I am thinking that there are more reknowned male chefs for the same reason that there are there are more reknowned males in most respected professional fields:
There is still a bias for men—and against women—in the professions of the developed world, even if it is unspoken. Also, related to the bias, women tend to be in a higher proportion of entry-level or secretarial type jobs, and not because of their own preferences either. Until all things are equal as far as these two things go, I don’t think that you’ll be able to figure anything out just by counting numbers of men and numbers of women in each profession.
A couple of years ago I watched a video in my sociology class where a man and a woman, with equal qualifications and college degrees, entered a business that was hiring both a manager and a secretary. They both asked about the management position, but the woman was told it wasn’t available, but that she could apply to be the secretary. Sure, this is only one case, but it is indicative of things that still happen.
To say that men are more experimental, seems to me, to feed into this bias. There are plenty of women scientists. Additionally, if you look at the tasks that were historically performed by women, can you not imagine the amount of experimentation that must have taken place to perfect daily chores over time? Also, let’s not forget that in large part the culinary tradition that has been handed down to us in most cultures has a foundation built by women. They were the ones that had the time to cook when men were out doing more physically demanding chores, which is the major difference between men and women—physical strength.
All this said, I understand that neuroscientists/psychologists say that men and women, on average, look at the world in somewhat different ways, but experimentation is a quality of human nature as far as I can see, not a quality of the male brain.
That’s my answer.