GALLERY: The Dinner Party, a celebration of women in the kitchen from some of Toronto’s top female chefs

GALLERY: The Dinner Party, a celebration of women in the kitchen from some of Toronto’s top female chefs

(Image: Renée Suen)

Restaurant kitchens can be macho, male-dominated places. So, on Monday night, 60 guests gathered at The Great Hall to celebrate the unsung talents of the women in Toronto’s kitchens at The Dinner Party, a special event organized by Alexandra Feswick of the soon-to-open Samuel J. Moore. Feswick enlisted some of the city’s top female talent to create a collaborative tasting menu dedicated to the women who inspired them. The evening was a takeoff on Judy Chicago’s famous 1979 installation of the same name, which honoured famous female historical figures with a dinner of dishes and place settings celebrating their accomplishments. “I’ve been working in the industry for nearly a decade and have yet to find many people who don’t walk into a kitchen I’m running and ask me where the chef is,” Feswick tells us. “I’ve decided that this needs to change.”

The Toronto event featured Laura John (Le Select), Missy Hui (Fabbrica), Charlotte Lang (Hooked), Cheska Ang (Actinolite), Trish Gill (Spin) and Robyn Cheng (The Stop Catering), with beverage pairings from Krysta Oben of Cowbell. Flipping the usual dynamic, a team of notable male chefs ran the front of house was run, including Mark Cutrara (Cowbell), Guy Rawlings (Room 203) and Dustin Gallagher (Riverside Public House). Proceeds from the event were donated to The Stop.

Check out the chefs, their dishes and the makeshift front-of-house team in our sideshow »