Apples, Carrots, and Maltesers at Core by Clare Smyth // London, England

Ever since I watched Clare Smyth judge on Netflix’s The Final Table, she has become one of my chef crushes, and I have wanted to visit her restaurant.

Originally from Northern Ireland, Smyth worked with Gordon Ramsay for 13 years, becoming the first female chef in the United Kingdom to run a restaurant with three Michelin stars when she became head chef of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in 2007, and chef patron 5 years later.

In 2016, Smyth left Restaurant Gordon Ramsay to open her first solo restaurant, Core. On October 1, 2018, Core was awarded two Michelin stars, and three Michelin stars in 2020, which made her the first British woman to have a restaurant awarded three Michelin stars.

In short, she’s an incredible chef, and we were very excited for this meal.

Smyth’s restaurant is located in Notting Hill, among streets of immaculate white row houses. It is unobtrusive and austere, yet elevated and classy, both inside and out.

Core has 2 set menus (£185 for Core Classics and £205 for Core Seasons) and a smaller tasting menu where you can choose an appetizer, main, and dessert for £135. They also allow parties enjoy different set menus, which we really appreciated and opted for because we like to try everything. This is also one of our life philosophies — in his vows, M promised to always share food with me — so we share almost every dish at any restaurant 50/50.

Another special thing Core does is finish every dish table-side. Whether it was the scooping of caviar, the spooning of a beurre blanc, or the pouring of a consumé, these little touches to make sure food was served fresh were much appreciated.

Drinks

We never get wine pairings because tasting menus are so filling, but we like to start our meal with a drink, and the champagne we got was perfect.

M got a gin & tonic because England is known for its gin, and they had a gin-making contraption at the front of the restaurant that we saw while walking in. He said it was the best gin & tonic of his life. Go figure.

Amuse-bouches

The amuse-bouches were all delicious, and opened the meal perfectly.

Jellied Eel, Toasted Seaweed and Malt Vinegar

An ode to “old London,” when eels swam in River Thames and were served to hungry city-dwellers in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. At the table, the server sprayed the tart with malt vinegar infused with eel bones so we get both the flavor and the aroma of a proper East End eel shop.

Gougère

This savory choux pastry was fluffy, buttery, and a burst of flavor in the mouth.

Crispy Smoked Chicken Wing

Absolutely delicious. These wings are prepared, then coated with a beer and honey glaze, and dehydrated lemon and thyme powder. They tasted as good as they sound.

Chicken Liver Parfait: smoked duck and madeira

Is it really fair for liver to taste so good? I’m not sure, but this bite was one to remember.

Core Classics

Isle of Harris scallop tartare: sea vegetable consommé

Beautifully presented, this dish was presented as a closed shell, then they removed the top half and added the consommé. It was very fresh & herbal.

‘Potato and roe’: dulse beurre blanc, herring and trout roe

What a potato. The texture lived between a baked potato and a roasted potato coin — the kind you sort through piles for to find the perfect one, where the skin is taut, and when you fork through it, the center is soft potato goodness. And the beurre blanc — who doesn’t love a good beurre blanc? This was the epitome of Clare’s touch, elevating rustic ingredients into dishes worth serving at a world class restaurant.

Roasted cod: Morecambe Bay shrimps, Swiss chard, brown butter

After having a lot of cod in Lisbon, I wan’t really looking forward to more of it here. But this version was much flakier than anything I had had in Lisbon, and the flavor combination was on point. I have to say, though, I preferred the turbot (the Core Season’s version of this course).

‘Cheese and onion’: alliums, aged cheddar and onion broth

It was hard to see the onion initially, but once I slid my spoon in, the onion parted, each layer smoothly sliding apart like a frictionless parting of the Red Sea. This was absolutely delicious.

Herdwick lamb: sheep’s curd, savoury and black cardamon

This was Core-level good, but not particularly memorable.

Desserts

‘Core apple’

The first dessert was an apple, not the apple core, even though that was the name of the apple. Colors were a little neon, and it was a little too sour. I would have preferred something more along the lines of Cedric Grolet’s Green Apple.

English cherry: meringue, almonds and anise hyssop

Meringue that’s been broken into is never particularly pretty, but the taste more than justifies destroying the sugar & egg-white crust. The sweetness of the meringue was expertly balanced by the sourness of the cherry and anise, and while I don’t typically like cherry desserts, this one ended the meal on a high.

Core Seasons

Steamed Portland crab: sabayon, consomme, caviar

This dish may have been my favorite of the 2 tasting menus (maybe second to the ‘core-teser’ dessert). I love crab, consommé, and caviar, so it was pretty hard for this dish to go wrong. And the silver caviar dish? Chef’s kiss.

