Top Bushmills chef wins UK’s highest restaurant award regarded as the ‘Oscars of the hospitality industry’

Bushmills born Clare Smyth has gained one of the highest accolades in the UK hospitality industry.

Clare was among a number of chefs and restaurants of venues to triumph at the 40th annual CATEY Awards – regarded as the ‘Oscars of the hospitality industry’.

Chef/owner of the Michelin starred Core by Clare Smyth restaurant in London’s Notting Hill, won individual Restaurateur of the Year in the coveted and prestigious national awards.

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of excellence in hospitality provided an opportunity to appreciate the outstanding talent in the industry and those who have set the standards that are continually built upon.

The first British woman to win three Michelin stars, the Co Antrim chef, who grew up on the family farm near Bushmills and gained her first experience as a cook there, opened Core in 2017, having been head chef at the famed Restaurant Gordon Ramsay.

Clare has also seen her Core gourmet restaurant receive five AA rosettes for its food and service, and in the past has picked up awards at The Craft Guild of Chefs and the National Restaurant Awards. She’s also been named the World’s Best Female Chef by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.

Led by Clare, the team of chefs at Core cook with sustainable British produce and offer a tasting menu that starts at an eye-watering £205 - there’s a wine pairing at £135 per person. Dishes include Isle of Harris scallop tartare, roasted cod with Morecambe Bay shrimps, Rhug Estate venison and Smyth’s famous ‘lamb carrot’. She has also used Northern Ireland foods, such as Abernethy Butter of Dromara, Co Down, in her outstanding dishes.

The CATEYs were attended by some of the biggest names in hospitality, including Angela Hartnett and Ollie Dabbous. Guests enjoyed on a three-course menu developed by John Williams of The Ritz Hotel.

The winners were decided by industry experts and, over the past 40 years, CATEYs have been given to the likes of Michel Bourdin, maître chef de cuisine of London’s Connaught Hotel, and Richard Shepherd, credited with being the first British chef to win a Michelin star.

Opening her own restaurant was always Clare’s dream. She now also has Oncore, a gourmet restaurant in Sydney, Australia that has earned her further acclaim.

“To open my own restaurant with my own vision and ideas, to take it from that to three stars in just over three years is very encouraging,” she says.

She’s chosen everything in the restaurant. Known as a perfectionist, Clare has impressive stamina, great energy and outstanding creativity in the ambience of the restaurant, in dishes she creates and culinary commissions that have included cooking for royalty in the shape of Prince Harry and Meghan’s 2018 wedding reception.

On the family farm in Co Antrim, food, she continues, was always part of her way of life. It was always home cooked and based on traditional meat, vegetable and potato dishes. She’s carried potatoes through into one of her gourmet dishes – potao and roe which also features dulse, another local favourite. During school holidays Clare, aged 15, worked regularly a local restaurant, whose chef had worked in Michelin-starred eateries. She also read every cookbook she could find in the area.

A year later, Clare, determined to become a professional chef, left for England to study catering and subsequently learned skills in a number of high-profile restaurants before joining celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. That was back in 2002. She learned about fine dining, how to use ingredients to create original flavours and, perhaps above all, to be a leader in the kitchen.

She was just 28 when Ramsay saw her potential and named her head chef, inheriting Michelin stars and, crucially, the vital job of maintaining them - quite a challenge for a young chef.

“People were saying ‘you’re the first woman in the UK to run a three Michelin-star restaurant’, and I was thinking, ‘yeah, or I could be the first woman to lose three stars’, Clare remembers.

While the pressure was intense, Clare retained the all-important stars and has since added other accolades for her creativity. Her next step was to open her own restaurant.

Clare describes Core as “an elegant fine dining restaurant with an emphasis on natural, sustainable food, sourced from the UK’s most dedicated farmers and producers”.

She continues: “We create beautifully crafted dishes, seeking out the best of British produce, with a passion to delight and share our curiosity and our love of artisanal food.”