Ladies BOSS
Female chefs dish on finding their passion and the women who influenced them along the way
NINA COMPTON
Three strong female chefs
By Helen Mitternight
coming to town for the Charleston Wine
+ Food festival talk to Skirt about the importance of women in their culinary lives. Katie Button, co-owner of Curate Bar de Tapas and Button & Co. Bagels in Asheville, North Carolina, has two James Beard Award nominations and is among Food & Wine’s 2015 Best New Chefs. She hosted an international television series, “The Best Chefs in the World.” She has worked with Jose Andres in the U.S. and for Ferran Adria at the famous elBulli in Spain. Maneet Chauhan, co-owner of Chauhan Ale & Masala House, Mantra Artisan Ales and Chaatable in Nashville, Tennessee, is a native of India and a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. She was executive chef of Vermilion in Chicago, which won several national “Best of” awards and received the 2012 James Beard Foundation Broadcast Media Award for her role as a judge on Food Network’s “Chopped.” Nina Compton, chef/owner of Compere Lapin and Bywater American Bistro in New Orleans, is a native of St. Lucia and a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. She worked with renowned chef Daniel Boulud in New York and worked in Miami. Nina was a finalist and fan favorite on BRAVO TV’s “Top Chef.” After opening Compere Lapin, she was named Food & Wine’s Best New Chef 2017 and won a James Beard Award in 2018 for Best Chef South. She also is the culinary
I took them: peeling potatoes, braising meat or making pastries. I loved it all. MANEET: It boiled down to the fact that I loved eating. I grew up in a small community in India, and people from all over India were living in that community. Each region had a distinct cuisine. I would finish dinner and then go over to a neighbor’s and say, “My mom hasn’t fed me, can I eat with you?” I was fascinated with the techniques and ingredients and I would come home and try to play around with the flavors. When my older sister went to college, I would take her food. I was the most popular kid on campus, even though I didn’t go there, only because of the food! I thought, if I love doing this and people love me for it, maybe I should take this up as a career!
HOW DID YOU KNOW FOOD WAS GOING TO BE YOUR LIFE? KATIE: I grew up in a family of food. They’ve all been amazing cooks. I was the kid who loved to impress people by slurping down oysters at 7, but it took me a little while to figure out that was my career path. I started down the path of math and science to be an engineer. I got my master’s in Paris where I was surrounded by amazing food and cooking and that got me through studies I wasn’t all that passionate about. I had already applied and been accepted to get my Ph.D. studying neuroscience, but I took a summer off, went to Zambia with Habitat for Humanity, and gave myself time for reflection. When I came back, I quit the Ph.D. program two weeks before I was supposed to start it. My parents were remarkably calm about it, but then I had already burned the bridges before I talked to them. I knew I had to get a job to pay for my apartment in D.C. I got a job in a restaurant front of house and, as soon as I started, I knew it was the right place for me. I thought of the times I was happiest or proudest and it was when I was serving food, so I knew I had to get in the kitchen. When opportunities presented themselves,
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NINA: Christmas is a big time for my family, very fun and festive. It’s not a one-day thing; it’s pretty much the whole month where people come over to the house and hang out. That year, I said, ‘You know, Mom, I think I want to take over the whole cooking program.’ At the first cocktail hour, I made all the canapes and had my nephew and nieces passing things around on trays. Seeing the reaction from the family, I thought, ‘This is good, this is what we are all about.’ I told my mom after that that I wanted to be a chef. She said, ‘Why? It’s long hours, so stressful, not a lot of money and you’ll be working all weekends and holidays.’ I started at Sandals on St. Lucia and then I went on to culinary school. I got bitten by the whole thing. HOW HAVE WOMEN SHAPED YOUR COOKING JOURNEY? KATIE: The women in my family were the master chefs in my family. It comes from my great-grandmother. My grandmother was raised in the Chicago area and my great-grandmother used to submit recipes to the newspaper. My grandmother loved to cook and my mother ran a cater-
LEFT TO RIGHT: DENNY CULBERT; AMELIA J. MOORE; COURTESY OF KATIE BUTTON
ambassador for St. Lucia.
