In a city known for its word-class food as well as for its support and encouragement of women in business, it is notable that most of the executive chefs in the big name restaurants of San Francisco are men. It’s no secret that restaurant kitchens are notoriously difficult places to work – hot, dangerous, and dripping with testosterone – so it’s not a wonder that it takes a strong, tough woman to not only weather the storm, but to rise to the top; however, women chefs also face other more personal obstacles. When I asked Sara Moulton, executive chef at Gourmet magazine and host of the Food Network show, Sara’s Secrets, why there are still relatively few women executive chefs, she pointed to two main factors: “I think it’s a matter of time, but I also think that having children is a huge issue. I am a feminist to the core, but I firmly believe kids need their moms. Some women have found solutions, like Jody Adams of Rialto [Cambridge, MA] – her husband is a stay-at-home dad, but there aren’t many of those. The hours are so demanding that, if women want to raise a family, it’s really tough, and I don’t know if that part can ever change.”

There are some great women chefs in the Northside and throughout The City running their own kitchens, including Nancy Oakes at Boulevard, Suzette Gresham at Acquerello, and rising star Sara Schafer at Frisson, and all of the women profiled in this feature have, at one point in their lives, run a restaurant kitchen. But women chefs are also finding other ways to create opportunities for themselves outside of the restaurant kitchen to still do what they love and, if they choose, to raise a family. From cookbooks to a PBS television series to a biscuit business, our top women chefs of the Northside are doing it all, while others are still excelling behind the stoves as executive chefs, some for more than 25 years.