Clare Smyth serves up Michelin gold at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay

It's no small feat to be the first female chef in Britain to hold and retain three Michelin stars, but Clare Smyth hasn't let it get to her head. If there's one thing notably lacking in the Northern Irish chef, it's the ego we so easily associate with foodie powerhouses - although Smyth's not afraid to stand her corner.

Her quest for gourmet excellence has seen her graft in kitchens from the US to France to Monaco. Formidable chef Gordon Ramsay gave her rule over his flagship restaurant when she was just 29, and today working an 80-hour week doesn't faze her.

Hailing from rural County Antrim in Northern Ireland, Smyth's father was a farmer and her mother a waitress, so her passion for food will forever be tied to her childhood. "My mum used to cook stews, shins of beef, all night long," she recalls. "You'd wake up and the house would smell amazing, and we would eat from that for two or three days sometimes. There was always something on the go.

"I think it was very normal in Northern Ireland, certainly in the farming community, that people would drop off boxes of apples, bags of potatoes and have a whole animal butchered, which you would then put into the freezer and it would feed the family for about six months."

It was part of Smyth's duties and chores as a child to help prepare dinner when she returned home from school. By her early teens, Smyth was apt at filleting a huge salmon, but her introduction to the hospitality industry started in the front of the house. "As I got a little older, I got into working in restaurants on my weekends and during the school holidays, serving tables in a local hotel. After that, I wanted to get into the kitchen to see how all the cool stuff was happening."

At 15, Smyth stepped into her chef whites, knowing even then that it was the right career for her. "I looked at all of the great chefs and I thought: 'I want to be like that'," she says.

From then on, Smyth immersed herself in the world of fine cuisine. "When I was 16, I remember having an interview for a job, and the chef told me I had more knowledge than any chef he had interviewed, because all I had done since I was 14, 15 years old was read books," she says. Poring over the work of Auguste Escoffier and Anton Mosimann, Smyth familiarised herself with classic sauces, veal stocks and glaces. "I had memorised them in the kind of way that people were doing with pop groups or sport. I was just into food."

The day after her school career ended, Smyth packed a bag and headed off to study catering in Highbury College in Portsmouth, England - against the advice of her friends. "I had saved up money to pay for the first part of my college course, and my friends said to me, 'You're not going to be able to do that, you can't just do that' - and I did just do it."

After college and apprenticeships came brief stints at Bibendum in London, Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck and the Roux brothers' Waterside Inn, before six months working in Australia.