Top chef Clare Smyth to open her own restaurant in Notting Hill this summer

Smyth, Britain’s highest-achieving female chef, is set to open her first solo restaurant
Going solo: Clare Smyth will open her restaurant after nearly a decade at Gordon Ramsay
Rebecca Reid

Britain’s highest-achieving female chef is to open her first solo restaurant this summer, after almost a decade heading the kitchen at Gordon Ramsay’s flagship.

Clare Smyth, 38, who became the first British woman to hold three Michelin stars during her reign as chef patron at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea’s Royal Hospital Road, has secured a site in Notting Hill.

The Northern Irish chef, who was also the first woman to be awarded a perfect 10 score by The Good Food Guide, spent more than a year looking for suitable premises.

She had originally hoped to open last autumn but was delayed by a series of setbacks.

The 60-seater restaurant, as yet unnamed, will be in Kensington Park Road near Portobello market. The Victorian building has been empty since 2014, when Iberian specialist Notting Hill Kitchen closed.

Before that it was known as the Notting Hill Brasserie, but it first opened as a restaurant in 1969, when food writer and broadcaster Prue Leith launched Leith’s.

Smyth said: “It was pretty fraught at times in 2016, but I’m thrilled to have exchanged on this particular site. It was my first choice and I just love the history of the building.” She has signed a 15-year lease and will pay an annual rent of £135,000.

David Rawlinson, founder and director at specialist agent Restaurant Property, who acted on Smyth’s behalf, said: “Clare has been looking for about a year for this type of site to come up and the former Notting Hill Brasserie ticked all the boxes.

“The residents of Notting Hill will soon be spoilt for choice, with The Ledbury — number 14 in the world’s top 50 restaurants — only a stone’s throw away and now Clare Smyth’s exciting new restaurant opening.” Smyth is the last of Ramsay’s “brat pack” of protégés to set up on her own, following Jason Atherton, Marcus Wareing, Mark Sargeant and Angela Hartnett.

Latest restaurant reviews

1/128

When her departure was first announced, in October 2015, Ramsay said: “It’s been fantastic watching Clare develop. She is undoubtedly one of the greatest chefs to have graced my kitchen and has now become the most prominent female chef of our generation.”

Smyth left her native County Antrim to enrol at catering college in Portsmouth the day after she left school. She joined Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in 2002 then spent time working in Monaco and California before returning to Royal Hospital Road as head chef in 2007.

Visit standard.co.uk/restaurants for the latest news and reviews from London’s food scene.

Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESGoingOut

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in