Lyndy Redding has a love hate relationship with Monaco. She's loved it since she started working for the McLaren F1 racing team's catering company 14 years ago. "Monaco is the absolute pinnacle of Grand Prix, it's the best race of the season and everyone wants to win it. It's also the best for the general public with the views of the track and the harbour. And of course there's the work hard, play hard side to Monaco, which I always enjoy," she laughs.

Now, with her own company, Absolute Taste, whose clients once again include Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, Monaco is also about logistics. "I love Monaco but also have this absolute hatred of it! At Grand Prix time, all the roads are closed and everywhere is completely cut off. We take six trucks there each year along with 100 staff, so it's frustrating trying to get anywhere," she admits.

It's also all the catering work and events that come after the Monaco Grand Prix that has Redding a little preoccupied this year. As soon as her trucks and staff are packed up and on their way back to London, it's straight on to the next big thing - a new business proposition, a high profile wedding (she won't say who) and preparations for Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday in Hyde Park next month.

Absolute Taste, a VIP catering and hospitality business, was set up by Redding and McLaren group chairman Ron Dennis in 1997. It currently has 150 employees working across four areas. There's the racing team - 16 staff who travel 11 months of the year to 18 Grand Prix races with McLaren (Redding makes up the 16) – catering for large groups of clients, sponsors, and the team.

"Ron Dennis said ‘What about if I became your partner?' And I laughed and said ‘Yeah, yeah'. Then realised he was serious."

There's also the private event and party side of Absolute Taste, which is about a quarter of their overall business. Then there are the relatively new business propositions like Absolute Taste Inflight, catering for corporate, business and executive aircraft, Absolute Taste Cafes on Chelsea Harbour, and their most recent addition – the Tante Marie School of cookery, where Lyndy herself trained 20 years ago.

She bought the Le Cordon Bleu school in March with Ramsey Holdings, Gordon Ramsey's company, with whom she has a partnership; Gordon Ramsey with Absolute Taste, catering for events like the Beckhams' World Cup party two years ago.

Even Redding is surprised by the growth and expansion of the business, considering its humble beginnings. "I always wanted to do big parties and grow my own business, but I never thought it would be quite this big," admits the 35-year-old from Yorkshire.

She puts her partnership with Dennis down to being in the right place at the right time. It was the end of the F1 season 11 years ago when he approached her to run the hospitality and catering directly for McLaren.

"If someone had said ‘You'll have a company with all these people, turning over all this money and doing all these fantastic jobs, but you won't be cooking', I'm not sure I'd have done it."

"I was quite bolshie because I wasn't feeling well, had a bit of a flu, and told him that what I really wanted was set up my own catering company in London and organise parties. Ron looked at me and

said 'Well, what about if I became your partner?' And I laughed and said 'Yeah, yeah'. Then realised he was serious," she laughs.

Within six weeks, they'd set up Absolute Taste. On her first day, she went down to McLaren headquarters near Woking on the train, bought an Escort Estate for the business, picked up a computer from their IT department, and drove back up to her one-bedroom flat in Clapham, south London. "I went next door to the pine shop, bought a reject table for £90 which became my desk and that was the start of it."

For the next 18 months, the business was run out of Redding's flat before moving to a unit in SW18, where she and her best friend-come-PA shared an office area.

"I remember on the first day, asking her on our intercom 'Can you send the chefs up to me please' and laughing because it all seemed so funny. Now, there are 11 people in that office, we've acquired three more units, all my staff have job titles, we have board meetings, there's even heads of departments. It's so serious and so real!" she insists.

Not the words you'd expect from such a highly flying business woman, but then that's Redding's charm. "I'm more of a chef really. And that's one of my only regrets, not cooking anymore. I now employ 50 chefs to do that, though I'm still always tasting, talking and working with food.

"But I often wonder if someone had told me starting out 'You'll have a company with all these people, turning over all this money and doing all these fantastic jobs, but you won't be cooking' whether I'd have gone ahead. I'm not sure I would."

Still, she makes up for it in other ways - though not by cooking for her husband, who works for the McLaren racing team. "He's fine about my lifestyle because he's just as busy. He knows that there's never any milk in the fridge when we're home," she laughs.

Instead, she cooks for bigger numbers, like the ten friends coming for Sunday lunch at her 'bolt hole' in Cornwall at the weekend. "I'm really looking forward to it. More than actually seeing them, it's the cooking. It's meant to be relaxed but I will be doing canapés, a starter, main course and pudding. They'll probably arrive and go 'Oh no!' she giggles.

It will also be her last time visiting Cornwall for a while as summer is Absolute Taste's busiest period. Which is great, she says, but also scary. "The pressure is definitely on. There are 150 people to be paid, and it can be quite exhausting not knowing what you've got coming after August and September because people don't book that far in advance.

"Saying that, I'm loving every minute of it. And we still have loads of ambitions, like we haven't done anything for Elton John yet, which is something I'd love. And doing Prince William's wedding would be the ultimate."

But before getting carried away, she's keen to get through Monaco, where Absolute Taste will serve 1,500 people a day. It's the end of the race that she's looking forward to, that electrifying atmosphere.

"It's the most magical time of the year when all the boats beep their horns for a couple of minutes, and all my hairs stand on end. I look around and see all the places we're serving people – the boats, the apartments, the marquees - and I always have a bit of a tear because it's a proud moment. We've done it, we've got through it, I think, and here's to next year."

Find out more about Absolute Taste by visiting www.absolutetaste.com

By Barbara Walshe