Here’s something that will make you lose your appetite: If you’re a female executive chef in the US, good luck finding a job. Back in 2014, Bloomberg analyzed 160 restaurants from 15 prevalent restaurant groups and found that only 6.3 percent of the companies’ executive chefs were women. And of the 72 Michelin-starred restaurants operating in New York City today, only six of their kitchens are led by women.
The ratios aren’t much different in the Capital Region. In fact, in all of Saratoga Springs’ restaurants, there’s just one female executive chef to be found: Roslyn Zecchini of Boca Bistro. “That’s funny; I never thought of it that way,” she tells me when I asked her what it was like to be one of the only female executive chefs in The Capital Region. “I guess you’re right, I don’t really know any female chefs in the area.”
