“How did you get to be the sous chef here?”
That was the question posed to Martyna Krowicka, currently chef de cuisine at Felina in Ridgewood, by a male co-worker at a restaurant she worked at before Felina who was working in a lesser position.
Krowicka’s answer — “by working hard” — wasn’t good enough. The man insisted that she must have used sex to get the job, she said.
“I said, ‘If you want to continue this conversation, I want HR to be present,’” Krowicka recalled.
When talking about gender discrimination in the food industry, Krowicka doesn’t mince words: “There have been times when I look at a man who isn’t as talented as me, doesn’t work as hard as me and doesn’t take the job as seriously as me, and they have gotten a promotion over me. You think, what the [expletive] am I doing wrong?”
North Jersey chefs talk about persevering in the male-dominated dining industry. Rebecca King, North Jersey Record
Women represent just 19 percent of chefs and 7 percent of head chefs across the U.S., according to Women Chefs & Restaurateurs, a national organization based in Minneapolis, Minn. which advocates for the education and recognition of those they represent. The same report shows that women chefs earn 28 percent less in base pay than men.
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There are reasons, practical and societal, for these statistics. Restaurant work is not family-friendly — long, late hours and working on weekends and holidays make a balanced family life difficult, if not nearly impossible. Plus, there’s still an “old boys club” that tends to promote its own, say female area chefs like Krowicka. And, according to Women Chefs & Restaurateurs executive director Kristen Lee-Charlson, women have a harder time getting funding to open their restaurants.
Yet, these six North Jersey women, profiled in conjunction with Women’s History Month, refused to let their gender stop them from pursuing their dreams of not only working in but owning kitchens. They are all under 40.
When Leia Gaccione was a little girl, she would park herself in front of the television to watch “Yan Can Cook” and dreamed of the day when she could cut vegetables as fast as host Martin Yan. Now, she’s 35 and owns two restaurants, South + Pine in Morristown and Central + Main in Madison. Her vegetable-cutting skills have greatly improved.
After graduating New York Restaurant School in 2003, Gaccione was surrounded by men in the kitchens she worked in. Cat calling, unwanted stares and men inappropriately brushing up against her were all part of “kitchen life” — in defiance of a warning called out to the staff by her boss, she said.
“I remember going into my internship on my first day and the chef said, ‘Everybody listen up: If anyone bothers this girl, you’re going to have a problem with me.’ I was so scared,” she said.
But Gaccione, who is the host of a fledgling documentary series called “Her Name Is Chef” that profiles six women chefs (series is still in talks with distributors to air it), has seen an improvement in kitchen culture since 2001. From 2008 to 2015, she worked with Bobby Flay, who hired a large team of women, at restaurants such as Mesa Grill, Bar Americain and Gato.
“That was really great,” she said, “to work with all those women.”
At her modern American restaurants, South + Pine and Central + Main, Gaccione makes sure none of her staff members are working more than 70 hours a week, which is common in restaurants. And she tries to have them feel free to be open with her, she said, and feel comfortable coming to her with problems.
“I don’t have children, but sometimes I feel like I have 70 children who are employed by me,” she said. “If they called me at 4 a.m. in jail, I would come and pick them up, though I’m not sure they would want me to, because I am like their mother, and I would be on their case.”
Coming out of Gaccione’s convivial kitchen are plates upon plates of her rustic American food. Her chicken and waffles, her poached egg Jersey Benny with “everything” hollandaise, her pork chops with orange and chile redux and her award-wining burgers are just some of the dishes that keep her dining rooms full.
“Some women don’t want to be singled out, but I take pride in being a woman restaurant owner,” she said. “I like that we can stand toe-to-toe with men and be right on the line next to them crushing it.”
Cristal Paredes constructs the kind of cakes Instagram thrives on in her bakery, It’s Delicious.
A few of her recent creations include a pristine white cake with an elegant blue peacock perched on top, its blue and gold feathers waterfalling down the side; a ballet-themed cake with a bottom tier covered in pink, ruffled fondant, a middle tier with gilded roses and a gold ballerina, and an intricate, edible tiara sitting on top; and a striking cake with vibrant blue frosting that features a realistic bass bursting out of the ersatz water.
