Birthday: 05 September 1968
Find Angela Hartnett on social media
Angela Hartnett MBE is a world recognised chef hailing from Kent, who over the years has become one of the UK’s best-loved chefs and one of highest profile women in the restaurant industry.
Having grown up cooking alongside her mother and Italian grandmother, Hartnett learned to appreciate food from a very young age. Despite this, she didn’t initially go down the path of becoming a chef, instead working as an au pair before going on to study History at Cambridge Polytechnic.
However, Hartnett quickly decided that she did in fact want to be a part of the hospitality industry, taking a job at The Blue Boar in Cambridge, where she learnt on the job, before spending some time cooking in Barbados. It was when she returned from Barbados though, that her career in the kitchen really began to gain momentum.
After undertaking a trial with Gordon Ramsay at his first restaurant Aubergine, she began working six day a week there alongside Marcus Wareing. This was the start of a 17 year working relationship with Ramsay which saw him mentor her, and culminated in Hartnett being made head chef at Pétrus where she achieved a Michelin star.
In 2008 she opened her first restaurant, Murano in Mayfair which quickly became lauded for its fine-dining Italian cookery. Having won Michelin star, four AA rosettes and a spot in the Good Food Guide’s best 50 restaurants in the UK, Murano’s success led to Hartnett opening three more casual outposts called Café Murano across London as well as Pastificio, a deli in Covent Garden.
Alongside her ever-growing number of restaurants, Hartnett has more recently become known for her appearances on TV. Having appeared for a number of years as a veteran judge on Great British Menu, in 2020 she became a judge on BBC’s Best Home Cook alongside Mary Berry.
With numerous accolades to her name including an MBE for her services to the hospitality industry, Angela Hartnett continues to be incredibly high regarded, not just within the restaurant industry but also by the British public.
Click here to read more about Angela Hartnett in our Ayala SquareMeal Best Female Chefs Series.