It’s so niche, it’s likely no one ever expected it to make anything more than a blip on the radar – least of all the account’s creator. But RateMyChives has proven itself to be a social media phenomenon, with everyone from home cooks to Michelin-starred chefs vying to score a perfect 10 for their chive-chopping skills. 

The premise behind RateMyChives is simple enough: people submit photos or a video of their chopped chives to the account, and RateMyChives gives them a score out of 10. But the entertainment value is endless, both in the various lacklustre attempts by would-be chive champions, and the comments section.  

The British chef behind the account chooses to keep their identity a secret, most likely so they can continue to judge with impunity, and not lose any friends in the biz. Dubbing themselves ‘the number one authority on chives worldwide’, they clearly put a lot of thought into each rating, and also offer words of criticism, praise or encouragement, depending on the submission. Yes, they can be scathing (“Words cannot describe the abject horror that washed over me when this arrived in my inbox” is the comment on one 0/10 rating), but they always give credit where it’s due. 

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At this stage, only a handful of contenders have scored a perfect 10, including Cliff Lyijynen, a Finnish-Singaporean chef based in Helsinki who has scored 10/10 twice; and Norwegian chef Kåre-André Hjartholm, who has competed in the Culinary Olympics, so obviously knows a thing or two about chopping under pressure. Meanwhile, a video of Gordon Ramsay chopping chives was given a stinging 1.2 out of 10. 

The account has been active for more than three years now, and has racked up 85,000 followers so far, including US chef and restaurateur Grant Achatz of two-Michelin-starred restaurant Alinea. Achatz even submitted his own chive offering, scoring a respectable 9/10. Closer to home, chef Andy Hearnden (AKA Andy Cooks) has also submitted a video, but at the time of writing, there was no rating from the account holder. 

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How to chop chives like a pro

We asked our resident chive-chopping expert (AKA our Food Director, Lucy Nunes) to share her tips on how you can up your own slice skills. 

“You need a super-sharp knife,” she says. “And you slice them once through – no coming back and randomly chopping. I still remember my chef in Normandy [France], where I worked at a two-Michelin-starred restaurant, who was not impressed with my chives. He said my board shouldn’t be green afterwards, or it meant that the chives had cried and I had done a bad job.”

Don’t make your chives cry. They’ve already got enough to deal with, what with all this newfound fame. So sharpen that good knife and get to work. RateMyChives is waiting. 

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