Tough cookie

Making a mark in what remains a male-dominated environment is not easy. To do so when you're only 5ft 1in tall is even harder, according to Claire Clark, head of pastry at London's Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Institute.

Clark has succeeded in overcoming prejudice. She is one of only three women in the UK arm of the Académie Culinaire de France and has recently been asked to join The Master Chefs of Great Britain. For Clark such accolades are proof that she is as good as anyone else.

"I used to be very shy. But I've learned to become hard in order to get on," she says. "If someone swears at you in a kitchen you've got to be able to take it."

A two-year City & Guilds catering course at Aylesbury College of Further Education in Buckinghamshire led Clark to her first post as grill commis at the Randolph Hotel in Oxford. "It was hard work," she recalls. "I weighed about seven stone and kept fainting and getting nose bleeds." But she stuck it for 18 months, during which time she was transferred to pastry. The move convinced her this was the area in which she wanted to specialise.

An advertisement in Caterer took Clark to London, where she became pastry commis in Crockfords gaming club in Mayfair. There she met the first of her mentors, Alan Collier, who was then pastry chef and is now a lecturer at Westminster College. When Collier moved a few months later to go the Ritz, he took Clark with him as second pastry commis.

Looking back, Clark views the Ritz as a baptism of fire. "We had to wait until the kitchens had cooled down before we could roll out the petits fours for the following day. Often we wouldn't leave until 2am and still be back at 8am the next day."

The following three years, at the Hotel Inter-Continental London under pastry chef Ernst Bachmann, provided some of the happiest memories of her career to date.

Even now, she is full of enthusiasm for executive chef Peter Kromberg. So deep is Clark's admiration that she even has a cat named Kromberg!

While at the Inter-Continental, initially as second pastry commis, rising to demi-chef by the time she left, Clark gave up her day off each week to return to college, this time to Slough to study under the watchful eye of John Huber. Her determination paid off when she got her first position as pastry chef at London's Sutherlands restaurant under Gary Hollihead. "Gary let me be myself and with John and Ernst's influence everything fell into place," she says.

But Clark missed the atmosphere of hotels and 18 months later joined what was then the Portman Inter-Continental as pastry chef. There she managed a brigade of six under executive chef David Dorricott, and left only when SAS Hotels took over the hotel, moving to her current position at Le Cordon Bleu.

Again it was time to prove herself. "I've taught people of all ages, including a retired gynaecologist and a 55-year-old dentist. Sometimes they look at me as if they can't believe I'm old enough to be the teacher."

The students tend to be on the wealthy side, with some paying nearly £21,000 for nine months of cuisine and pastry tuition. "One woman had servants at home and wanted me to weigh all her ingredients for her. She soon left," recalls Clark.

Despite her achievements Clark is modest about the future. "I wouldn't want to be famous. I do the basics well and I work hard. But I don't want to be put on a pedestal to be knocked down again. I wouldn't mind doing a book though, full of pastries and chocolate recipes."