The Feminine World of Three Michelin Stars

There is often talk of Three Stars Restaurants, the Michelin Guide’s most magnificent renaissance. The first women to receive the Three Michelin Stars were French:

– Eugénie Brazier was France’s first in 1933

– then Marie Bourgeois in 1933

– Marguerite Bise in 1951

 

Since then, many more have followed, and today only five female chefs are on a list of over 130 three-starred restaurants, which can boast the highest recognition of the star guide. Still a rarity!

That’s who the only five women in the World with three Michelin stars are:

 

 

Nadia Santini

Nadia Santini is the Italian chef holding the 3 Michelin Stars thanks to her family-run Restaurant Dal Pescatore a Canneto sull’ Oglio, open since 1996. She was the first Italian chef to receive this award and was also named the best female chef in the World in 2013.

 

Elena Arzak

Elena Arzak (Arzak restaurant in San Sebastián, Spain) and her father, Juan-Mari, have been at the forefront of the Basque culinary movement with their family for decades. The Arzak restaurant was awarded three Michelin stars for the first time in 1989, and in 2012 Elena was awarded the title of the best female chef of the year in the World.

 

Dominique Crenn

Dominique Crenn is the last woman chef to receive the three Michelin stars. She is also the first woman in the United States to receive the prestigious rating from the world-renowned guide for her Atelier Crenn restaurant in San Francisco in 2018.

 

Annie Feolde

Annie Feolde is the most “long-lived” three-starred cook, having obtained the three stars since 1992 with the Enoteca Pinchiorri restaurant in Florence, which she has managed with her sommelier husband Giorgio Pinchiorri since the early 1970s. Féolde was also the first chef in Italy to win three Michelin stars and the fourth woman ever to have had them.

 

Anne-Sophie Pic

Anne-Sophie Pic is one of only four French chefs to have been awarded three Michelin stars by the Maison Pic restaurant in Valence, France. She grew up with her father, who ran the restaurant until his death, and since then Anne-Sophie has been running it and running it.  She was named the best female chef in the World in 2011. She is also the woman who holds the most Michelin stars in the World: 3 at Maison Pic in Valence, two at Dame de Pic in London, two at the Restaurant named after her in Lausanne and one at Dame de Pic in Paris.

 

There are also other women worthy of mention in terms of three stars:

Clare Smyth, who was awarded three Michelin stars as a chef at Gordon Ramsay’s Restaurant in 2007 at only 29 years of age, before opening her Core restaurant in London which currently has a Michelin star.

Carme Ruscalleda Catalan chef of Sant Pau in Sant Pol de Mar in Spain got his third star in 2006, but he recently closed his Restaurant.

The number of starred women (and we are also talking about one and two stars) is increasing. According to the Michelin Guide, the number of starred chefs in the world are still too few, about 4% out of over 3,300 restaurants in 28 countries. Doubtless, the situation varies from country to state, if in France there are only 16 women out of 621 stars, Italy has the highest percentage of women: 45 out of 367, over 7%.

 

But where does this substantial difference between starred men and starred women come from?

It is undoubtedly not the masculinity of the guide, more merely the numbers of the Restaurant that in most cases sees a man in the kitchen. Things slowly seem to change, and let’s take Italian data as an example: the Fipe (Federazione Italiana Pubblici Esercizi) 2019 report shows an increase in the number of companies compared to the previous year. Out of 336 thousand companies, about one in three is managed by a female figure. Employment is also increasing: the catering sector employs 1.2 million people, 52% of whom are women.

 

There is, therefore, ample room for improvement for women who want to undertake this career and numerous initiatives to highlight their merits, including events and awards. But some do not like this because it continues to highlight the difference between male and female chefs and does not reward the chef in its entirety … after all, if this serves to enhance women’s cuisine, it’s true! One example is the World’s 50 best restaurants (the annual ranking of the fifty best restaurants in the World by the British monthly Restaurant). Still few women in the ranking, in 2018 for example just 2 out of 50: the first (in 30th place) was (again reported here) Elena Arzak, daughter of Juan Mari, one of the essential Spanish chefs (3 Michelin stars); the second, in 40th place, was Daniela Soto-Innes, from the New York restaurant Cosme, owned by chef Enrique Olvera.

 

To avoid any sort of complication, it was decided to award a separate prize: the World’s best female chef, won last year by Daniela Soto-Innes, chef of Cosme and Atla in New York, named elite Vodka World’s Best Female Chef in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. In previous years the award had been won by Clare Smyth of Core London in 2018, by the Slovenian Ana Ros in 2017 and the American Dominique Crenn as already mentioned in 2016. We want to talk about successful female experiences; we want to talk about women in the kitchen or related to the World of cooking.

 

We monitor the starry female situation, and even if we do not like to distinguish too much the kitchens according to the sex of the chefs, it will be interesting to tell more and more female stars!

 

 by Nadia Toppino

Food – Wine and Hospitality Consultant