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Clare Smyth MBE (born 1978) is an Northern Irish chef who is currently Chef Patron at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. She became the first female British chef to hold three Michelin stars and only the seventh female chef worldwide to hold the award at the time of her appointment. She had previously worked in a number of restaurants including The Fat Duck, The Waterside Inn, Gidleigh Park and The French Laundry.

Early life

Smyth grew up on a farm in County Antrim, located around halfway between the Giant's Causeway and the Bushmills Distillery. She was the youngest of three children, to her father William, a horse trainer, and mother Doreen, who worked as a waitress at a local restaurant.

At the age of fifteen, Smyth held a job over a holiday period at a local restaurant. Although initially she was more interested in "a decent job, like a lawyer or a doctor", it inspired her to become a chef, and she set her sights on achieving a Michelin star. She left school at sixteen to study catering at Highbury College in Portsmouth, Hampshire.

Career

While at culinary college, she served an apprenticeship at Grayshott Hall, Surrey, she worked with Heston Blumenthal at the The Fat Duck in Bray. She left that post to work full-time at Terrance Conran's restaurant at Michelin House, London. She followed this with a six-month period in Australia to work for a catering company, and on her return to the UK she worked at a variety of restaurants including The Waterside Inn and Gidleigh Park. She worked at the restaurant of the St Enodoc Hotel in Rock, Cornwall, first as sous chef and then afterwards as head chef. While there she won the title of Young Cornish Fish Chef of the Year.

In 2002 Gordon Ramsay offered her a post at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. She later said of her first Ramsay job, "When I started in this kitchen six years ago, everyone, including Gordon, said I wouldn't last a week. It was full of testosterone and lots of the guys said I didn't belong here. Even though they were often in tears from stress, cutting their fingers or burning themselves, I had to cover anything like that up as it would have been seen as a sign of weakness because I was a woman." She had a disagreement with head chef Simone Zanoni and threatened to quit when he was contemplating promoting a less experienced chef over her to the sauces section.

Ramsay sent her to work at The French Laundry in California to gain experience. In 2007 she was announced as the new head chef of the restaurant, becoming the first female chef in the United Kingdom to run a restaurant with three Michelin stars. Of 121 Michelin starred restaurants worldwide, at the time of her appointment only seven had female head chefs. She had previously taken a break from Ramsay's restaurant to work as a private chef and for a year and a half in Alain Ducasse's Le Louis XV restaurant in Monaco, before returning once more to the UK to run the Chelsea based restaurant. She took over from Zanoni, who was heading to Versailles to open a new Gordon Ramsay restaurant.

In 2013 she was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthaday Honours list for her services to the culinary arts.

References

1. ^ Day, Elizabeth (16 December 2007). "'She dresses food like Picasso'". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
2. ^ "Women chefs: Claire Smyth, Skye Gyngell, Thomasina Miers, Maria Elia, Emily Watkins". The Daily Telegraph. 18 October 2009. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
3. ^ "Gordon Ramsay eats his own words". The Daily Telegraph. 20 January 2008. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
4. ^ Gardham, Duncan (27 November 2007). "Revealed: First three Michelin star female chef". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 29 January 2012. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
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External links

• Clare Smyth at IMDb

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• 1978 births
• People from County Antrim
• Chefs from Northern Ireland
• Living people
• Women chefs
• Head chefs of Michelin starred restaurants