Clare Smyth MBE, Chef Patron, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea

Clare Smyth, chef patron of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, talks to The Staff Canteen about working with Gordon and maintaining a three Michelin star menu. 

Clare Smyth MBE is the Chef Patron of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road in Chelsea. She is the first woman in the UK to hold three Michelin stars.

Clare was born and brought up in County Antrim in Northern Ireland before moving to England at the age of 16 to study catering at Highbury College in Portsmouth whilst on an apprenticeship at the nearby Grayshott Hall Spa Hotel in Surrey.

After graduating Clare worked as a commis chef at Bibendum in London before heading to Australia to work for a party catering company in Sydney in the build up to the 2000 Olympics. On her return she joined the kitchen at the St Enedoc Hotel in Cornwall as a sous chef, eventually attaining head chef.

Clare joined Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in 2002 as a chef de partie and rose to the position of senior sous chef in just under three years.

In 2005 she left London again to stage at some of the world’s most renowned restaurants before heading to France to work as a private chef and learn French.

In 2006 she joined the kitchens at Alain Ducasse’s renowned Le Louis XV restaurant in Monte Carlo where she remained for the next year and a half.

She returned once more to London in March 2007 and was offered the position of Head Chef at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay.

This year has been a big one for Clare seeing her become chef-patron after a major refurbishment at the restaurant and also named Chef of the Year in the Good Food Guide 2013. This was followed in June by an award of the MBE in Her Majesty the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.