15 NYC women who are changing the food & beverage industry

When people think of Black Seed Bagels, they most often think of the owners — Noah Bernamoff (Mile End) and Matt Kliegman (the Smile). But the person that should come to mind is head baker and woman-in-charge Dianna Daoheung.

Those coveted Montreal meets New York-style bagels that are now considered among the city’s best? That’s her recipe “from the ground up.” She’s the one there everyday: rolling, boiling and baking the bagels. The wood fired oven is (basically) her best friend.

Daoheung, 32, is first-generation Thai, and so cooking came early. “You’re 5 years old and female, you should start cooking” is basically how it went, she said. And so while she expected a tough go in the industry, with those in it underpaid and overworked, she knew it was for her. Especially on that one day almost two years ago. It was Chef Wiley Dufresne’s (Alder, wd-50 RIP) birthday, and the Mile End commissary kitchen in Red Hook was preparing a birthday party.

“I was cooking beef hearts on an outdoor grill and Anthony Bourdain pulls up. I thought, ‘Holy shit I could do this for my life!'”

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Photo Credit: GEORGIA KRAL

Daoheung, who spent time at Mile End and Isa in Brooklyn and then at Boulevard in San Francisco before opening Black Seed, said she knew what she was getting into by entering what is considered a male-dominated realm. She felt the need to prove herself, and to try and “be one of the homies.”

“There is a general dude humor in the kitchen where if you’re not used to it, it’s crude,” she said. [You just need to say] “Pretend I’m your sister. Would you say that to your mother?”

But while there are also a lot more women in kitchens now, she said, old stereotypes can pop up from time to time.

“There’s that boundary of when you’re angry you’re a bitch. When you’re assertive it’s that time of the month.”

Daoheung embraces it.

“For me, if they’re gonna think that,” she said. “Whatever.”

And she has clearly proven herself with that attitude. She’s in charge, and Black Seed is expanding at a clip. The next location in the East Village should open by the end of May. –GK

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Photo Credit: GEORGIA KRAL

To be Danny Bowien’s creative partner and foil is to be at the zenith of adventurous cooking and buzzworthy restaurants in NYC. And that’s just where Angela Dimayuga is right now.

Dimayuga, 29, has been at Mission Chinese Food NY since it opened in NYC in May, 2012, and in fact worked with Bowien on the concept and recipes for five months previous. “Anything Mission Chinese did in NYC, I did,” she said proudly.

Dimayuga is a first-generation Filipino from San Jose, California. In her family, food was important. It was cooked and eaten communally, and that has influenced her in ways both personal and professional.

“I love that aspect of a restaurant,” she said. “You can create your own community.”

When building MCF with Bowien, Dimayuga said her role as a “woman in charge” influenced discussions about the type of community they wanted at the restaurant.

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Photo Credit: GEORGIA KRAL

“I’m in an industry where it’s more powerful to be a male chef than a female chef. Some places are more dude-like. People talk about [insert crude joke]. It was something that was consciously decided…That’s not what we wanted,” she said.

But Dimayuga, who previously cooked at Vinegar Hill House in Brooklyn for three years and did not go to culinary school, says her unwavering belief in herself is what has taken her this far in her career.

“I was born with this confidence… An air of this is something I can do…If I want something, that gives me enough confidence to get it,” she said.

For now, Dimayuga is thriving where she is. The new Mission Chinese Food NY has only been open for a couple of months, and she is hard at work.

“A lot of my dreams have been fulfilled almost prematurely,” she said, her eyes bright and popping thanks to blue eyeliner. “I feel really present here.” –GK

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Photo Credit: GEORGIA KRAL

Ann Redding opened Uncle Boons with her husband in NoLita two years ago. The business is going well and soon they will embark on a new venture, the details of which could not be divulged to this reporter.

But for Redding, 39, perhaps it isn’t too surprising that life is food and food is life.

“My dad the hippie asked me, ‘What makes you happiest?’ It was always food,” she said one recent morning at Uncle Boons.

Like many chefs, Redding grew up around food. Her mother is Thai and one of six daughters. They were all food vendors. Redding’s grandmother had a vegetable farm in Thailand. “It’s the family curse,” she said with a laugh.

While home cooking may traditionally be associated with women, restaurant cooking has until recently been male dominated. Redding has seen it. After attending the Institute for Culinary Education, she completed an externship at Daniel, where she was one of two women in a large kitchen. That number has gone up a lot in recent years, she said.

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Photo Credit: GEORGIA KRAL

She has also had gender stereotypes applied to her.

“When people meet my husband and I they think he’s the chef and I’m the pastry chef,” she said. Redding met Matt Danzer when they were both cooking in what is widely considered one of the best kitchens, if not the best, in New York City: Per Se. Before Uncle Boons, they ran a market and restaurant on Shelter Island.

Perhaps one pro to being a woman in the kitchen is what Redding equates to being like a “little sister.”

“They [male chefs] didn’t think I was after their job,” she said.

But Redding thinks the most pressing issue for women in food is the same issue as on other industries: equal pay.

“Pay equality isn’t there,” she said, adding that she knew her husband made more than she did when they both worked at Per Se. –GK

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Photo Credit: GEORGIA KRAL

South Caroline-raised Suzanne Cupps has cooked in some of the best kitchens in NYC. After training at the Institute of Culinary Education, she completed an externship with Tom Colicchio, worked at Annisa for five years and then landed at Gramercy Tavern where she is currently Sous Chef.

As a woman in the industry, especially in management positions, Cupps, 34, has had to consider her tact and way of dealing with co-workers.

“I’ve had to think about my approach,” she said. “Males sometimes have a different way of communicating, and not getting as emotional.”

