You can tell a lot about a chef by the way they treat a potato. To Clare Smyth, who grew up in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, potatoes were their own daily religion. In more than 20 years working in professional kitchens, Smyth developed a ritual of eating a cooked one “plain” with salt and pepper before service. So it is fitting the humble tuber gets star billing on the menu of her first restaurant.
厨师厨艺水平的高低取决于做土豆的花样。对于从小在北爱尔兰安特里姆郡(County Antrim, Northern Ireland)长大的克莱尔?史密斯(Clare Smyth)来说，土豆就好比他们每天形影不离的宗教。在20多年职业厨师生涯中，史密斯养成了每天开工前吃个只拌盐与胡椒的煮土豆习惯。所以，不起眼的土豆成为她首家餐馆的特色与招牌也就不足为奇了。
“We work with a guy who grows really amazing Charlotte potatoes in Sussex and we’re really celebrating that little potato, cooking it in seaweed — growing up in Ireland we’d always eat dulse. We’re serving it with herring and trout roe, not caviar, and with fermented potato crisp — I eat salt-and-vinegar ingredients all the time, so it’s a joke. It’s looking beyond foie gras, truffles — and we’ve not got turbot or pigeon on this first menu draft. This is where I’m at. I’ve served all the caviar in the world.”
“我们的供货商是苏塞克斯郡(Sussex)上乘夏洛特土豆(Charlotte potatoes)的种植者，小小的土豆在我们这儿享受的可是‘高规格’待遇：与海带一起烹制（从小在爱尔兰长大的我们常吃红皮藻）；而后用鲱鱼与鳟鱼籽（而非鱼子酱）佐之，再配以‘发酵’薯片——我本人常吃的是咸酸薯片，因此这只是开个玩笑而已。它看上去胜过用鹅肝(foie gras)与松露相搭——我们拟定首份菜单时，没把多宝鱼与乳鸽放进去。这就是我目前筹备餐馆的最新进展。全球各地出产的鱼子酱我们店都有。
Smyth can claim to be one of the best chefs working in the UK. For more than a decade she ran the kitchen team and consulted for the three-Michelin-star Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, but now she is putting her own name above the door. Core by Clare Smyth is the result, which to her signifies “the heart, the seed of something new; it’s been my life’s work to get to this point.” The project was “sitting in me and I had to do it”, she says in a cool, firm voice that one can imagine paying sharp attention to in a kitchen. “I’m so passionate about this industry. The fact that casual dining has taken off as a trend is a fact but it’s up to us to take fine dining forward.”
史密斯有资格自诩是全英国数一数二的超级大厨。10多年来，她一直是伦敦切尔西米其林三星餐厅Gordon Ramsay的主厨兼顾问，但如今她打算自立门户，Core by Clare Smyth就是她正在筹建的餐馆，她认为这就代表了“新型餐厅的本质与‘种子’，是自己终生奋斗的目标。”创建这样的餐馆可谓“不得不做的事”，她以沉着坚毅的口吻说道。不难想象，这种说话口吻在任何餐厅厨房里都是老大。“我酷爱餐饮这个行当。休闲餐饮已成为当下的风尚早已是铁板钉钉的事实，但高档餐饮的发扬广大得靠我们。”
Some lateral thinking has been applied to find fresh answers. “We would always braise lamb shanks for navarin sauce but I’d always take the carrot out — it’s the best bit. So we’re doing a dish with the ‘lamb carrot’ as I call it. It’s a vegetable dish with the meat on the side. In 2017, we should be eating more grain and vegetables, so we’re flipping things around.”
独辟蹊径，就得借助于发散性思维模式。“我们常用法式纳瓦林法炖羊腿（即洋葱马铃薯炖羊肉），但我总爱放些胡萝卜——这是锦上添花之举。所以，我们用‘羊肉胡萝卜’来搭配（这是我自创的叫法）。它是道以蔬菜为主的菜，羊肉在旁边只是点缀而已。2017年，大家应该多食谷类与蔬菜，因此我们的做法是反其道而行之。”
Smyth’s vision of a different kind of luxury is significant in a city where the white tableclothed fine-dining room looks vulnerable in the face of an incoming tide of burger and “small plate” convenience. Instead, she intends to forge a model of the new neighbourhood restaurant — still ambitious but friendly and stripped of formalities, with chef and brigade visible to all diners behind a glass partition. The Victorian building in Notting Hill she has chosen for this enterprise is one she “fell in love with” but it had all the pleasant and unpleasant surprises you’d expect of a serious venture. “People offer you glass boxes in the City but I wanted something with character. I’ve always had a passion for neighbourhood restaurants. This was absolutely pumping when it was Prue Leith’s place.”
