‘Anonymity is a cloak of power': Slutty Cheff on restaurants' dark sides, dating IRL and her audacious persona

Cosmopolitan

14 hours ago

It's been a whirlwind couple of years for anonymous 20-something writer and cook Slutty Cheff. In early 2023, she launched an Instagram account that posted fairly unappealing photos of food with lengthy, sexually-explicit captions (one shared alongside a photo of a beef sandwich, for example, opens: 'I remember this girl at school who used to be very ashamed of her long labia'). Today, Slutty has tens of thousands of followers, a column in British Vogue, and is about to publish her debut book, TART: Misadventures of an Anonymous Chef, a memoir, of sorts, that she's already adapting for TV with romcom heavyweights Working Title. Safe to say: it's been a lot.
'I'm feeling quite anxious and stressed,' she says when we speak a week before TART's publication day (it's out on 17th July via Bloomsbury). 'My opinion changes every day. Sometimes I'm like, 'Oh it's gonna be great', and then other times I disassociate a bit and get scared of people being mean online.'
There's little chance of that, I think. TART is a funny, frenetic journey through almost two years of Slutty's life; cheffing, dating, and partying in London. We follow her through several — often very stressful — restaurant jobs, where she hones her cooking skills, faces misogyny in male-dominated kitchens, and meets friends and lovers, with whom she forms intense but usually temporary bonds (such is the nature of working 'anti-social' hours). Her trademark tongue-in-cheek humour and overt eroticisation abound, complemented by striking frankness, droll self-depreciation, and beautiful, intricate descriptions of the food she makes — notably Rick Stein's fish soup, made methodically and cathartically as a way of reconnecting with herself and her love of cooking.
Like Lena Dunham, whose endorsement says she 'devoured' the book, I inhaled TART in less than a week. For those, like me, who spent their 20s finding their feet and partying too hard in a big city, it's an intoxicating, familiar read — and one that either sparks (rose-tinted) nostalgia or begets a full-body cringe. Which is it for Slutty?
'I still have a lot of the same qualities in terms of being erratic and not necessarily making the best choices to, you know, avoid things that might disturb my mental health,' she says. 'But looking back, I'm not like, 'Oh you fucking idiot, why are you doing that?' because I think it's important to make mistakes and learn from them.' More than anything, she adds, it just makes her miss the kitchen. 'Which is nice. It's like a sentimental, romantic thing. It's not just this unveiling of the toxic, horrendous side of a professional kitchen, it talks about the beauty in it as well.'
Although it's pegged as a memoir, Slutty (a nickname even her friends now call her) describes TART as 'an amalgamation of fact and fiction'. She continues: 'Some parts are incredibly true and accurate, and others have been juiced up.' One bit that is depressingly true is Slutty's encounters with a chef colleague she calls Victor, who unwelcomely tries to flirt, always stands uncomfortably close, and even gropes her. 'I didn't say anything until a younger female chef joined and he did similar things with her and she spoke up,' says Slutty. '[In some ways] it was really great because it showed that even with just five years difference in generation, women are feeling less ashamed to call things out. I was really proud of her.'
Throughout TART, Slutty makes no bones about the challenges of working as a woman in kitchens, especially as she's often the lone female chef (in fact, it was a now-notorious post mocking TikTok chef Thomas Straker's all-male, all-white kitchen staff that really skyrocketed her follower count). Slutty says she 'had a hard time' expressing anything about the misogyny in the kitchens she worked in because of 'not wanting to appear 'weak' because I'm a girl; I didn't want to showcase the stereotype of being emotional'.
Does she think restaurants are moving more slowly when it comes to attitudes around gender equality? 'Probably yeah,' she says. 'But I think that's to do with the fact that running a restaurant is an incredibly hard feat, whether that's paying the bills, retaining the staff, or the labour of the job. There's so much going on, and there's so little money in it, that I think it's easier for a corporate office that has some crazy worldwide parent holding company and millions of pounds in their HR department to investigate these new ways of working. It probably is getting better as well. Each kitchen is different.'
Although she's understandably fairly tight-lipped about her background (which, she tells me matter-of-factly, is 'middle class, nuclear family, older protective brother, younger frail sister with mental health issues, nice life, privilege, no real struggle, blah, blah, blah'), Slutty does know a thing or two about working in a corporate office, having left a marketing role for cooking school and then kitchens. 'I was bored of my office job,' she explains. 'I was sort of having a mental breakdown, so trying to be a chef was almost like, 'I'll just fucking give it a stab as a last resort, and if it goes bad, I'll go back to my job'.'
It took a lot of hard work, but the risk paid off: despite the long, exhausting, and often blood pressure-raising hours, she loved being a chef — a fact that's effusively evident throughout TART. Slutty even continued working in restaurants after her Instagram took off and she'd scored her book deal, grafting in restaurants for much of the six months that it took her to write TART — which was no easy feat. 'I was writing every hour I had off work and became a shell of a human,' she previously revealed on Instagram. So, she took a break from working in restaurants to finish it, and is yet to go back full-time — with new writing opportunities in TV now taking up her time instead.