Parades, who is 29 and lives in Lincoln Park, credits her decorating skills to “natural artistic talent” and a pastry arts degree from the Culinary Institute of America. After graduation she worked for fine dining restaurants in New York City, like the now-shuttered Isola Trattoria & Crudo bar, and later Foremost Glatt Kosher Caterers, baking for events at such places as The Plaza hotel and the Ritz Carlton. She also made lunches and desserts for employees and visiting dignitaries at The German Mission in the United Nations.
“It was a lot of work,” she said. “And it showed me how much of a monster I am. I could make 12 full-sized, elaborate cakes in one weekend.”
Nevertheless, she confides: “There are definitely some double standards in the kitchen. You have to wonder if the male chefs will take you seriously.” According to Paredes, the few women in the kitchen had to work twice as hard to gain the same amount of respect from their male peers.
It’s Delicious is entirely self-funded by Paredes — she is in talks with investors to fund her business’s growth. She purchased her equipment and baking supplies with her own money. She has no staff, and stays up long into the night to finish making her cakes. This schedule, she said, has taken up too much of her time and energy to think about kids and a family yet.
But, she looks forward to a future when investors will lighten her load and a family that will help her in the business.
“So far, the females that I’ve spoken to about investing in It’s Delicious have been more receptive than the males,” she said. “It’s all about strong women sticking together to make a path for each other.”
Martyna Krowicka, a “Chopped” champion and a 2018 nominee for a New Jersey rising star award from the Garden State Culinary Arts Foundation, is a food nerd — and proud of it.
The chef de cuisine at recently opened Felina in Ridgewood can often be found experimenting in the kitchen: proofing focaccia or firing pizza dough.
“Cooking is like creating some kind of potion,” said Krowicka, a 31-year-old Roselle Park resident whose family is from Poland. It’s not surprising that Krowicka’s mother is a chemist; watching her mother’s passion for science led her to love the chemistry in baking. Her dad, a contractor, also played a role in her career, giving her the tools (both literally and figuratively) to help her function in the kitchen.
“I spent my early years holding his wrench,” she said. “If you’re cooking in the kitchen and a drain stops working, you’re going to want to unclog it yourself.”
But it was Krowicka’s Polish grandmother who inspired a deep love of food.
“Every time we’d visit my grandparents in Poland, I was in the kitchen with them and making butter with them,” she said. “I couldn’t picture myself anywhere else than in a kitchen for my job.”
In between churning butter in Poland and churning butter in Ridgewood to pair with dishes at Felina, Krowicka attended the French Culinary Institute in New York City and worked at Uproot in Warren (where she met Felina owner and executive chef Anthony Bucco) and Latour at Crystal Springs Resort (where she worked with Bucco again). Bucco then recruited her to join him at Felina.
Krowicka said she’s fought hard for respect in kitchens dominated by men in nearly every job she’s had.
“Women aren’t taken as seriously as men in the industry,” she said. “In reality we can take a lot more pain, we can stand on our feet a lot longer, we can work six, seven days a week and not need a rest. Women are more methodical, execute things in a more organized way and are better under pressure. Women don’t sweat the small stuff.”
Instances of discrimination and sexism abound for women in the kitchen, Krowicka said. She cites one example at a previous job of a man who asked to speak to the chef — her position — and when she went to meet him he asked again to see the chef; certainly she couldn’t be the chef.
And then there’s the issue of marriage and kids.
“My entire life I said I don’t want kids, and that I might not even want a husband,” she said. “Now, I’m seeing everyone around me getting married and having kids, and I think ‘Wow, I might want that.’ As you get older, the probability of having kids gets less and less for women. It’s a big choice I’ll have to make.”
In the future, Krowicka wants to open a small, homey cafe — a bed and breakfast of sorts without the beds, she said. For Krowicka, cooking and hospitality are inextricably linked, and her goal is to show customers that connection.
“I want people to see the hard work that goes into putting a meal on their plate,” she said. “There are real people in the kitchen putting their heart and soul into everything.”
If you’ve ever seen the gorgeously plated dishes at Vanillamore, it probably won’t shock you to learn that chef and owner Risa Boyer has a background in graphic design and art.
The work of an artist is evident in her tiny tarts dotted with berries and neat circles of sauce; creamy custards brightened with triangular strawberry slices; and thick, rich malted milk in old-school glass jars, served with colorful paper straws.
Her savory dishes are just as beautiful. The sweet, homemade ricotta sits in a small bathtub-shaped dish sprinkled with hazelnuts; her pink tuna tartare is brightened by vibrant green cucumbers; the tender roasted pork belly is enlivened by a spread of bright apricot puree.
