Ask Michelle Garnaut, the pioneering Australian chef and restaurateur, how much the Hong Kong dining scene has evolved, particularly from the point of view of female chefs, since she opened M at the Fringe — the first independent fine-dining restaurant outside a hotel in the city — in 1989. You can expect by way of response a very wry, very worldly, very expressive snort. “Back then, cooking wasn’t even seen as a proper job,” she says. “Virtually no women were involved. I had one talented young female chef — a local — who quit to become a manager at KFC because her parents thought that any managerial role was more respectable than being a chef.”
问问澳大利亚主厨和餐厅老板的先驱米歇尔•加诺特(Michelle Garnaut)，自1989年她开设了香港第一家酒店外独立高级餐厅M at the Fringe以来，香港的餐饮界发生了多大的变化，尤其是从女主厨的角度来看。作为回应，你可以期待她非常揶揄、非常世故、非常意味深长的哼声。“那时候，烹饪甚至不被视为正经工作。”她说，“实际上没有女性做厨师。我认识一位才华横溢的年轻女厨师——一个当地人——辞职去了肯德基(KFC)当经理，因为她父母认为任何管理职位都比当厨师更受人尊敬。”