史密斯截然不同的精致美食理念在伦敦意义非凡：因为布置考究的高档餐厅在层出不穷的汉堡店以及便利小食店的“汹涌攻势”下显得不堪一击。相反，她意欲打造新型的居民区餐馆模式——依然高大上、但亲和温馨，不拘泥于俗套。食客们透过玻璃隔墙对整个厨师团队的操作流程一览无余。她选中的餐馆新址是诺丁山(Notting Hill)一幢维多利亚时代的大楼，她对这个楼可以说“一见钟情”，但所有历史悠久老建筑的共性是：惊喜与遗憾往往共存。“在伦敦金融城(the City)，玻璃幕墙的建筑比比皆是，但我喜欢有独特内涵的建筑。我一直对社区餐馆情有独钟。”
When the builders moved in, they soon discovered the electrics were shot, the drainage didn’t work, bricks crumbled — but the expensive remedies are designed to be worth it. “It should last 15 years — I plan to be here for a while. It’s not a short-term investment.”
但装修人员进场后，很快发现电路毁坏、下水不通、墙砖破损严重——但是耗资不菲的修复工程目的是让其实至名归。“整个修复过程应需花15年时间——我只是在此暂时过渡，但整个工程可是项长期投资。”
The chef-led restaurant is “unsustainable” in its current form, she says, and “they’re all moving out of Mayfair?.?.?.?Battersea’s Queenstown Road had Nico’s in the 1990s, for example, and you’d feel very relaxed. We’re not going to overly design or stage anything — no dress codes. Don’t feel intimidated. I want people to drop in here even if they’re on their own. We’re trying to strip away the things that make people feel uneasy about coming to a fine-dining restaurant. If fine dining is going to survive, that’s what we have to do.”
大厨开的餐馆以目前的模式经营都是难以为继的，她说，而且“它们都在不断撤离梅菲尔区(Mayfair)……比方说，伦敦巴特西(Battersea)的Queenstown Road路上上世纪90年代原先有家Nico’s餐厅，顾客在此用餐十分惬意。我们不想过度设计或是在此举办任何活动——也没有着装规定。我们不想让顾客望而生畏，只是希望他们顺道惠顾（即便事先未曾预订）。我们想方设法把顾客到高档餐馆就餐的不自在感去除掉。高档餐馆若要继续生存下去，我们就必须这样做。”
Smyth is clearly gifted with a special type of workaholism, one that benefits the majority of people around her. “Ducking out was never an option because I always had a goal. I wasn’t that interested in going to the pub with my mates. I’ve always been single-minded at each stage of my career. I’m very detailed and into things — it’s a drive. Anyone who says we’re going to open a restaurant and says it’ll be great has never achieved anything before. We have to put our heads down and tighten our belts.”
史密斯天生是与众不同的工作狂，能让身边的多数手下受益匪浅。“逃避永远不是我的选项，因为本人始终心存明确目标。我不太喜欢跟同事去酒吧潇洒。我对自己职业生涯的每个阶段总是专心致志。我做事事无巨细，而且全身心投入其中——这就是工作干劲。任何人说自己想开餐馆、并且声称要干成大事的，从来都是成果一般。我们必须埋头苦干、努力节省各种开支。”
Coming into the last year of her thirties, Smyth has travelled far from the farm where she spent her childhood and where summer jobs gave her the cooking bug. “It’s not a job to me. It’s something I’ve done since I left school at 16. I was working in local restaurants from the age of 13, 14 in my school holidays. My mum worked in hotels as a waitress and I just fell into it, then started to really enjoy it. I was 15 and working in one of the best restaurants in Northern Ireland.”
