Top 100: Angela Hartnett, Murano, Café Murano, Hartnett Holder & Co

Overall ranking: 71 (74 in 2012)
Chef ranking: 15 (20 in 2012)

Snapshot
Angela Hartnett is chef-patron of Michelin-starred restaurant Murano in Mayfair, London, and co-owner of restaurant Hartnett Holder & Co, which she operates at Lime Wood hotel in the New Forest alongside head chef Luke Holder. She also operates two Café Murano restaurants (in St James's and Covent Garden in the capital); Pastificio, a modern pasta factory, deli-café and wine store (located next door to Café Murano Covent Garden); and the Merchants Tavern restaurant (in Shoreditch), which is run by her fiancé, chef Neil Borthwick. In further partnership with the Lime Wood Group, she runs Cucina Angelina at the Portetta hotel in the French Alps.

What we think
Despite learning to cook only after leaving university, Hartnett has had a spectacular career. She worked in the famously tough setting of Gordon Ramsay's Aubergine in 1994 and became a favourite at the Gordon Ramsay Group. She went on to work at Zafferano and L'Oranger, and then was made head chef under Marcus Wareing at Pétrus in St James's, London. Despite once being nicknamed Dizzy Lizzy by Ramsay, she soon became one of his most trusted chefs and she counts Wareing and Jason Atherton among her peers.

In 2001 she launched Gordon Ramsay's Amaryllis in Glasgow, followed by Verre in Dubai. She returned to England in 2002 to launch Menu and the Grill Room at the Connaught hotel in Mayfair, London, becoming the restaurant's first ever female head chef. She was awarded her first Michelin star in 2004.

Having travelled abroad to set up Dubai restaurant Verre and Florida site Cielo for GRH, she then had her name over the door at the Connaught in London for over five years. Since establishing herself as an authority on Italian cuisine (taking inspiration from her maternal grandmother, who came from Bardi in Emilia-Romagna), the chef is now a media staple, appearing regularly in magazine food pages and on prime-time television.

In 2007 she was awarded an MBE for her services to the hospitality industry and published her first cookery book, Angela Hartnett's Cucina: Three Generations of Italian Family Cooking.

However, keen to retain the restaurant she had built up while leaving her mentor’s group with his blessing, she acquired the site from Ramsay in October 2010.

Hartnett Holder & Co launched in February 2013 at the five-red-AA-star, 32-bedroom Lime Wood hotel with Lime Wood’s Michelin-starred head chef Holder. The menu showcases locally sourced produce and takes its inspiration from the forest surrounding the restaurant.

At the end of 2013, Hartnett launched the 130-cover Merchants Tavern restaurant, bar and private dining room in Shoreditch, a collaboration with Borthwick and Canteen owners Dominic Lake and Patrick Clayton-Malone.

She also launched Café Murano, a spin-off café in St James’s, London (on the original site of Pétrus), in autumn 2013, followed by a second branch in Covent Garden alongside Pastificio, in June 2015. She is now embarking on a long-term expansion plan for Café Murano.

Also in 2015, Hartnett Holder & Co launched a new cookery school in the Lime Wood cellar for beginners and budding professionals. In December of the same year, she opened Cucina Angelina at Portetta, a hotel at Courchevel Moriond, France, in partnership with the Lime Wood Group.

Further information
An audience with Angela Hartnett >>

Luke Holder and #chefsagainstplastic: good riddance to bad rubbish >>

Angela Hartnett looking to expand Murano >>