London chefs and restaurateurs led the list of winners at the 2023 AA Hospitality Awards last night. The event, held at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House hotel on Park Lane and presented by Claudia Winkleman, saw chef Angela Hartnett win the Outstanding Contribution Award, St James’ Indian Chutney Mary awarded Restaurant of the Year and Tom Aikens’s Belgravia dining room Muse elevated to five rosette status.
Kent-born Hartnett, who cites her Italian grandmother as her culinary inspiration, got her big break working for Gordon Ramsay at Aubergine in the Nineties and came to fame as the calm-headed voice of reason on Ramsay’s 2004 TV show Hell’s Kitchen. Hartnett’s visibility is often claimed as a career inspiration to other female chefs. “In hospitality we can change lives and we do change lives,” Hartnett said upon collecting her award. “We have a responsibility to look after our teams, to make sure they have the best careers they possibly can and inspire people to be in our business.”