“I’ve always loved both sweet and savory, which is fairly rare in this industry,” Boyer said. “I see qualities in both that helped me grow.”
To help her in the kitchen, Boyer has a primarily female staff: eight out of nine cooks and interns are women.
“There’s no drama. No nonsense. Everyone’s just working together,” she said. “I think other women lift each other up. Two strong women together are stronger than they are apart.”
Boyer, a Boonton resident who grew up in Wayne, is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America’s pastry program. After college, she worked at Armani Ristorante in New York City, Sweet Revenge in Greenwich Village and as the opening pastry chef for European pub De Novo in Montclair.
Boyer, who is 30, said she’s lucky to have never experienced discrimination in any of the kitchens she’s worked in. Though, as a woman, there is one topic that Boyer is wrestling with: having children and the toll pregnancy will take on her business.
“My poor husband,” Boyer said. “Every six months he asks me about having children and I always push it back another six months because I’m busy at the restaurant.
“That’s one of the biggest female-specific problems,” she continued. And despite postponing the decision, ultimately Boyer said: “I made a conscious decision long ago, though. I won’t let my business come between me and what I want for my family.”
Yesmene Allam is a single mother to three kids, ages 20, 17 and 8. She’s also the executive chef at her mother Rose Hajjarian’s old-school Lebanese restaurant Rose’s of Englewood.
Allam, 38 of Cliffside Park, was raised by Hajjarian, herself a single mother who supported Allam and her sister by working three jobs when they were younger, before she opened her restaurants.
“I absolutely got my work ethic from my mom,” said Allam. She had her first daughter when she was 18 years old. Allam never graduated high school and was divorced from her two elder daughters’ father by the time her second daughter was 6 months old.
Allam worked as a waitress at Rose’s for 12 hours a day to support them. By watching the kitchen staff and her mother, she became a “copy cat chef” and worked her way into the kitchen.
“My kids were my main drive,” she said. “No one was going to feed my kids except for me. I didn’t make excuses for myself.”
While she worked, her sister and other family members watched the kids.
“Working took time away from being with them,” she said. “It wasn’t easy, but I will do anything and everything so they can succeed.”
Now, Hajjarian has turned over leadership in the kitchen at Rose’s of Englewood to Allam.
“I’m making my family’s recipes,” she said. “It’s three fingers of this, four fingers of that – that’s the recipe.”
If you go to Rose’s and try the 24-hour marinated fish or meats cooked over smoky hardwood charcoal, or the falafel that’s crunchy on the outside and gives way to a soft, steamy center, or the hummus garnished with olive oil and sprinkled with bright spices, know that Allam is in the kitchen using her family recipes to make them.
“People used to think that women couldn’t handle the culinary industry because it’s a tough business,” she said. “You have to have a lot of stamina. I’m the type of person who likes to prove people wrong.”
If there’s proof that progress is being made toward equality in the restaurant world, it’s the experience of 23-year-old Kaitlyn Algarin, pastry chef for Italian restaurant Viaggio in Wayne.
When Algarin began attending the Culinary Institute of America five years ago, there were more women in her classes than men. (U.S. News & World Report says that in 2018, the CIA had 50/50 gender equality in its accepted students. The website College Factual says the faculty is 48.8 percent female and 51.2 percent male.)
“I didn’t notice any gender discrimination while I was in school,” she said. Progress, indeed.
Now, she works in Viaggio’s kitchen with three other women, crafting rough, rock-like chunks of hazelnut brittle to top chocolate espresso budino; arranging neat arches of small, circular carrot cakes; and resting bright green mint leaves on coconut, grapefruit panna cotta. Algarin’s desserts are almost too beautiful to eat.
Algarin learned to love baking while playing at the heels of her mother and grandmother as they cooked in the kitchen.
“I like the science side to baking,” said Algarin, a resident of Orange County. “Everything has to be exact and precise or it won’t come out right.”
After college she worked at Cedar Lakes Estate in Port Jervis, New York, before Viaggio. Her current schedule is intense; late nights and weekend shifts hinder her from seeing friends and family, but she loves the creative freedom she has to create new desserts.
“I definitely want people to get more into desserts,” she said. “They’re not as popular as the entrée, but it’s just as important. It’s the last thing people eat in their meal, so it’s important that people leave with something great.”
Algarin hopes to see even more equality in the kitchen in the future.
“We’re all talented and equal,” she said.
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