Oh, and the chefs she used to work with do know about her Slutty alter ego. 'They were like, 'What the fuck?',' she recalls. 'Because I'm not very audacious as a person. The way that I write on Instagram is like the way you speak when you're out at night drunk, talking with a friend, and the next day you're like, 'Oh fuck, what did I say last night?'. It's inhibitions set free; having a laugh. It's the way I would speak to my closest, oldest girlfriends. Naturally when I was working in kitchens, I was just focused on doing a good job and being as good as the boys, so I didn't show that side of myself.'
Her anonymity has emboldened Slutty to embrace this gutsy, cheeky, and sexed-up side without the usual fears or repercussions that come with being famous, and sexual, online, especially as a woman. 'Being anonymous gives me a secret cloak of power and ego that's always tongue-in-cheek,' she tells me, adding that it was an 'impulsive decision' to hide her identity — which she usually does so with a burger emoji, knitted burger mask, or carefully-placed accessories (edible and otherwise). 'I think the character [of Slutty Cheff] is wholly me, but it's a bit of me that I only show to people who I'm comfortable with and love.'
Slutty doesn't hide everything about her non-alter ego life. We know she now has a boyfriend, after being single for nearly a decade, because she's written about him and posted mysterious hand/leg/back-of-head shots of him on Instagram — kind of a soft launch, except we'll never get the hard stuff. As someone whose newfound career centres on writing about her sex and dating escapades, how has being in a relationship influenced her work?
'Initially it was a real boner killer because, I don't know, you feel like you don't want to just report on someone else all the time,' she says. 'But I think I've escaped that now. There's a million stories to tell, whether you're in a relationship or not, and it can be equally as interesting [to look back]. I also don't want to bang on about being in a relationship because when I was single, someone talking about the trials and tribulations of being in love was just like, 'Oh fuck off'.'
As she tries to figure out the perfect balance between boyfriend and non-boyfriend content, Slutty is also working on the TV adaptation of TART — 'there's no details to say because I'm being really shit at it while I'm so focused on the book stuff' — and will soon be getting started on book number two (again, no details for now).
With all this fame and fortune, could she ever be tempted to reveal her identity? As it stands, she's committed to a 'face reveal' at one million followers. Will she stick to it? 'There's not a chance I'll ever get to a million followers because you have to do all of this dirty social media tomfoolery to get there, like short form videos, brand deals, and showing your ass,' she says. 'So I can't get to one million. But if I do, then I'll just delete one follower all the time. Maybe if someone outs me, then I'll crack on and show my face, but then who will give a fuck? It's all about the anonymity — that's the mystique.'
Read on for an exclusive extract, adapted from TART: Misadventures of an Anonymous Chef by Slutty Cheff (Bloomsbury, £16.99).
Spring is in the air. There are cocks everywhere: the forced rhubarb unveils its great erection from beneath the covers, courgettes showcase their bendy phallic form with pride, and girthy leeks pull back their skin.
And all I can think about is sex.
It's April now, a month since I cycled past that strange hot man smoking in the dark. It was Luca. And it was him who called me, trying to get me round for a booty call. I picked up while I was cycling, but I politely declined and explained to him I'd just ended things with a guy. I'd also just worked a double shift and I didn't feel all that sexy, with deep-fryer hair, a sweaty body and puffy tear-stained cheeks. But I didn't mention that to him; even in a state of wretched sadness I still think about impressing boys.
Since that night, Luca has been persistent in helping me move past my heartbreak, not with sympathy and kindness, but with straight up sexting.
We've texted every day since. He's a menace and I fancy him a lot. He's audacious and cocky, but my God is he hot. And after my recent failed attempt at real love, I fancy myself some short-lived lust.
During the last month, he's hit me up for many a booty call, but it was only yesterday when I finally conceded. Although, I suppose a booty call is usually at night, whereas this was in broad daylight.
24 hours later and I'm back in the kitchen, but all I can think about is yesterday morning's sex.
Sex flashbacks can be better than the real thing. They are like the Hollywood-produced trailer of your feature-length fornication; the bumpy bits are forgotten and the artful bits come to the forefront; the climax, the tit grab, the cock clasp, the tongue twirl.
'You've got a bit of a spring in your step today, don't you,' senior sous chef George says to me.
It's been a gruelling month getting over my heartbreak, despite having Luca's sexts to keep me entertained, but as of yesterday, I have an effective distraction: Luca, the handsome gazelle. All day I've been thinking about him, and me, naked.
'Of course I'm happy,' I respond. 'I'm making staff food an hour after I was supposed to go home after my morning shift; that's just how much I love being here.' I'm making mac and cheese for the chefs, my silly boys. I lob a chunk of butter and a sprinkling of flour into a pan to make the roux for béchamel. Once it sizzles and starts smelling of biscuits, I pour in a little milk. I take a big spoon and use my motherly arms to stir my sauce, so the mix doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. As I add more, it gets a little sleepier and starts moving slower. The boys don't realise their mother's glowing because she got laid last night, not because she loves them.
TART: Misadventures of an Anonymous Chef by Slutty Cheff will be published via Bloomsbury on 17th July