What is it about anonymity that reels us in? In this case, it is the promise of tell-all secrets and total behind-the-scenes honesty unmarred by concerns about, I imagine, being fired. Which is why the social media star Slutty Cheff has so piqued the interest not just of online followers but publishers too, all from behind an anonymous account. She has just over 40K followers, and yet her reach seems to stretch much further. She uses her platform to write about being a woman in the male-dominated restaurant world, and her followers can’t get enough of the sexcapades of the UK’s culinary elite.
The chef, who hides her face behind a burger emoji, began posting pictures of food accompanied by lengthy captions about sex and love in 2023, and within a couple of years, landed a column at British Vogue, stirred up a controversy with chef/Tiktok star Thomas Straker about his all white, all male staff on Instagram, and got a book deal with Bloomsbury.
To many, she is synonymous with the beginning of a new culinary dawn. A distinct, overtly sexy one that isn’t in the Nigella playbook of heavy innuendos about succulent meat, but one that is being led with unapologetic femininity, voracious hunger and irreverent honesty.
See also: Meet @sluttycheff — the anonymous chef taking Instagram to boiling point
In her memoir, she shares her journey from a stuffy office day job to a series of darkened basement kitchens – an upheaval spurred on by a mental health crisis and an overriding love of food — the word ‘addict’ is littered throughout.
Tart is what M.F.K Fisher might have written had she been born today
Tart, which is Ms Cheff’s debut book, covers everything from being “head over Crocs in love” to crying into “achy breaky artichoke hearts” and having panic attacks in restaurant loos due to late nights followed by double-shifts. She is unashamed about her appetite, and brings food back down to earth by intertwining it with our most carnal desires. Her style of writing is remarkably honest yet somehow casual, like she’s talking to the reader as a friend and close confidant.
Best books about food
Taste by Stanley Tucci
The Gastronomical Me by M.F.K Fisher
A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain
English Food: A People’s History by Diane Purkiss
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
See more in Saskia Kemsley’s guide to the best books about food
In ‘Tart’, food and sex are synonymous with each other, lending a sensuality to every flick of the page. She has an almost Greta Gerwig, Sofia Coppola-esque understanding of womanhood – from using showerheads in inventive ways to explaining her methods for coping with horrendous men. She is gloriously indiscreet, sharing revelations about the gritty underbelly of the London culinary scene; it’s all drug-fuelled chaos, perverted chefs and scorching hot kitchens. This is the shield that anonymity provides.
Cheff has become a cult London icon, so the capital becomes not just a backdrop but one of the memoir’s key characters. It offers an ample, bursting and rich playground onto which the author can spread her indulgent desires for food, for love, for anything that triggers her ‘addiction’. It moves through the meringued peaks and troughs of life with finesse, exploring everything from sexual experimentation to the intricacies involved in deboning a Dover sole.
Its chapters are short and to the point, yet Cheff also has a driving narrative style. She leaves us on cliffhangers about her toxic relationships and poor working environments before moving seamlessly into her favourite Rick Stein fish soup or her lunch service menu.
Where restaurants aren’t named, there are clues which an avid gastronome could probably decipher. She decries the sexism of the restaurant profession, from how her chef whites fit in all the wrong places, as they were designed for men, to the lack of private changing rooms. But that doesn’t stop her from feeling at home in the chaos.
Tart is what M.F.K Fisher might have written had she been born today. It’s an instant, hedonistic culinary classic.
Saskia Kemsley is a shopping writer
Tart: Misadventures of an Anonymous Chef by Slutty Cheff is out on July 17 (Bloomsbury, £16.99)
