Beyond a joke

It's hot, it's steamy, there's passion in the air and temperatures are rising. No, this is not the promotional blurb for a Jackie Collins novel, but the normal habitat of chefs across the country.

Each member of the brigade is part of a closely knit team, which needs to work like a well-oiled machine to ensure the highest standards of food and service. And thanks to the round-the-clock nature of the industry and the long working hours, kitchen staff spend more time with their colleagues than with their families and friends. In fact, if you work in a kitchen, they become your nearest and dearest, and sometimes a lot nearer than you would like.

Kitchens are full of banter, most of it unprintable, with members of the brigade trading insults and compliments, jokes and comments. On the whole, the banter is seen as innocent, meaningless fun. But for some people it can be the prelude to unwanted attention, often of the physical kind.

"When I was young, a head chef put his hand up my skirt," says Lucy Petherick, chef at Ellington's restaurant in Chingford, London. "I was standing on a stool at the time, reaching for something in the larder. He was an old pervert and was taking any chance he could to try it on.

"Working with the Saudi royal family was also an eye-opener," she continues. "There was one chef there who never touched me but was always making suggestive remarks and cornering me in the fridge."

Unfortunately, Petherick's tale is not unique. A significant proportion of the women who make it into the world of the professional kitchen can expect to become the object of sexual harassment by a male colleague at some point - most likely when the women are young and inexperienced. Of course, such harassment can also be perpetrated by women on their male colleagues, and may also be a problem for gay members of staff, but the most frequently reported incidents tend to be those in which a woman is the victim.

Teasing and practical jokes greeted Gail Koerber, co-head chef at London's Museum Street Café, when she started work. As a naïve youngster embarking on her first job in the industry, the harassment she encountered, although mild in comparison to some, shocked and upset her.

"When I was 18, the guys I was working with used to lock me in the store cupboard with the head chef," says Koerber. "The guys were macho yobs and it was their idea of fun to harass me. They would say things to deliberately embarrass me and make me feel small. Often, it was quite upsetting."

Flirting, innuendo, jokes and comments may be innocent enough in many kitchens, but for some members of the brigade, most generally the young and female sort, putting up with sexual harassment has become part and parcel of their working lives.

But while the odd comment about the way you look, or even a few risqué jokes, can be easily ignored, some chefs have to put up with much more. For example, Lisa (not her real name) came close to quitting her job as an apprentice after months of persistent, unwanted attention from a male colleague.

"Like everyone else in the kitchen, I enjoyed the banter and I used to join in with a bit of harmless flirting," she explains. "But there was this one guy in the brigade who always took it a bit too far. I didn't take much notice at first, but his comments became more and more suggestive, and then one day he tried to kiss me.

"I was young and new in my job and didn't want to make a fuss but he continued to try it on with me. He was always touching me or brushing up against me, making comments about the way I dressed. It got so bad that I hated going to work because of him and was going to leave until another colleague persuaded me to tell my manager. He got a warning to leave me alone and eventually left."

Shrugging off the comments, quipping back, giving as good as you get - the general rule among those who are the subject of verbal or physical abuse is not to make a fuss. During our investigations, Chef came across the same story time and again. Sexual harassment is an occupational hazard in the professional kitchen and the consensus appears to be: if you can't handle it, get out.

This attitude, it may surprise you, is as common among the profession's women as among the men.

"It can be quite difficult to stand your ground, but you have to adapt to get on in what is a male-dominated world," says Claire Clark, pastry chef at Terence Conran's newest restaurant, Bluebird. "You have to be one of the boys, able to laugh at their jokes and not constantly take offence. To be honest, I enjoy the banter and believe it is all part of what it is to work in a kitchen."

Paul Merrett, head chef at the Terrace Garden Restaurant, Le Méridien Piccadilly, believes it is the long hours, the pressure and the team-working that produces the joking and clowning around and that, on the whole, that is all it is. "I think there is very little direct sexual harassment. What there is a lot of is innuendo and sexual jokes," he says.

"To be perfectly honest, I would be upset if one of my guys didn't make a joke out of an extremely phallic-looking cucumber. Kitchens attract buoyant, rowdy types who are also very professional. The barriers are broken down and, while the same thing goes on in offices, it is suppressed, which is usually harder to deal with."

Merrett also believes that, while the male chefs in the brigade might make comments about female colleagues, few do so with any serious intent of sparking off a sexual relationship. "There is a lot of difference between sexual bravado and seriously chatting someone up," he says. "If a guy fancies one of the waitresses, he is more likely not to make any comments or jokes."

Relationships between staff at London's Aubergine restaurant are a complete no-no as far as proprietor and head chef Gordon Ramsay is concerned. But despite the rule, he admits, Aubergine staff play the same games as brigades everywhere.

"Kitchens are always full of machismo and inflated egos and can be the loneliest places in the world, with people putting up with a lot of intimidation," he says. "There is a fine line between general talk and sexual harassment, and that is one reason why I do not accept in-house relationships."

Although the profession's attitude to sexual harassment is one of commonplace acceptance, it may be forced to rethink this position in the not-too-distant future. Few cases of sexual harassment have ever been formally reported by a chef, and virtually no civil or criminal proceedings have been taken against a member of the profession for sexually harassing a colleague.

However, the news that Steven Saunders, chef-proprietor of the Pink Geranium, had been arrested on indecency charges after being accused by a waitress of harassment came as a shock to everyone.

As long as it remains the case that sexual harassment is tolerated in the working lives of chefs, there remains a strong possibility that we will see more chefs called to account in the courts, where a heavy prison sentence could be the ultimate outcome of one too many off-colour comments.