“But it was with the understanding that it wasn’t going to be forever. I remember Anais, I think she was about 9 when we opened, calling and crying and asking when I was coming home and I’m in a hallway saying I can’t come home, maybe I’ll see you in two days.”ĭuring that time, she says, the two mainly saw each other over WhatsApp video calls. “It was the first time I’d spent so much time away from my daughter. For five months after that, Galetti didn’t take a single day off. Mere, named for Galetti’s late mother, opened in London’s leafy Fitzrovia neighbourhood in 2017. “Balancing it was tough, but it was even tougher for us as a family when we opened our own restaurant.”
“In a way, I was really fortunate I could still have a foot in a two Michelin kitchen for a bit,” she says. In order to have more time with her family Galetti, whose career had been on a steep upward trajectory, stepped down a rung in the kitchen. They married in 2004 and, a few years later, welcomed their daughter Anais. Galetti met her husband, French sommelier David, when they were both working at Le Gavroche. What has been perhaps more difficult is the issue of work-life balance. “Some people think it’s being racist but no, I think it’s more ignorance.”) But those she could overcome with determination, confidence, a formidable work ethic and, she says, a dry Kiwi sense of humour. (“My colour was never an issue until I got to Europe,” she says. Galetti has faced hurdles as a foreigner, as a woman, and as a woman of colour. Galetti with her Amazing Hotels co-host, Giles Coren. “I spent over 13 years with them because I loved working with them and they looked after me well, they’re like family to me… When you set foot in there you show them you mean business, the world is your oyster with the Roux family. “It’s the highest quality, and they expect no less from their chefs, and of course loyalty to them is rewarded very well,” she says. Chefs who have trained in their kitchens include Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay, Marcus Wareing - and Galetti. Le Gavroche, which Michel Sr and Albert opened in 1967, was the first restaurant outside of France to receive a Michelin star a second London address, The Waterside Inn, was the first outside of France to hold three stars for a quarter century. Michel Albert Roux is the son of Albert, nephew of Michel, and brother of Alain. The Roux family is one of the great restaurant dynasties. In New Zealand that’s only available in books… I was very fortunate and very lucky to have had that schooling.” “We’re talking about the Roux family here. Despite it being a significant demotion, Galetti accepted the job. One of the first to respond was Michel Roux Jr, offering her a role as commis chef - one of the lowest positions in the kitchen - at his two Michelin-starred restaurant Le Gavroche. Her talent was immediately evident, and she was sent around the world to represent New Zealand in several cooking competitions.Īged 23, feeling she had outgrown New Zealand and wanting to spend more time overseas, Galetti began sending her CV to top restaurants in London. She grew up in Wellington and, after attending the Central Institute of Technology in Upper Hutt, got a job in the kitchen of the now-defunct Lower Hutt fine dining restaurant Timothy’s. Galetti was born Monica Fa’afiti in Samoa in 1975, and moved to New Zealand when she was 8. Monica Galetti in a shot from her latest cookbook, At Home.īut when the misogyny inevitably does arise, she adds, “It’s having the balls yourself to speak up for yourself if you’re unhappy with a situation… I came from a household and a culture where you did speak up for yourself and I was taught to speak up for others as well, so I’ve never taken any bulls… from anyone.” So it could be any industry, it’s how you cope with it.”įor Galetti, the way to cope with it was to roll up her sleeves and show that she could do anything the guys could do - she recalls hauling whole animal carcasses, or two or three 25kg bags of flour at a time. “Policemen are going to be like that, firemen are going to be like that, so a roomful of male chefs is going to be like that. “Any industry with lots of men is going to be a pissing contest, isn’t it,” Galetti muses. Around the world, female chefs hold less than 5 per cent of Michelin stars. Even within an already male-dominated industry - only about 20 per cent of chefs in the UK are female - Galetti is in a category, haute cuisine, that is especially teeming with testosterone. It would, in fact, be impossible to have established the kind of career Galetti has without them. These traits - the directness, the attention to detail, the determination and single mindedness - are ones that befit a top chef.
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