Clare Smyth: the Core of British dining

I came up with the name for my restaurant in the middle of the night. I think the best things come to you when you’re asleep. I just thought, ‘That’s it, it’s Core’. It’s the heart. Whatever language you say it in you can understand it’s the team, it’s the strength. It just seemed so perfect. It’s been a long journey to finally open the restaurant. In fact, it took nearly two years. I was at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay for a long time, nearly ten years. Gordon helped me with my business plan – he was very supportive all the way through. I’d always said to him it's about being chefs, it’s about cooking and it’s about food, but actually it’s not. Food is just a small part of it. I know I can cook and I know I can do food but everything else is massive compared to that. Dealing with builders, structural issues and legal stuff is a big thing. Now we’re open I’m doing what I’m supposed to do again, which is great.

With Core it’s really important for me to take away all the things that people find intimidating about fine dining, because people just can’t be bothered with stuffiness. Our neighbours come in and say the atmosphere is amazing and it’s super sharp food. So that’s my game: it’s how I like to eat, it’s how I like to go out – I don’t see why you can’t have both. I’m really passionate about fine dining, and for it to survive into the future and be cool we’ve got to evolve it, like everything in life. Everyone on my team is at the top of their game, it’s up to us to own it and drive it forward.

I wanted to keep everything predominantly British because it’s important that we think about what is around us, now more than ever. We have to be economically sustainable and support the people around us. It’s also about having a sense of place and identity, being British and being in the food world. I’ve worked in French restaurants my whole career – the French created haute cuisine but it’s time for us to take it back and do our own version.

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I like to challenge perception. Who is to say a potato is any less of an ingredient than asparagus, or skate is less important than turbot? For years I would eat a potato before service with salt and pepper. I grew up in Ireland and just love potatoes. This is why we have a potato dish on the menu. I also grew up eating dulce seaweed so we started to think about that when developing the menu. Our vision was to pick humble ingredients and elevate them using our creativity. A lot of the dishes on the menu at Core put the focus on vegetables. It’s to show that a dish can be equally satisfying without having to have the meat part. I used to steal the carrots out of the braising stew and I love them. They were, for me, the little nuggets. Where other people would discard them, I would think, ‘they are the best bits, why not do something with that?’ It’s not thinking about what everyone else is doing, it’s thinking about us – the greediness, the eating.

Growing up on a farm in Northern Ireland helped me have a real understanding and respect for the meat industry. We are very lucky in the UK with our farming standards. What worries me is that we are undermining our own culture by buying cheap meat and products from elsewhere. I’m really passionate about this sort of thing. All the crockery and plates at Core are made in the UK too. It’s fair trade and it’s how we should be working and thinking.

If you look around the restaurant you’ll notice it’s actually all my personal belongings and collections on display. All of it means something to me. I love food philosophy and history, so a lot of stuff is historical. I cooked for chef Paul Bocuse’s 80th birthday 11 years ago and he gave us all a model house, which I have on the shelf at Core. The pans on display are all engraved: one has three Michelin stars on it (a gift for my 30th birthday) and another is from Matt, the head chef at Royal Hospital Road, thanking me for everything I taught him, so it’s all very personal. My head chef Jonny Bone has some of his old Michelin guides here, some as old as 1978. We’re happy for people to pick things up and have a look, like you would in someone’s home. I’m a huge lover of art, too. All the British artists on display at Core are well established. I have two Marc Quinn pieces, which are all about natural forms, and some Bridget Riley pieces. She lives locally in Holland Park – she’s 86 and an original Op artist. Her pieces are so contemporary and are a reflection of the old and the new in Core – it just fits perfectly.

I believe in pop culture and the time we live in. The two Mark Quinn pieces I have are all about human identity and surveillance culture – all these questions we have today. It’s the same with restaurants – they have to be of their time. Art and popular culture and the music we play is reflective of the time we live in. It’s not about the trends or fashions, we only know this time. We need to edge everything else around it out.

CLARE SMYTH was the first British woman to hold three Michelin stars as chef patron at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea. She opened Core, her first restaurant, in Notting Hill in August; corebyclaresmyth.com