food
Females on Fire Can Vermont’s women chefs break the glass ceiling? B Y A L I CE L EVI T T
W
e’ve all been waiting f or — now at Crop Bistro & Brewery and this year’s long-overdue the Rusty Nail — was hired for the post spring, but chef Cortney in 2011, he was the fi nal chef to be proQuinn has waited more moted over Quinn. “It was a sting. It was eagerly than most. She’s been anticipat- an ego blow,” she admits. “But I got back ing the arrival of seasonal produce such on that horse, and I supported Steve as as ramps and asparagus so she can pair well as I could physically do.” them with the homemade beet gnocchi Quinn’s story had a happy ending she serves at Topnotch Resort & Spa in when the hospitality group MetWest Stowe. Terra named her Topnotch’s executive Diners are sure to fi nd Quinn’s elchef last month. But it left us wondering, egant plate of Hawaiian sea trout with Where are Vermont’s high-level f emale spinach purée, petite spring vegetables chefs? Despite a foodie culture that has and blood-orange made celebrities of sauce vierge ref reshthe people responingly light af ter a sible f or thef are winter of heavy food. at our f avorite resBut that dish means taurants, it’s rare to far more to Quinn: It hear a f emale name appears on her fi rst among all the Erics menu as Topnotch’s and Michaels on the executive chef. scene. Has the old Quinn was boys’ club made it already an exdi° cult for women ecutive chef at Todd to rise in the best English’s Kingfi sh kitchens? Hall restaurant in Michelle Ford Boston’s Faneuil Hall believes that’s not Marketplace nearly the case, at least L EE D U B ER M A N six years ago, when a not anymore. Ford headhunter recruited is dean of hospiher f or a chef de cuisine position at tality and restaurant management at Topnotch, then under chef Mark Timms. the New England Culinary Institute. The young chef took the demotion to Traditionally, she explains, enrollment return to her native Vermont and the in the restaurant-management program world of hotels she had enjoyed while has been split equally between men and working at the Westin Copley Place, also women, while the culinary program has in Boston. been male dominated. In the past fi ve “I love the hotel environment,” Quinn years, however, female enrollment in the says. “There’s always something going latter has grown incrementally to almost on, whether it’s banquets or restaurants 50 percent. or events.” Ford says that the young women But when Timms decamped to who come to NECI to learn to be chefs Washington, D.C., in 2010, Quinn didn’t have no illusions about an easy ride. get the executive chef role — which was “Female students seem to come in with fi lled instead by a series of short-lived a higher degree of awareness of what replacements. When Steve Sicinski
ALL THE WOMEN WHO ARE IN THE KITCHEN ARE STRONG WOMEN BY DEFINITION.
JEB WALLACE-BRODEUR
SEVEN DAYS
05.07.14-05.14.14
SEVENDAYSVT.COM
YOU HAVE TO BE — BOTH PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY — IF YOU WANT TO KEEP UP.
44 FOOD
Chef Cortney Quinn
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FEMALES ON FIRE
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