Female Hong Kong chef takes top award in Asia – and breaks the glass ceiling in a man’s world
Little Bao’s May Chow is leading a new generation of female chefs in the city who are battling against cultural stereotypes
Increasing numbers of young women are training to become chefs in the city but they still face barriers to achieving high-level success, industry insiders say.
The International Culinary Institute, part of the government-funded Vocational Training Council, has observed the number of women enrolling in cooking courses double in just over a decade.
Between 2013 and last year, about 40 per cent of students enrolled in the institute’s courses were female. This marked a significant increase from 2004 to 2007, when just 20 per cent were women on courses run by the institute’s sister organisation, the Hospitality Industry Training and Development Centre, since renamed the Hotel and Tourism Institute.
The figures were released to the South China Morning Post soon after May Chow, owner of Little Bao restaurant in Central, was voted Asia’s best female chef for 2017 by more than 300 culinary experts in a list published by William Reed Business Media.
Local parents don’t want their kids, especially women, to be part of the kitchen because they have this misconception that chefs have a bad lifestyle of drugs and gambling