How does she do it ? Angela Hartnett is one of a rare breed, being neither a loud nor a noted ‘personality’ but having established herself, reputation entirely intact, well before she shot to national attention on TV. Even then, in the inner inferno of Gordon Ramsay’s “Hell’s Kitchen”, she was credited with nothing more exciting than ‘tough but fair’.

While it has been said often enough that she was the first woman to take charge of a 5 star hotel kitchen, or the only woman to be in the Gordon Ramsay stable or one of the elite of women to be Michelin-starred etc, how well known is it that she has opened a Chef’s Table at the Connaught which is situated right at the centre of the kitchen ? It seats 10 people and it must be the most fitting symbol of what she has achieved on both sides of such significant walls.

But her latest venture,a Tapas and Sherry menu at the Bar at the Connaught, is a big clue to the How and the Why of her success ( her most recent laurel being the chance to compete,against Bryn Williams of Wales and the Orrery, for a part in the Queens 80th birthday celebrations).

To bring any part of Europe to the Connaught, or rather even more of it, is exciting enough – given that she has already brushed away the cobwebs of the ancien regime and replaced it with an acclaimed menu of modern Italian, French and British. But to focus on tapas, now all too easily available and inevitably lost in translation, and to link it with a drink itself in drastic need of redefinition and refreshment, is a shrewd and original contribution to a most British hotel and its European visitors.

Not forgetting, of course, all those natives who regularly half-wondered whether sherry really was meant only for aunts and vicars or even fully wondered about relatives and friends who fell in love with a certain part of Spain, and its barrels, and never came back.

As Hartnett herself insists, fulfilling her promise as the chef of Modern Europe who combines Mediterranean with Classic cuisine, “Sherry is part of Spanish culture. You can drink it when and how you wish and with what you like”.

The tapas at the Bar include Roasted Chorizo sausages and shrimps (recommended sherry being the Palo Cortado, medium dry and nutty) going through to a Tiramisu ( Pedro Vimenez being the sweet sherry excellent with fruit and chocolate)