Clare Smyth: queen of cuisine steps out of the shadows

Though she has run London's most famous restaurant for the past six years, Clare Smyth has spent quite some time living in a substantial shadow. Which might help explain why you might not recognise her name. For that restaurant is Gordon Ramsay's eponymous place in Chelsea's Royal Hospital Road.

While her fiery mentor left the kitchens of the only significant UK restaurant to bear his name (unless you count Gordon Ramsay's Plane Food, which no one does) long ago, Smyth has stayed at the helm, safeguarding the chef's precious three Michelin stars. Indeed, it is Smyth who Ramsay has to thank for helping him retain his status as an international culinary giant in the eyes of Michelin.

Last week, she took another step from out of Ramsay's shadow, becoming the first female chef to be awarded a perfect 10 score by The Good Food Guide. This is no mean feat: only three restaurants managed it in the latest edition of the guide, now in its 64th year, and the last time so many held the honour was in 1999 when a certain Marco Pierre White was still on the fine dining scene. It's an accolade that she can add to her position as the first, and only, UK woman to run a restaurant with three Michelin stars.

With so many firsts associated with her, as well as the MBE she was awarded in 2013, it seems ludicrous that Smyth is not more of a name beyond the inner circle of chefs and foodies. But with no name above her restaurant's door – or not her own anyway – and no regular appearances on the numerous TV cooking shows, her profile has simmered gently rather than reached the rolling boil that lesser, more media savvy chefs, have achieved.

Smyth is very much of the old-school chef elite, choosing to get her head down and hone her skills at the stove instead of Saturday morning TV appearances and lucrative book deals that help chefs make a name for themselves. And it shows.

Born and brought up in County Antrim in Northern Ireland, Smyth moved to England at the age of 16 to pursue a career as a chef. She studied catering at Highbury College in Portsmouth, where she developed the strong work ethic that would become the hallmark of her time in the kitchen. It was here she also gained wanderlust and a desire to experience the buzz of some of the world's most influential kitchens.

On completing her studies, she worked for brief stints at Bibendum in London and Heston Blumenthal's the Fat Duck and the Roux brothers' Waterside Inn, both in Bray, followed by a six-month catering job in Australia.

When she returned to England, she moved to the St Enodoc hotel in Cornwall, before being snapped up for a job at Royal Hospital Road, now called Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, in 2002.

Under Ramsay, Smyth's rise through the ranks was rapid. In just three years, she had worked her way up to the position of senior sous chef, but once again her itchy feet got the better of her. In 2005, she left London to do stages (often unpaid work) at famed US chef Thomas Keller's restaurants the French Laundry in California and Per Se in New York and then headed to France to join the kitchen at Alain Ducasse's renowned Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo. However, the lure of the Ramsay group, and in particular of the small but perfectly formed Chelsea restaurant, was too great and she returned to London where she was quickly named head chef aged just 29.

Such a return is unusual in the story of Ramsay and his chefs. Almost all of the proteges from the "brat pack" era of the 1990s, including Jason Atherton, Marcus Wareing and Angela Hartnett, have since spread their wings and written their own success stories with solo ventures. In many cases, the split from Ramsay, when it eventually came, was far from amicable and once gone they have never looked back.

Not so with Smyth, whose loyalty in returning to the company and upholding its high standards has been rewarded. Last March, she was named chef-patron of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, taking a share of the business in the process.

"It's been a natural progression," she said of the move. "I've grown into the role and step by step have been making it my own for a while now. The restaurant I feel is mine; you become your own chef. We don't want to fade away like some restaurants do. And it's nice that Gordon decided to hand it over to ensure this wouldn't happen."

It is not merely her loyalty that persuaded Ramsay to hand over a piece of the jewel in his restaurant group's crown. Smyth's experience in some of the world's top kitchens has proved invaluable and her devotion to cooking and the industry, her mild-mannered nature, meticulous attention to detail and exacting standards mark her out . While other restaurants in the Ramsay group continue to fall from grace – last year his place in Manhattan lost both its two Michelin stars – Restaurant Gordon Ramsay flourishes.

Moreover, Smyth is seemingly without ego, a rare breed in a profession where chefs are increasingly treated like rock stars and where some attract crowds to their cooking demos in numbers that would be the envy of many a fledgling boy band.

While Smyth has long put her individual stamp on her menu, she has embraced the partnership with Ramsay and continues to acknowledge his input. In the past, she has described his ravioli of lobster, langoustine and salmon, which has been on the menu since the day the restaurant opened, as "the perfect dish".

So will this latest accolade from The Good Food Guide further boost the profile of Smyth and shine the light more intensely on women chefs in the industry? It will no doubt spread the word about her among a wider group of people, but there remains a lack of true recognition for many deserving female chefs.

Rachel Humphrey, head chef at two Michelin-starred restaurant Le Gavroche, is another whose limited profile does not reflect her wide achievements. Humphrey has been at Le Gavroche since being taken on as an apprentice in 1996 and is the first female head chef at the restaurant in its 40-year history, yet owner Michel Roux Jr remains the name most often associated with it.

Things are changing, however. Hartnett, the UK's most high-profile female chef, has women at the helm of the kitchens at both her renowned Murano and newly opened Cafe Murano restaurants in London, Pip Lacey and Sam Williams respectively. And former Michelin-starred chef Skye Gyngell is returning to the stoves with the launch of Spring, her high-profile new venture that opens in Somerset House this October. Anna Hansen, chef-patron at the Modern Pantry in London's Clerkenwell, meanwhile, will open a second site of her popular restaurant next year, further putting women chefs at the forefront of top-end cooking.

Outside London, chefs such as Mary-Ellen McTague, owner and head chef at feted Manchester restaurant Aumbry, and Emily Watkins, chef proprietor of the Kingham Plough in the Cotswolds – both former chefs at the Fat Duck – are in the ascendancy.

Smyth is by no means a drum banger for equality, but her time climbing the ladder in an industry dominated by men will have given her a strong sense of the difficulties women can still face in kitchens today.

Speaking to the Observer a few years ago she said: "When I first started here [Restaurant Gordon Ramsay], it was very, very male-dominated. There was a hell of a lot of testosterone in that kitchen. I was told I wouldn't last a week. There were people saying, 'It's not for girls, you shouldn't be here.' It took me a long time to earn respect."

Now, in her position at the top, it seems likely that she is addressing any inequalities, saying that she is committed to "developing and nurturing the next generation of chefs and front of house". It is likely that in the long run Smyth's legacy will not go unnoticed.