Three years later, Ramsay’s disciplined protege added to her resume by staging at Thomas Keller’s restaurants The French Laundry and Per Se, as well as in Monaco, where she worked under Alain Ducasse (her number-two culinary idol behind Ramsay) for eighteen months at Le Louis XV. Jellied eel, toasted seaweed, malt vinegar… one bite and you can almost feel the Northern Irish wind. Enodoc Hotel restaurant), the talented young chef caught Gordon Ramsay’s eye in 2001, and he brought her on board.
Not being one to shy away from taking major leaps (on horseback or otherwise), Smyth bade Northern Ireland goodbye and set off for England, where she finished school, and then moved to London at 18.Īfter spending time at The Waterside Inn, Bibendum, and The Fat Duck, and also traveling to Australia and Cornwall (where she eventually rose to the position of head chef at the St. “I never believed them, but then one day I realized I might actually be able to do it.” At age 16, Smyth decided that, if she was going to work in restaurants, it was going to be in the big leagues. “People around me always thought I would make it as a chef one day,” she adds. As a teenager, the now-39-year-old Smyth helped out at local restaurants in the course of meeting other chefs and learning on her own through cookbooks, she says, she just naturally grew into the career path. But no matter how many trophies she took home in the saddle, they never quite outshone her love for cooking. The Northern Ireland native grew up on a farm, and her family still keeps horses to this day. The culinary world can thank its lucky stars that Smyth ended up in the restaurant business rather than pursuing her other calling as a show jumper. “She is undoubtedly one of the greatest chefs to have graced my kitchen,” he said, “and has now become the most prominent female chef of our generation.” Galloping to the front And Ramsay, the ranting, raving Cooking Channel perma-fixture, showed his loyal, down-to-earth, camera-shy “Chef Patron” plenty of love in an official statement in the Fall of 2015, when she announced she would be leaving the Chelsea restaurant bearing his name and striking out on her own. Which you probably have to be in order to become Great Britain’s first (and so far, only) female chef to earn three Michelin stars and keep them for years. Makes sense, when you put it that way, although it may just mean Clare Smyth is thick-skinned.
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