Million Air Winter 2022

INFLUENCE THE BIG INTERVIEW

Clare Smyth on making her mark in fi ne dining

At Festival des Etoilés inMonaco, Clare Smyth speaks with Irenie Forshaw about her meteoric rise and why she doesn’t like her label as ‘Britain’s fi rst three-star female chef ’

When I arrive at the Hôtel de Paris, Clare Smyth is standing on the steps chatting amiably with a snowy-haired man. Below them, a photographer calls out instructions and snaps pictures. Brightly colored supercars line up outside, and throngs of glamorous people drift into the casino next door. It’s a balmy Friday afternoon in September, and I’ve come to the hotel for the opening night of the Festival des Etoilés — a glitzy foodie event held by the Monte Carlo Société des Bains de Mer. The snowy haired man is Alain Ducasse — arguably the planet’s best chef, whose restaurants hold more Michelin stars than those of any other chef in the world. Tonight, he has invited Smyth (the fi rst and only British female chef to hold three Michelin stars in the UK) and the team at her wildly popular London restaurant, Core, to cook a four-hands dinner in collaboration with his own chefs at Le Louis XV. It’s the type of meal she could only have dreamed she would one day cook. “It’s very sentimental for me being back here,” she tells me later that evening, from a velvet sofa in the hotel’s gilded lobby. “Ducasse has always been a massive hero of mine and a huge inspiration. It’s not something I could have imagined; that I would come back here or that he would even know my name.”

This unwavering determination is evident in Smyth’s own career. The talented chef grew up on a farm in County Antrim, Northern Ireland and started working in the kitchen at a local restaurant when she was just 15. “Growing up we ate potatoes with every meal,” she recalls. “We would cook really hearty, rustic food and use all parts of the animals to make stews and soups; there was never anything out of a tin.” Smyth was a ferocious reader, devouring the cookbooks of her favorite chefs as a teenager. Anton Mosimann’s Cuisine à La Carte was the fi rst book she bought. “The thing that caught my eye was his tall white hat and bow tie,” she remembers. At 16, Smyth left her family’s farm and moved to England to pursue her dream of becoming a chef, losing her Northern Irish accent within just a few weeks. Was it hard leaving everything she knew behind at such a young age? “I was so focused and single-minded,” she says, in her un fl appable manner. “I just knew that I wanted to do it. I never really looked back.” After cutting her teeth at some of the UK’s most prestigious hotels, Smyth secured a position at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. Her time there wasn’t always easy. However, she stresses, “... people see this TV persona and it isn’t really Gordon. There are times that he’s quite fi erce in the kitchen, but he’s actually a very kind, generous person, and always fair. He’s a lot of fun to work with.” It wasn’t long before she caught the eponymous chef ’s attention and, after her stint at Le Louis XV, Ramsay o ff ered her the coveted position of chef patron at his three-Michelin-star restaurant in London’s leafy Chelsea neighborhood. Smyth was just 28 years old. It was, quite frankly, a terrifying prospect. Restaurant Gordon Ramsay is notorious as one of the most competitive kitchens; only the very best chefs can stand the heat. “It’s a very macho environment, and I was coming in as a young woman taking over,” says Smyth. “It was great to be the fi rst woman to do it, but I also had this fear about being the fi rst woman to lose three Michelin stars.” Up until this point, Smyth had been quietly working her way to the top. But when she took over the kitchen at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, the press coverage exploded. “It was all fi rst woman this, fi rst woman that…” Smyth trails o ff . “It’s not something I had really thought about before; I was always just inspired by great chefs.”

Smyth fi rst arrived at the Hôtel de Paris over a decade ago, when her mentor Gordon Ramsay asked Ducasse if she could spend some time in his kitchen. In the end, the ambitious young chef spent just 18 months at Le Louis XV before Ramsay lured her back to London with the promise of the chef patron position at his three-Michelin-star eatery. But Smyth will never forget the time she spent here. Cooking with Ducasse this evening will no doubt be a memory she will treasure for the rest of her life. He is, after all, one of the reasons she became a chef in the fi rst place. “He has no fear,” she tells me. “He pushes boundaries all the time. If he wants to do something new that’s never been done before he’ll just do it. Why? Because he can; because he’s Alain Ducasse. So who knows better than him?” “It was all fi rst woman this, fi rst woman that… it’s not something I had really thought about before; I was always just inspired by great chefs.”