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| Born | 1978 County Antrim, Northern Ireland |
| Education | Dunluce School Bushmills |
| Culinary career | |
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Award(s) won
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Clare Smyth (born 1978) is an Northern Irish chef who is currently Chef Patron at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea in London and became the first female British chef to hold then retain three Michelin stars when she took over the kitchens in 2007. Before returning to London in 2007 she worked at Alain Ducasse at the Louis XV in Monaco. In addition she has worked stagiaires – a term used when a chef works for free in another chefs kitchen to gain experience - in some of the best restaurants in the world.
Early life
Smyth grew up on a farm in County Antrim. She was the youngest of three children, to her father William, a farmer and mother Doreen, who worked as a waitress at a local restaurant.
By the time she was fifteen she had developed a passion for horses, was a regular at local competitions and was determined to make a career in professional showjumping. However a holiday job at a local restaurant washing dishes in the kitchen was to change her career path forever. It was here she first experienced life in a professional kitchen; from the variety and quality of the produce arriving each morning, to the preparation through to the final cooking ready for service. She became a voracious reader of cookbooks including Escoffier and became obsessed with mastering the techniques and the craft required in fine dining restaurants. She had found her vocation and the following year at just sixteen years old she had enrolled at Highbury College in Portsmouth in England to study catering.
Career
While at culinary college, she served an apprenticeship at Grayshott Hall, Surrey. After graduation she worked full-time in London at Terence Conran's Bibendum at Michelin House. With the build up to the Sydney Olympics in 2000, she then joined a catering company in Australia and used this to fund six-months travelling the continent. Upon her return to the UK, she accepted the position of sous chef at the St Enodoc Hotel in Rock, Cornwall. At only 20 years old, she was quickly promoted to head chef.
In 2002, Gordon Ramsay offered her a Chef de Partie position 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." By 2004, she had risen to Senior Sous Chef.
Still hungry to acquire experience on a global level Clare left Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in 2004 and stagiaired among others at Per Se in New York and The French Laundry in California. A year later she had set her sights on the kitchens of Alain Ducasse but knew she would need a greater command of French to secure any position there. She moved to France, spent 3 months as a private chef and enrolled in language lessons. By the autumn 2005 she had secured a position with Ducasse at the Louis XV in Monaco where she spent the following 18 months. The military discipline, the precision of the craft and the philosophy of Ducasse himself struck a great cord with Clare and she credits him to this day as one of her greatest mentors.
By 2007 Gordon Ramsay was looking for a new Head Chef for Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. He knew Clare had experience of the restaurant and had acquired the discipline required to run a brigade at the highest level. She became Head Chef in March 2007. Of 121 three Michelin starred restaurants worldwide, at the time of her appointment only seven had female head chefs. After a major refurbishment of the restaurant in March 2013, she was announced Chef Patron. She remains the only female chef to have retained 3 Michelin stars in the UK.
Charity Work
Since taking over as Head Chef at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay Clare has worked with the following charities: Annual dinner at the Royal Hospital to raise funds for HemiHelp – a charity set up to help children living with Hemiplegia. Action Against Hunger Scottish Spina Bifida Bobbi Bear Foundation South Africa (Johannesburg) Who’s Cooking Dinner?
References
- Day, Elizabeth (16 December 2007). "'She dresses food like Picasso'". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
External links
- Clare Smyth at IMDb