Stephen Jardine: At last, women work past prejudice and into restaurant kitchens – purely on merit

The other day I sat down to dinner with Gordon Ramsay. To be fair, 249 other people shared the experience with me but the whole event was based around proximity to the man himself. The £500 tickets for this annual event in aid of Scottish Spina Bifida even promised a clear and uninterrupted view, all evening, of Britain's most famous, and infamous, chef.

Of course, some people would happily pay good money to be seated as far away as possible from the cook who promised never to become a TV chef and instead turned himself into a TV phenomenon. But chef Ramsay – as the Americans insist on calling him in their latest cruel twist to our language – was charming and generous with his time. It's worth remembering, with a worldwide restaurant empire, he doesn't need to be sitting in a marquee on the Clyde coast, so his support for a great Scottish charity is laudable and impressive.

But what most struck me on the night was not Ramsay nor the Glaswegian glamazons crowding around him, but the incredible quality of the food. The star of the show was dinner. Although Ramsay has held more Michelin stars than any other British chef, his only involvement in the meal itself was to get his picture taken in the kitchen with the brigade. Even the brilliant Phil Lewis, head chef at the Braehead Cook School, stayed on the sidelines.

Neither was needed because the chefs in charge on the night all had a common bond. They were women. In an age of equality that shouldn't be surprising, but it is. Despite women rising to the top in every walk of life, in restaurant kitchens men still dominate. Look at Scotland's list of Michelin stars: Andrew, Tom, Martin and Tony. The names tell their own story.

For generations women were responsible for making the food at home but nowhere else. Restaurant kitchens were strictly men-only.

"It's not a job that is conducive to family life", says past Masterchef winner Sue Lawrence. "Working split shifts and finishing late with children at home is hard. Add in a testosterone-fuelled macho-atmosphere and it's not an attractive profession for women."

The Gordon Ramsay dinner proves the profession is finally changing and the man himself was full of praise for the job done by the all-female team. In the kitchen was his head chef from London, Clare Smyth, alongside Scotland's own Lesley McQuiston, Yvonne Noon and Jacqueline O'Donnell from The Sisters restaurants in Glasgow.

Afterwards, she told me everything behind-the-scenes had gone like clockwork. "It was so calm and just so much more fun than you'd expect in an all-male kitchen."

She wasn't surprised that I'd loved the food. "Women have a lighter touch, they think more about what's going into dishes because they worry about their own health or figures. The way women cook is very in touch with what we want from food nowadays".

So is this the shape of things to come? Last year more women than ever picked up a Michelin star. That great bastion of cooking skill is starting to recognise female achievement and that trend is likely to continue since a women recently became the new editor. In London, chefs like Anna Hansen, Angela Hartnett and Masterchef winner Thomasina Miers are grabbing all the headlines and they are doing it through sheer talent and hard work rather than licking pretend leftovers from the fridge in a suggestive manner.

Despite the domestic goddess and the harsh demands of the profession, it looks like equality has at last made it into the restaurant kitchen. And about time too.