London (AFP)
She obtained a third Michelin star during confinement and is preparing, four months later, to finally be able to reopen her young London restaurant: the Briton Clare Smyth firmly maintains the course in the midst of a storm for her sector.
The 42-year-old North Irishwoman is the first and only British woman to have been awarded three Michelin stars in the UK, and only the fourth British chef to receive this honor.
In full confinement, the celebrations quickly came to an end: "We celebrated it with a bottle of champagne and a pizza" and video conference calls with the team at Core, its restaurant opened in August 2017 in the Notting Hill district.
The hotel and catering sector suffered particularly this winter, suffering from long months of closure.
The restaurants will not welcome again diners until Monday and they will not be able to count on foreign tourists, few in number due to border restrictions.
During the lockdown, Core's team cooked hundreds of meals each week for associations and offered their customers take-out or home-delivered menus, a first that “worked very well”.
The reopening promises to be auspicious: reservations are full until August.
"We're very lucky because we have a regular customer base," including celebrities like the family of ex-football star David Beckham.
To adapt to the health context, the number of covers has been reduced: 44 instead of 54. As for the 42 employees, they are screened for Covid-19 every week.
- Potato in the spotlight -
With its shelves filled with old cookbooks and decanters of liquor and comfortable seating, Core is both intimate and warm.
The Michelin guide praises "its modern dishes which offer magnificent flavors and textures but in a sober and discreet style".
For the French chef Hélène Darroze, Clare Smyth is "a monster of rigor and precision".
"She has this strength of character in the work which is quite incredible and I am quite admiring it," Ms. Darroze told AFP.
In the kitchen, Clare Smyth sublimates unpretentious products like potatoes or carrots.
The flagship dish is "potato and roe", a potato topped with trout roe and herring, served with a white butter.
A recipe in homage to the North Irish roots of the triple star: "I grew up eating potatoes every day, near the coast".
These flavors are therefore "very nostalgic".
If at Core everything is "made in Britain", from fresh produce to dishes and silverware, the team is on the other hand international, which Clare Smyth intends to keep, despite immigration conditions tightened since the release. of the United Kingdom of the European Union.
"We need to continue bringing in these workers," she pleads, even though she fears that "Brexit will have a huge impact on recruitment".
- Catering for Harry and Meghan -
Determined to pursue a career in the kitchen, Clare Smyth left the family farm in County Antrim, west of Belfast at 16, to train in England and pursue her dream.
She notably studied at the Louis XV - Alain Ducasse in Monaco then at the restaurant Gordon Ramsay in the chic district of Chelsea, in London, where she worked for 13 years, climbing the ranks to lead the three-star restaurant of the famous chef. British.
In May 2018, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle chose her to make their wedding meal: "It was like a fairy tale, we will remember it for a long time".
She has also participated in cooking shows such as "MasterChef" in the UK and Australia, "The Final Table" ("Everyone at the table") from Netflix and the American version of "Top Chef".
In July, she plans to open her first restaurant in Australia, called Oncore, at the Crown Sydney Hotel.
With The Connaught, by Hélène Darroze, Core is the only restaurant in the United Kingdom to enter this year in the closed club of three stars, the highest distinction of Michelin.
Two women at the top of the podium, a fact "rather rare", but "I think we will see more and more women at the top level," predicts Clare Smyth.
"I have quite a few in my kitchen which I hope will earn their own Michelin stars over the next five to ten years."
© 2021 AFP