Women are now ruling and running the world. With their hard work, passion, enthusiasm and dedication, women have established themselves as powerful personalities and have gained fame in every field. One of the fields is entrepreneurship. Women-owned restaurants and cafes are thriving in many parts of the world. Women chefs and restaurateurs are bringing unique culinary concepts, flavours, and experiences to the dining scene. Women-owned restaurants represent the creativity, talent, and entrepreneurship of women in the food and hospitality sector. There are several women-owned restaurants that even prioritise community engagement and social impact. Here are some restaurants that are managed by women across the world.
1. Ajam Emba, India
An Indian cafe, Ajam Emba is located in Ranchi, Jharkhand. Aruna Tirkey, the founder of Ajam Emba aims to fight the disappearance of India’s tribal cuisines. The restaurant tries to bring indigenous flavours and ingredients to urban foods. Run by indigenous women, Ajam Emba aims to preserve India’s indigenous cultural heritage—and serve delicious food in the process. Aruna Tirkey, a member of Jharkhand’s indigenous Oraon community, grew up eating millet as a staple grain. Ajam Emba means “great tasting, healthy food” in the Oraon’s people’s Kudukh language. The menu of Ajam Emba features traditional dishes such as fermented rice tea and marh jhor, herbs cooked in brown rice starch. Snacks such as millet momos, chicken-and-vegetable-stuffed dumplings are also the special dishes. The menu also offers guests a taste of regional ingredients that are difficult to find anywhere else. Instead of using industrially farmed chickens, for example, the restaurant uses desi chicken. In the right season, visitors can also get to taste sanei phool or jute flower curry.
2. Jinkwansa Temple, South Korea
Jinkwansa is a 12th century Buddhist temple which sits atop a mountain in Bukhansan National Park in Seoul, South Korea. You can find women with shaved heads and gray robes running the entire operation. The food provided there is vegan and free of MSG, garlic, and onion. The nuns operating there ferment, spice, dry, marinate, and pickle ingredients to prepare all sorts of pungent, spicy, and tangy dishes. The nuns also ferment up to 30 different soybean pastes at a time, some of which have been aging beneath the sun for 50 years. Several visitors have also mentioned tasting more than 25 dishes in one meal, sampling fermented radishes, chestnut stew, crispy greens, marinated tofu, mushroom fritters, and sweet sticky rice squares sprinkled with fruit and nuts.
3. Gaa, Thailand
Garima Arora, the chef and owner of the restaurant Gaa in Thailand, became the first Indian female chef to earn a Michelin star at the age of 32 in 2018. In the following year, Restaurant Gaa made its debut on the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list at No. 16 with the Highest New Entry Award, and shortly after, claimed its place at No. 95 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. In December 2023, Restaurant Gaa received a second MICHELIN star in the 2024 MICHELIN Guide. Today, her mission is to rediscover and reform the narrative on Indian food and focuses on creating one of a kind dining experience which shows modern relevances of Indian cooking. The menu introduces the visitors with a never ending explosion of flavours, textures and ingredients and all of them are inspired by the limitless cuisines of India. Some of the special dishes include crispy scallop salad, fried fish with kasundi, pickle onion and mango chutney, all inspired by the Indo-Chinese flavours of Kolkata. Gobi paratha, buckwheat crisp with smoked jaggery butter & caviar are some other specialties.
4. Girl & The Goat, United States
Located in Chicago, Illinois in the United States, Stephanie Izard’s Girl & the Goat began in 2010 with a goal of serving bold, global flavours to visitors. An American chef and television personality, Stephanie Izard’s 122 seat restaurant’s family style menu is divided into meat, fish, and vegetable categories and offers a selection of wines from around the world. The menu also features bold flavours with global influence in a fun and lively setting that makes guests feel at home. Serving a wide variety of dishes, the restaurant features roasted beets, chickpea fritters, wood fired broccoli, shrimp salad, hamachi poke, crispy pork belly, and sticky glazed pork shank. For the ones with a sweet tooth, the restaurant has sticky toffee pumpkin spice cake, crinkle cookie sundae, hazelnut praline sundae, and coconut creme caramel.
5. Jay Fai, Thailand
Foudned in 1980 by Supinya Junsuta, Jay Fai in Bangkok is the only street food stall in Thailand to have MICHELIN star and is famous for Thai food like khai jeaw poo, or crab omelet, a hot and sour soup called tom yum, and pad kee mao, or stir-fried drunken noodles. Jay Fai has long been a street food icon, and for good reason — the begoggled chef Supinya Junsuta’s signature crispy, golden-brown crab omelettes which are simply divine. This is a deservedly popular spot for other dishes like seafood dry tom-yum, and stir-fried prawn in Thai roasted-chilli paste sauce.
6. Hisa Franko, Europe
Owned by Chef Ana Roš, Hisa Franko in Slovenia works closely with farmers, shepherds and cheese makers from high mountain farms above Kobarid and Tolmin. Hiša Franko has also been on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list since 2017. Hiša Franko’s cuisine, which draws inspiration from the traditional cuisine of the Soča Valley, combines meat (all parts of the animal), fish (all parts of the animal), a lot of dairy products, eggs, fruits and vegetables. All products are locally sourced based on each season. In June 2020, when the inaugural edition of the Slovenian Michelin guide was revealed, Hiša Franko received two Michelin stars. The place offers seed taco, black quince, pears, chickweed mussels, seaweed and lacto fermented tomato water, radishes, beans, almond and bay leaf milk.