Any good misogynist will tell you that a woman’s place is in the kitchen. But that exact same misogynist will tell you that a professional kitchen is no place for a woman. It’s one of the more perplexing sexist paradoxes.
Moira Murray is proving that a woman's place is actually wherever the hell she wants it to be.
The head chef of Halifax’s Peacock Wine Bar—where she leads a brigade of mostly women cooks—is putting her skills to the ultimate test as one of 10 creative and boundary-pushing chefs facing off on the popular tv cooking competition—Top Chef Canada.
But the road to the top has been a long one and started where all great chefs do: kinesiology.
“When I was at school, I was constantly cooking for my roommates and getting friends together for little dinner parties,” Murray tells The Coast in a telephone interview. “In my third year of kinesiology, I started thinking that maybe this was something I should do professionally. So I made the decision very abruptly to go to culinary school.”
She moved from Halifax to the Big Smoke for her culinary education, where she attended the George Brown College of Culinary Management. And while most students were waiting tables or working retail to pay the rent, she and a passionate like-minded classmate opened a small-scale catering company—doing private chef work, dinner parties and small weddings.
Basically, she was girl bossing before girl bossing was even a thing.
From there, she moved from one Toronto fine-dining hot spot to another—learning from some of the best in the business and honing her craft—before moving south of the border to the epicentre of all things epicurious: New York City.
“I worked at a restaurant called Dovetail on the Upper West Side that was very vegetable-forward,” says Murray. “It was an interesting experience because prior to that (very much in the 2000 times), the focus of most restaurants was on high-end rich proteins. So moving to lighter fare and seeing vegetables be featured in that kind of way was a pleasure.”
Dovetail also boasted a Michelin star, but nbd.
After her visa ran out, it was back to Toronto and at several more high-end establishments, including Alma where she had the opportunity to work with renowned chef Anna Chen.
“It was absolutely incredible to work for another female chef,” says Murray of her experience with Chen.
It was actually the first time in her career she had the opportunity to work for a female chef, which—when you look at the number of restaurants on her resume up to that point—should tell you everything you need to know about the way the restaurant industry skewed at that time.
After her stint at Alma, she decided to take a hard pivot in order to get a whole new kind of food service experience. She ditched the fine china and white tablecloths, and took a job at Duncanby Lodge—an all-inclusive fishing resort in BC.
“When I left for culinary school in 2009, I actually never intended to stay away as long as I did. I thought I would just go to school and come home,” says Murray. “But opportunities just led one to another and when I was finishing up at the fishing lodge, I saw that a friend of mine in Toronto posted about a new restaurant he was working towards in Halifax.”
That restaurant was Peacock Wine Bar, and her interest was piqued right away; when she learned about the concept, she was sold.
“He said to me ‘you would actually be perfect for this,’” says Murray. “Within a week I was on a flight and had an interview with [Corporate Executive Chef of Oliver & Bonacini Hospitality] Anthony Walsh and we hit it off pretty quickly. Then I flew home to Halifax and cooked for them as sort of an audition.”
Needless to say, she got the part.
Peacock Wine Bar—located on the waterfront at Queen’s Marque—describes itself as a refreshing new breed of wine bar that delivers a tightly curated menu of seasonally inspired dishes where vegetables and handmade pastas take starring roles. And from all evidence, the concept is a resounding success—it was named one of Canada’s Best New Restaurants in 2023.
But the show had to go on without their leading lady while she took a brief hiatus to compete against nine of the most gifted chefs in the country on Top Chef Canada’s eleventh season.
“The whole thing was a very interesting experience for me because I actually like hiding in my kitchen and not putting myself out there,” says Murray. “The irony is not lost on me that I decided to go on a television show. I really had to push personal boundaries and comforts.”
The motivation to push those boundaries came from a deep-rooted confidence; in the direction she’s going and in the food she’s putting on the plate. But also in her pride. She is proud of herself, her restaurant and the whole East Coast culinary scene, and she felt the time was right to show it off.
“The majority of my kitchen team is actually young women, and it felt like there was no better time than now to step up and make them proud,” says Murray. “I do feel pressure to represent Halifax, but for me, pressure is privilege and I’m just so grateful to be in the position I’m in.”
Murray acknowledges that young women cooks have started to gravitate towards her. Her sous chef at Peacock is “the best sous chef in the city” according to Murray, and she says that she always has young female students in her kitchen. “It’s nice to see because when I was coming up, I was always the only woman in the kitchen.”
Tune in to cheer Murray on when Top Chef’s eleventh season premiers on Monday, October 14th. She says she is feeling “all of it” in anticipation of seeing herself compete on TV.
“My restaurant wants to have a watch party, but I think I’ll need to watch the first one alone.”