即将步入不惑之年的她早已远离儿时的穷乡僻壤农场（她在此度过童年，暑假打零工时迷上了烹饪）。“厨师于我而言不是工作，16岁毕业后我就一直干这行。从13、14岁起，我利用暑假在家乡餐馆打工。我妈妈是酒店服务员，我只是无意中入了厨师这行，然后就真正迷上了它。我当时15岁，在北爱尔兰最高档的餐馆打工。”
She laughs at the contrast between her interests and those of her peers. “When you’re really young, you have obsessions with pop stars and musicians; I was 15 and ended up buying Anton Mosimann’s Cuisine à la Carte and reading every letter. I’ve read Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire cover to cover, twice.”
她笑谈自己与同龄人的迥异兴趣。“少女们往往沉迷于流行歌星与音乐家，而15岁的我买的却是安东?莫斯曼(Anton Mosimann)的《家常便饭》(Cuisine à la Carte)，并且认真拜读了它；我把埃斯科菲耶(Escoffier)的《烹饪指南》(Le Guide Culinaire)仔仔细细通读了两篇。”
Smyth worked for French chef Alain Ducasse in Monaco for a couple of years, but it is Gordon Ramsay she describes as her “great mentor”, someone who instilled confidence in her ability. “He’s taught me a lot, some of the key things that stick in my head. [When I was] a youngster he’d tell me, ‘In life you’ll work with people you don’t get along with but why does that bother you? Focus on you, don’t focus on other people. Don’t let it affect you.’ I think that’s a great way to be.”
史密斯在摩纳哥跟着法国大厨艾伦?杜卡斯(Alain Ducasse)干了几年，但她说自己的“良师”是戈登?拉姆塞 (Gordon Ramsay)，后者不断灌输她要相信自己的能力。“他教了我很多东西，有些东西至今仍是根深蒂固。我年轻的时候他曾教导我：‘生活中会与自己不喜欢的人共事，但又何必为此苦恼呢？专注做好自己的事，不要整天盯着别人。别让它影响自己的成长进步。’我觉得那是忠言良药。”
There is something refreshingly unapologetic about Smyth; her tastes in wine, for example, are steadfastly classic. “I’m quite old-fashioned — I like burgundy, red and white, the odd bordeaux, California, Australia.” She is relaxing one unwritten rule about furnishing fine-dining restaurants: “Being in this fine-dining world, we always buy French brands without thinking about it. I didn’t want to do that any more.” So her cooking suite has been made in Lyon with an Oxfordshire grill built into it, the cutlery is Sheffield steel, the crockery Royal Crown Derby. “I wanted to work with British people,” she says.
史密斯有些固执己见，但又让人耳目一新。比方说，她一直喜欢喝传统口感的葡萄酒。“我相当老派——我喜欢喝勃艮第干红与干白，口感怪异的波尔多、加州以及澳洲产葡萄酒。”她对于布置高档餐馆的不成文规矩通常持开放态度：“顾客来高档餐馆消费，总是毫不犹豫地点法国葡萄酒。我可不想再这么做。”因此，她的全套烹饪器具在法国里昂定制（安装了英国牛津郡烤肉架），刀具由英国谢菲尔德生产的纯钢打制，餐具则是皇冠德贝瓷(Royal Crown Derby)。“我想与本国人合作。”她说。

As she leaves the building site, she says to the builders: “Don’t break anything!” Workers push wheelbarrows around her, a chorus to a restaurant-opening opera that is accompanied by maniacal drilling. But it’s Smyth’s voice that prevails. “It’s my first baby and I want to give it some love,” she says of the chaos at her feet. “I don’t ever stop work to be honest. I don’t see it as work — it’s just life.”
离开工地时，她对施工人员说：“不允许毁坏任何东西！”工人们推着独轮手推车围在她身旁，好比是在热火朝天地共同演绎餐馆开张的一幕大戏。但史密斯总是最终一锤定音的人。“这家餐馆是我的第一个‘孩子’，我希望用爱浇灌它。”她这样评点身边混乱的施工场，“说句心里话，我从没停止工作的脚步，我不认为这是工作——这就是我的生活。”