The male boss who burned my hands with a hot pan every night: Top chef and MasterChef judge ANNA HAUGH's devastating expose of kitchen sexism - including female chefs groped and bombarded with explicit images

Every night, the senior chef would do it. I'd be standing at the pass, where dishes are finally dressed before they go out to customers, and he would deliberately come at me with a hot pan. On purpose, he would burn me. Why? I was baffled by his hatred of me – real, visceral hatred, it seemed. Was it because I was a young woman? Because I had potential to be as good as him? He was a classic bully.

That was more than a decade ago, but plenty of men still bully and humiliate women in the restaurant industry today. I hear the stories from female chefs every day, which is why Jason Atherton's comments last week were so bizarre. A Michelin-starred chef and owner of six restaurants in the UK, Atherton told The Times he had 'not seen' sexism in today's professional kitchens, it was best not to dwell on the past and 'there is way too much focus on our industry' because of its attitude to women.

Personally, I felt confused. I wondered how somebody as successful and as bright as him could have such a poor grasp of reality. When you're not affected by the negative impact of sexism, or you're not insulting women, or you're not being inappropriate, maybe you think the problem isn't there because it isn't you. That is the bones of sexism.

Atherton's comments were not just poorly judged, but poorly timed. They were published just after this year's Michelin Guide Awards which gave only one female chef a star. In fact, his words sparked such outrage that 70 female chefs – including me – signed an open letter, condemning the sexism and inequality we have faced in the hospitality business, prompting what many are calling the restaurant industry's #MeToo reckoning.

For the truth is, the magnitude of sexist behaviour – even sexual harassment – that young women still endure in professional kitchens up and down the country today is shocking. And it has to stop. Plenty of men still bully and humiliate women in the restaurant industry today, says top chef Anna Haugh.

I've heard of women in kitchens receiving unsolicited 'd**k pics' from male chefs, most of them married and some famous enough to have been on TV. A young woman chef I know was working in a Michelin-starred kitchen in London in 2021, when her Head Chef and Sous Chef joked about 'spit-roasting' her. In the same kitchen, another male colleague asked her during service: 'Do you make sex tapes with your boyfriend? Can I watch?'.

When she worked at a London fine dining restaurant in 2022, she suffered sexual and derogatory comments about her body, including one chef telling her: 'You were skinny when you joined, now you're fat.'. Another woman chef left professional kitchens in 2022 after appalling treatment at the hands of male colleagues – including one incident of a male chef inserting his finger in between her buttocks when she was bending down to pick up a pan.

I grew up in Tallaght, a working-class area of Dublin where there is a lot of drug abuse and unemployment. I remember taking some friends home to my parents after school one day and I could see they were amazed that my dad had made sandwiches – and that he was not abusive or an addict.

The only other time I've witnessed the same level of surprise is on the faces of male chefs when they discover that women can stand the pressure of a professional kitchen just as well as the men. That we can do more than just the pastry section, and that we are talented in our own right, not just 'pretty good, for a woman'.

My first proper job in a kitchen was at L'Ecrivain, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Dublin. I was surrounded by gifted women who were in control and the topic of gender never came up. It just wasn't a factor in our work. When I moved to London in my early 20s, I joined a new kitchen and attitudes were very different. The initial reaction among the men was: Ooh, there's a girl in the kitchen, who's going to get to ride her?'.

I was told women can't cook and one chef pulled me aside to say: 'If you get pregnant, you're leaving.'. Much of what happened to me was frankly against the law, even 20 years ago. When I went to the loo, I was expected to press through a tight corridor past male colleagues using the toilet. A male colleague once deliberately stood in my way without his trousers or boxers on, expecting me to squeeze through the narrow space past his naked lower half.

Anna and with chef Marcus Wareing and under-fire presenter Gregg Wallace on MasterChef in 2022. Anna's BBC Series Big Irish Food Tour, aired in January. I was told on a regular basis by male counterparts that women 'aren't good' at being professional chefs, and though I knew instinctively this was rubbish, when I looked around, I could only count on the fingers of one hand the number of women who had made it to the top of the profession. Why were they being held back?.

Still, I befriended a sous chef at that kitchen – he was so nice to me, really funny – and he gave me lots of attention. One day we were prepping before service and I mentioned my boyfriend in passing conversation. That was it. He was horrible to me from that point onwards. He didn't even acknowledge me. At first I blamed myself. I must have done something wrong – maybe I'm not good enough or fast enough, I thought.