Girolle and toasted buckwheat tart: tresh amonas

M doesn’t like mushrooms, and while this tart was basically all mushrooms, he enjoyed it enough to finish his half. I, meanwhile, devoured mine.

Cornish turbot: grilled mussels, leeks, fennel and pepper dulse

Absolutely delicious. I love a good fish, and this delivered in spades. The presentation of it, fresh and green, and the dulse it was served in made this fish so good.

I’m not usually a fan of mussels, and I didn’t hate these.

Crispy veal sweetbread: honey, mustard and Norfolk kohlrabi

This dish was a highlight. The slightly crispy veal contrasted nicely against the dark veal and sauce, all on a bed of kohlrabi (a turnip cabbage) noodles. A lot of ingredients here that I don’t normally get to enjoy.

‘Beef and oyster’: Highland wagyu beef and Porthilly oysters

M hates oysters, so it was hard for him to eat this dish (he claimed it made him gag and almost throw up), but I found this dish to tell the full story of creatures on earth, from land to sea. The hearty depth of the wagyu offset by the brininess of the oyster made for a delightful combination (imo).

Dessert

‘The other carrot’

Chef Clare’s take on carrot cake was a joy to look at. A playful dish, it tasted good until it was followed by the dessert after it.

Another table got the carrot as their last dessert, and we were sad for them, that they didn’t get the chocolate dish.

‘Core-teser’: chocolate, malt, hazelnut

A play on Maltesers, this dessert instantly took me back to being a child, with melt-in-your-mouth malt and chocolate. Over time, the malt on the top and bottom slowly deflated, and we had to know how it was created. We asked a waiter, and he told us that malt had been put in a vacuum, and the air inside it had expanded it into the piece they put on top. So cool! And honestly, we were amazed how knowledgeable the staff here were — enough to know how this dish was made.

Petite Fours

Wine gums

The explanation of this dish from the cookbook is fascinating, so I’ll share a bit of that here:

“We’d been cooking dishes over discarded grapevines in our wood-fired oven, and one day, the bundles of vines just caught my eye,” so Smyth had them “polished the vines into these gorgeous table centerpieces.” “Given that they were once grapevines,” “we decided to turn two of our favorite dessert wines, Sauternes and Banyuls, into wine gums, another classic British sweet.” “We mould each wine gum into the shape of the grape that would’ve gone into the wines. There’s beauty everywhere, if you know where to look.”

Isn’t that incredible? This digestif and petite four wrapped into one was splendid. But no wonder: wine? candy? speaking my language.

Warm chocolate tart

Chocolate is always a good way to finish a meal.

Post Meal

I jumped the gun in the previous section a bit, but after we had finished the meal, we asked if we could purchase a signed edition of Chef Smyth’s new book, CORE. It turns out that they don’t keep signed copies at the restaurant (though you can purchase them online here), but the server told us that Chef was due in soon, and if she got in in time, she could ask her to sign a copy for us.

Hearing this, I was ecstatic, but not sure what to do — do we sit here and wait for her to get the book signed? Should we follow her and wait by the front? We lingered for a bit then decided to look for our server as we had already paid our bill, and as we entered into the kitchen area, we saw Chef Smyth leaning over a steel kitchen countertop, signing our copy!

I grabbed M’s arm and rushed toward the kitchen, blushing like a ripe tomato, and got to greet her and tell her what a fan of hers I was. This woman is one of the best chefs in the world, and excelling in a world dominated by men — what a role model. I also told her to keep the ‘Core-teser’ on the menu. If she does, you’re welcome. When the waitress asked if we wanted a photo, I literally almost died.

I will keep this book forever, not only because it describes every dish and provides their recipes (all of which require approximately a million ingredients, and only a one or two complicated steps fewer than that), but it represents my boldness in stepping out and asking for a signed copy of a book I knew I could have bought online, and making an incredible memory out of it.

I practically floated home in joy, even on the stifling, non-AC tube on a 90-degree day. Every day should be a day like this.

Final Thoughts

If you are looking for a memorable meal with classic, local, English ingredients, prepared classically and to perfection, Core is your restaurant. The staff are incredibly friendly, and really go above and beyond to serve and make your experience special. We will definitely be back.

To conclude, we’d say food was 10/10, ambience was 9/10 (dinged only because there were so many patrons dining, it felt more like an establishment than a high-class experience), service was 10/10, and value for money was 9/10.

Outfit details: Abercrombie & Fitch dress (sold out), but new patterns here. Apple watch, Oura ring, Cole Haan sandals.