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Core cooks British ingredients with French discipline, which is the inversion that makes it interesting: not French food in London, but the method of the great Paris kitchens applied to a Cornish crab and a Charlotte potato. Clare Smyth opened it at 92 Kensington Park Road in Notting Hill in 2017 and took her third Michelin star in 2021, the first British woman to hold three at her own restaurant. The Core Classics menu is £225.
Why Core Belongs Among the Best French Cooking Outside France
Smyth ran Core on a foundation laid in French kitchens: years as head chef of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, with stages at Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée in Paris and The French Laundry in California. The technique on the plate is unmistakably that lineage — sauces reduced and mounted with rigour, cooking temperatures held to the degree.
The signature is "Potato and Roe," a single Charlotte potato slow-cooked in seaweed stock and finished with dulse beurre blanc, herring and trout roe — a £30 ingredient treated like a £300 one. The "Lamb Carrot" and the "Core Apple" dessert round out the canon. Smyth was named The World's Best Female Chef by The World's 50 Best in 2018 and cooked the wedding-breakfast reception for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex that same year.
The Room
The two connected dining rooms seat around fifty-four, with a Kitchen Table looking into the pass. The mood is warm and unstuffy — pale oak, soft lighting, a deliberate softening of fine-dining formality. Sound stays conversational; the service is precise but friendly; dress is smart without a jacket requirement. It is a three-star room that wants you relaxed.
Best for a Landmark Celebration
Book Core for a landmark birthday or an anniversary because it delivers three-star cooking without three-star severity: a long, generous meal in a room that lets you talk and laugh. The kitchen marks a celebration with grace when told ahead. For a couple who want the top tier of British dining without a hushed, intimidating room, this is the book. Compare it against the wider birthday restaurants guide.
Not for a quick pre-theatre supper — the tasting runs close to three hours. And despite the French training the plate is modern British, not classical French, so a purist chasing Escoffier and a trolley of sauces should look to Paris instead.
How to Book Core
Core takes reservations directly and through SevenRooms, usually four to six weeks out, with prime weekend tables the hardest. The menus are the Core Classics tasting and a Core Seasons menu; à la carte is available at lunch. Wine pairings add meaningfully to the bill.
Order the Potato and Roe whichever menu you choose — it is the dish the kitchen built its name on. The room scores 10/10 for food and 9/10 for ambience in our editorial scoring, with value at 7/10 against a £225 tasting that earns its number.
Clare Smyth's three-star Notting Hill table makes a potato the dish of the night — book a month out for a milestone.
View Core on Restaurants for Kings →
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Core by Clare Smyth worth it?
For a milestone, yes. Core is one of only a few three-Michelin-star restaurants in Britain and the most decorated run by a woman in the country. The £225 Core Classics tasting buys both technical brilliance and a relaxed room, which is rarer at this level than the cooking itself. For an ordinary weeknight dinner it is a stretch.
How hard is it to book Core?
Book four to six weeks ahead through SevenRooms or directly. Friday and Saturday dinner are the toughest; weekday lunch, where an à la carte option exists, is the easiest way in and the better value. Cancellations surface a few days out, so a watchful eye on the booking page pays off.
Is Core a French restaurant?
Not strictly. Clare Smyth trained in French kitchens — Gordon Ramsay, Alain Ducasse, The French Laundry — and the technique is classical French, but the ingredients and the identity are modern British. Think French method applied to Cornish seafood and British vegetables rather than a French menu transplanted to London.
What should I order at Core?
On any menu, the Potato and Roe is the dish to have — a single Charlotte potato cooked in seaweed stock with dulse beurre blanc and two roes, the plate that made the restaurant. The Lamb Carrot main and the Core Apple dessert are the other two signatures worth holding out for.
Related Reading
- Top 50 French Restaurants Outside France. The full editorial ranking this review sits within.
- London dining guide. The full London directory by occasion and score.
- Best French restaurants worldwide. Our cuisine pillar on French cooking worldwide.
- HIDE in Mayfair. Ollie Dabbous's French-trained Mayfair room, reviewed.
- Atelier Crenn in San Francisco. The other woman-led kitchen on this list, in California.