Mario Batali‘s kitchen is fueled by girl power.
“I think back in the stone ages — say the beginning or the middle of the 20th century — it was perceived as physically difficult for a woman to do the job and that was back when cooking was still iron and fire and Cro-Magnon man, and it has changed a lot since the ’60s and ’70s,” the chef, 57, said at the Fast Company Innovation Festival this week.
In fact, Batali’s “fanciest restaurant,” Del Posto, has an “all-women” kitchen, including the executive chef, pastry chef, service director and sommelier. “It’s not because they have a vagina,” he said. “It’s because they’re the smartest people for the job.”
Batali said he hates it when a member of the media wants to to run a story on one of his employees as a “great woman chef.”
“Why don’t you f–king do a piece about her being a great chef and we’ll talk about her sexuality later?” he suggested.
As for how Del Posto ended up that way, “It wasn’t like we were actively trying to make this an all-woman kitchen or an all-woman staff, it just turns out they were better than everyone else that was up for the job.”
Batali owns several restaurants in New York, including Babbo, OTTO, La Sirena and Casa Mono.