lists like these, then we will have changed the industry for the better and these awards will no longer be needed."

The Notting Hill restaurateur also said that has discussed the male-dominated Best Restaurants list with the organisers since winning.

This year's Best Restaurants list will be announced on June 19th in Bilbao. 

Slovenian chef Ana Ros also spoke out in support of the award when she was announced as last year's winner. 

“It is very clear that for a woman in a male world, it’s always going to be difficult.

 “The best chefs in this world—look at Massimo Bottura, look at Rene Redzepi—they have great wives. They are 100 percent on their work because it’s taken care of, their children, it’s taken care of their private life. 

"They come home, probably somebody even cooks for them and has time to chat to them. Do you think that happens to a woman? You can never compare these two different worlds," she told Bloomberg.