Only two black head chefs in UK's Michelin-starred restaurants

Just 6% of head chefs across 165 top restaurants are from a black or south Asian background

There are only two black head chefs with a Michelin star in the UK, a Guardian analysis has found, prompting leading chefs to call for action to make kitchens more diverse.

The Michelin guide is dominated by restaurants serving international cuisines, with traditional Chinese and Japanese food among the most prominent. Across the 165 restaurants in the UK with the food industry’s most coveted prize, 12% of head chefs are from a minority ethnic background.

Unconscious or implicit bias is one part of the explanation for why, despite equalities being enshrined in law, minority groups are still at a disadvantage in many parts of life. The term was popularised after US social psychologists devised a way of measuring the prejudices that we are not necessarily aware of – the Implicit Association Test. They published a paper in 1998 claiming that their tool for measuring "the unconscious roots of prejudice" showed that 90-95% of people were susceptible.