Whatever her strategy, it has paid off. Thanks also to her culinary skills, Cupps has been promoted to the position of Chef de Cuisine at Danny Meyer’s new restaurant Untitled, set to open on May 1 at the new Whitney Museum at the High Line.

Not surprisingly, farm-to-table and seasonal cooking is a passion for Cupps. She says she is excited to bring that same sensibility to Untitled. When asked how the restaurants will be different, she said Untitled would have a “more contemporary approach,” to match what was happening inside the museum. It will feature an open kitchen and lots of glass.

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As in most fields, picking the restaurant you want to work in has as much to do with the cooking as it does with the community of chefs and employees. Cupps credits the culture at Gramercy Tavern, as well as at Annisa, with the fact that she has not faced the kind of obstacles or sexism that other female chefs have.

It’s very important to pick the restaurant that you feel comfortable in,” she said. “A kitchen can be very competitive and in some kitchens you can be put down often. But that’s not the atmosphere here.” –GK

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Photo Credit: GEORGIA KRAL

Thanks to her persistence and dedication, Sara Bigelow is not just a butcher but also the general manager at The Meat Hook butcher shop in Williamsburg. And she started from the bottom: she was the first employee.

Bigelow, 29, said it took a little time for her to get past the “phenomenon of feeling like you’re a women and you have to feel like a man.” How, we asked?

“I started saying no to shots that were put in front of me!” she said with a laugh.

Indeed, meat butchery, especially in the United States, has a reputation for being a man’s realm.

“It’s undeniable that you as a woman as a butcher, are in the minority,” she said. But The Meat Hook is a progressive place, both in how they think about food and how they treat their employees, Bigelow said.

In fact, her gender was more of an issue when she worked at a coffee shop in her hometown of Culver City, Ca. The owner staffed only women to work the counter.

We were all young and all looked a certain way,” she said.

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Photo Credit: GEORGIA KRAL

But while all employees are treated equally in the butcher shop, she says there are some basic challenges for women. For example, the strength needed to “haul something [like a whole pig] off a truck and onto a counter.”

And sometimes being in the minority has its downsides – you don’t get all the inside jokes and references.

“Casual conversations… Movies I’d never seen…I started a list and I’m still working on it!” she said, ticking off “Roadhouse,” “Striptease” and “True Romance” as examples. “I checked the list with my brother and all the dude friends in my life, they’d seen them.”

But perhaps Bigelow’s belief in herself is wholly responsible for her success.

“I was always very competitive and I don’t like being told what to do,” she said. And then she proceeded to butcher a huge top round cut of steak. –GK

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Photo Credit: GEORGIA KRAL

Mary Attea’s first job in the food industry was at a pizzeria in her hometown of Buffalo. She hadn’t even gone to college yet, but she knew there was something about the work that appealed to her.

After dropping out of grad school, she worked as a waitress. Attea, 31, discovered that the questions she wanted to know the answers to – like how to understand wine – appealed to her more than anything she studied previously. “The spark came back,” she said. And so, after five years of watching the action in the kitchen, she began studying herself at the Institute of Culinary Education.

She began her run at Annisa as an intern, and rose up through the ranks quickly. After 3 1/2 years, she is the Chef de Cuisine.

Attea says because most of her kitchen experience has been at Annisa, where Chef Anita Lo is the owner and head chef, she has been spared from much of the gender issues in the industry, which has allowed her to grow. She also says her confidence has helped her in the “male-dominated industry.”

“I was always, ‘anything you can do I can do better,'” she said. “Here, we’re very gender neutral. If you have what it takes, we’ll give you the job… Hopefully it will be an obsolete issue [soon].” –GK

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Photo Credit: GEORGIA KRAL

Jessica Brown started her food industry career in Ithaca, after graduating from Cornell. But she quickly realized she wanted to be in NYC – “the greatest food city in the world.”

Brown, 32, moved with her husband, who is currently the wine director at the NoMad, and she worked at Parm as an opening manager before taking a sommelier job at Nick & Toni’s in East Hampton. Next was an assistant general manager and wine director at Scarpetta, followed by her current gig at The John Dory and The Breslin.

As wine director, Brown’s job is to help customers interpret what they are looking for in wine. It’s an exciting challenge, she says, because the restaurants are always looking to “stay relevant and be accessible.”

Brown says she is lucky to be in a company like this one, which is led by the famous chef April Bloomfield and is filled with women in management positions. But she also acknowledges that the changing times is what has helped a company like this one to thrive.

“This restaurant group wouldn’t have existed 10 years ago,” she said. Up until recently, “women cooking was domestic, and upper echelon chefs were men.”

Brown also said she thinks the “double standard” still exists.

“Women who are seen as assertive and passionate are often seen as aggressive, more often than men,” she said, adding that women are often considered more emotional than man. “Having your emotions held against you is a huge thing for women. –GK

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Photo Credit: GEORGIA KRAL

Women in food is a constantly discussed topic in certain circles, but like in other industries before it, women are taking over and the conversation is moving from niche to mainstream.

Indeed, all over New York City female chefs, sommeliers and butchers are taking lead roles in kitchens and food establishments, and are experiencing greater gender equality firsthand. The “boy’s club” is disappearing.

There are a number of female celebrity chefs working in NYC that we know and love, from Alex Guarnaschelli to Amanda Freitag. Then there are the chefs/owners who have made a name for themselves with their restaurants, including Anita Lo (Annisa) and Gabrielle Hamilton (Prune.) We wanted to shine a light on up and comers in New York City kitchens who are plying their trade everyday, some on the line and some pouring wine.

These rising stars are worth getting to know.