How is Claire finding the Naper Valley, home to the French Laundry? Well apparently it's beautiful, quaint, almost perfect. And the inside of the restaurant freakishly well ordered and borderline obsessive compulsive with its dedication to cleanliness.
How much autonomy does Clarke have with chef-patron of the French Laundry, Thomas Keller? "He gives me a boundary to work in. He might say he wants something with popcorn and I will work within that."
How is Keller to work with? "He's honest, he's hard working, he drives people. He can say nothing, not one word, but you still know what his expectations are. I've never known someone to be so respectful. We're like a little united family, he'd never talk disrespectfully to someone."
Hartnett's next two projects, open later this year, is hotel York & Albany and fine-dining restaurant Murano. Why two places at once? "It wasn't planned and it's not ideal but I've got great teams behind me."
How does Hartnett see the position of women in the industry? "We're kidding ourselves that in five or ten years time we'll be addressing a conference and it'll be mainly women out there," says Hartnett. "But it's improving. The reasons why it is low is that a lot of our businesses are new, there aren't the long held family restaurants there are on the continent. But Michel Roux Jnr's daughter is training there and maybe she will end up the first chef-patron."
Back then, why Ramsay? "I thought that guy is going somewhere and I want to be a part of it."
Was she treated differently as a girl? Ramsay would try and send her home early, she says, but she had to resist it and ask to be part of the team.
Clarke also found it a struggle to be accepted, and it took all of her energies to become part of the team. "One time someone sliced all the buttons off my chef's jacket and I didn't know whether to cry or whether to go and buy a new jacket."
How is Ramsay going down in the states? "Everyone calls him Chef Ramsay over there and he's done very well. He's well known but people often don't know that he has three stars over here and runs 15 restaurants."
Read an exclusive interview with Angela Hartnett here >>
Read an interview with Claire Clark on life in LA >>
