Chef Rachel Rumbol On How Kitchens Run By Women Have Transformed Her Life

When you think of sisterhood, a restaurant kitchen probably isn’t what comes to mind. In fact, 2018 ONS statistics show that while 56% of hospitality industry workers are women, rising to 60% among front-of-house staff, just 17% of chefs are women. This inequality means kitchens can be isolating spaces if you don’t fit a certain mould. The plot of Stephen Graham restaurant drama Boiling Point might be fiction, but its displays of aggressive, alpha male head cheffing have real-life parallels. Take Eater London’s 2021 report into gender inequality in London’s restaurant industry. It found that women chefs use words like “abuse” and “trauma” to describe their workplace experiences.

Clearly, many restaurant kitchens could use a stronger sense of sisterhood and community. Thankfully there are initiatives helping to provide this, like Junior Bake Off host Ravneet Gill’s Counter Talk and #FairKitchens. Another is Queers in Food and Beverage (QFAB), run by Peckham-based chef and one half of catering company Butch Salads, Rachel Rumbol.

Rumbol, 31, has worked in hospitality for 12 years and as a chef for eight. She first started in the hospitality industry while still at uni, aged 19, working front of house at Islington’s The Diner in 2009 and the Union Chapel in 2011. She returned after graduating aged 23, and waited tables at Elliot’s in Borough Market in 2013 — it’s the place she credits with sparking her interest in food. After realising she might be better suited to creating dishes rather than serving them, she decided to become a chef. Learning on the job, she has since worked her way from oyster shucker to sous chef to catering company co-owner. As a restaurant chef, Rumbol loved her work but, as a queer woman, she found the kitchen culture hard to stomach. That was until 2015, when she found work as a sous chef at Louie Louie, the restaurant co-owned by Hanne, the woman who is now her business partner.

While sisterhood may not be a feature of every or even most restaurant kitchens, it can be found, and when it is, Rumbol describes it as “life-altering.” In her experience, kitchens run by women are more collaborative and supportive. She says of traditional male-led food spaces: “It was the less questions [the better], don't bother the head chef, just get on with it.” Whereas in kitchens run by women, “it was much more let's do this together. You bring your whole self. It's not about splitting yourself up into personal and professional. It's much more liberating than that.”

Despite having found workplaces where she feels supported, uplifted, and accepted, Rumbol says that visibility remains a problem in the industry, especially for queer women. “There are a lot of big players who are from the LGBTQI+ community, but so often it's a footnote. I definitely couldn't have told you many queer or gay chefs that I knew and I definitely didn't know any women. And nobody that really looked like me, as a woman who looks more masculine,” she notes.

So, in March 2021, she set up QFAB to celebrate and connect queer people in the industry. Running the platform has made Rumbol keenly aware that male-dominated kitchens can be especially marginalising for some. “I've noticed it's a difficult environment for the trans community and non-binary community to be open in. You might love food. You might love cooking, but you might go, you know what, I don't think I could be a chef. It’s a struggle for me to even find those voices as somebody who's literally searching for them.”

Rumbol is clear that no one should have to endure “macho, toxic” workplaces. There are other options. She recommends the catering industry, which gave her an alternative way to work with food when long restaurant hours were turning her into a “beast” and getting in the way of her relationships. “I wish I'd known that catering, for example, is an extremely female-dominated industry,” Rumbol says. “It's because of that people are actually more likely to be able to build their own life. A lot of female-run catering companies want other women in them. It suits mums coming back to work, it suits all kinds of different lifestyles.”

For those struggling to find that sense of sisterhood and community within restaurants, Rumbol can relate. “This was definitely me at a certain point. I thought, wrongly, that you had to cut your teeth in the traditional male kitchens in order to be respected, in order to get jobs elsewhere.” Her advice to others is simply don’t stay in spaces that don’t serve you. “Find somewhere that is more aligned with the culture that you want [and] the person that you want to be at work,” she says. “There's plenty of places like that. It just requires a little bit more research.”

Sisterhood is really important to uplift each other. There is no scarcity. This whole idea that you've got to push each other down in order to progress is so outdated.

As for where to do that research, she recommends social media. “Look at female chefs who run places, have a look on their Instagram.” And when you go to an interview, remember you have power too. “Go to trial shifts and treat it like it's not just them trialling you, you're trialling them. Ask questions about culture,” she suggests. When all else fails? Go with your gut. “When you walk into a kitchen, you see the demographic. Do you feel that's going to serve you and those people are going to pull you up and make you a better person and a better chef? Listen to your intuition. Know that there are plenty of people out there who would love to have you in their teams,” she advises.

This is also where her own Instagram community comes in. Rumbol recommends QFAB as a resource for finding a queer-friendly workplace in hospitality. “Come on my page, have a little look through people who I've profiled or certain companies that very obviously have a queer focus or are queer-owned. You can message them and ask them. They've got jobs, there are jobs out there,” she says.

While total equality within the hospitality industry may feel like a distant prospect, Rumbol is a believer in the transformative power of sisterhood. She tells me: “Sisterhood is really important to uplift each other. There is no scarcity. This whole idea that you've got to push each other down in order to progress is so outdated. I think we're all learning all over the board at the moment that we can all come up together and if anything, we're stronger together.”