Pierre Koffman | |
|---|---|
| Born | 21 August 1948 |
| Culinary career | |
| Cooking style | French cuisine |
Rating(s) | |
Previous restaurant(s) | |
Pierre Koffmann (born 21 August 1948) is a French professional chef. He was one of a handful of chefs in the United Kingdom to have been awarded the coveted three Michelin stars at his restaurant La Tante Claire in London. Until December 2016, he was the head chef of Koffmann's at The Berkeley hotel in Knightsbridge, London. [1]
Koffmann was born in Tarbes, France, on 21 August 1948. He is of Alsatian German ancestry from his paternal side. His father worked as a mechanic for Citroën. It was with his maternal grandparents, Camille and Marcel, in Saint-Puy that he learned how to cook when he visited with them during school holidays. Koffmann reminisced about this period in his 1990 book Memories of Gascony, and discussed it in an interview with The Guardian in 2010: "The produce was mostly from the farm. Steak was rare; we ate a lot of poultry. My grandmother did own a cooker, but most of her work was done over an open fire." [2] In 1963, he left school and applied for a variety of jobs, but ultimately decided to attend cookery school for the next three years.
Koffmann first worked as a chef in Strasbourg and Toulon, [3] before moving in 1970 to the United Kingdom to work with Michel and Albert Roux at Le Gavroche. Koffmann originally only wanted to move to the UK so that he could see England play France at rugby at Twickenham Stadium. [2] He moved to the Roux brothers' Waterside Inn in Bray, Berkshire, in 1972, being made the first head chef of the new restaurant, where he met his future wife Annie who was the restaurant's manager. [2]
He opened his first restaurant, La Tante Claire, in 1977 in Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea. [3] Six years after it opened, the restaurant gained its third Michelin star. [3] La Tante Claire moved to The Berkeley hotel in Knightsbridge, London, in 1998, [3] with the former site being sold to become the flagship restaurant of Gordon Ramsay. [4] During his time at La Tante Claire, Koffmann worked with several eminent chefs, including Ramsay, Marco Pierre White, Marcus Wareing and Tom Kitchin. [2] [4] He did not get on with Wareing, who made his feelings clear about Koffmann in Simon Wright's book Tough Cookies, saying of Koffmann: "Three-star kitchen! This guy didn't tell you anything. He didn't tell you what the lunch menu was, he didn't tell you where to get anything… You didn't know if you were coming or going… I could not click with the man." [4] More recently Wareing speaks better of Koffmann, saying "Koffmann is a complete thoroughbred. He ran the kitchen from the stove." [4] The signature dish of the restaurant was pig's trotter with chicken mousseline, sweetbreads and morels. [3] Marco Pierre White has called this his "favourite dish of all time". [5]
Following the death of his wife Annie, he closed La Tante Claire in 2003. The space became the flagship restaurant of Marcus Wareing. [4] After taking a break from restaurants, he was briefly head chef at the Bleeding Heart pub in Clerkenwell. [2] In 2009, he opened a pop-up restaurant at Selfridges in London for ten days as part of the London food festival. He decided to serve classic dishes from La Tante Claire instead of new dishes as he originally planned – "that's not what people want. They want the pig's trotter, the foie gras, the pistachio soufflé. But maybe I do a new dish each day, as a special." [4] The ten days turned into two months. [2] Koffmann described the first month as "a kind of hell", but he got used to the hours again during the second month, and began to ponder opening a new restaurant: "I started to think about a new restaurant. I thought: why not? I still enjoy it. When you are a chef, your place is in the kitchen." [2]
Koffmann's at The Berkeley hotel opened on 30 June 2010, at the former site of Gordon Ramsay's Boxwood Cafe; it was Koffmann's first full restaurant venture since the closure of La Tante Claire in 2003 at the same hotel. [2] He said he was no longer chasing Michelin stars, and would instead cook the Gascon style food he remembered from his childhood. [2]
Koffmann's at The Berkeley closed on 31 December 2016. [1] The space it occupied was due to be replaced by a gym.[ citation needed ]
In 2021, he launched a restaurant-review website koffmannandvines.com with Richard Vines, the former Chief Food Critic at Bloomberg.
Gordon James Ramsay is a British celebrity chef, restaurateur, television presenter, and writer. His restaurant group, Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, was founded in 1997 and has been awarded 17 Michelin stars overall and currently holds eight. His signature restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, London, has held three Michelin stars since 2001. After rising to fame on the British television miniseries Boiling Point in 1999, Ramsay became one of the best-known and most influential chefs in the world.
Le Gavroche was a restaurant at 43 Upper Brook Street in Mayfair, London. It was opened in 1967 by Michel and Albert Roux at 61 Lower Sloane Street, its premises until 1981. Albert's son Michel Roux Jr was the chef patron from 1991 until its closure in 2024. It was the first restaurant in the UK to be awarded three Michelin stars, which it held from 1982 to 1993.
Albert Henri Roux was a French restaurateur and chef. He and his brother Michel operated Le Gavroche in London's Mayfair, the first restaurant in the UK to gain three Michelin stars. He helped train a series of chefs that went on to win Michelin stars, and his son, Michel Roux, Jr., continued to run Le Gavroche until January 2024.
Marco Pierre White is a British chef, restaurateur, and television personality. In 1995, he became the youngest chef to be awarded three Michelin stars. He has trained chefs including Mario Batali, Shannon Bennett, Gordon Ramsay, Curtis Stone, Phil Howard and Stephen Terry. He has been dubbed "the first celebrity chef" and the enfant terrible of the UK restaurant scene.
The Waterside Inn, in Bray, Berkshire, England, is a restaurant founded by the brothers Michel and Albert Roux after the success of Le Gavroche. It is currently run by Michel's son, Alain. The restaurant has three Michelin stars, and in 2010 it became the first restaurant outside France to retain all three stars for twenty-five years.
Marcus Wareing is an English celebrity chef who was Chef-Owner of the one-Michelin-starred restaurant Marcus until its permanent closure in December 2023. Since 2014, Wareing has been a judge on MasterChef: The Professionals.
The Berkeley is a 5-star hotel, located in Wilton Place, Knightsbridge, London. The hotel is owned and managed by Maybourne Hotel Group, which also owns Claridge's and The Connaught in Mayfair, London.
Éric Chavot is a French Michelin starred chef. He was working the head chef at the Bob Bob Cité and Bob Bob Ricard restaurants in London until January 2020, as well as the consultant chef at the Royal Albert Hall's Coda restaurant. Born in Arcachon, Gironde, Chavot was trained at the Boucanier, then at the Patio.
A pig's trotter, also known as a pettitoe, is the culinary term for a pig's foot. It is used as a cut of pork in various dishes around the world, and experienced a resurgence in the late 2000s.
Thomas William Kitchin is a Scottish chef and owner of The Kitchin, where he became Scotland's youngest winner of a Michelin star.
MasterChef: The Professionals is a BBC television competitive cooking show which aired on BBC Two from 2008 to 2019, and on BBC One since 2020. It is a spin-off from the main MasterChef series, for professional working chefs. Introduced in 2008, Gregg Wallace and India Fisher reprised their roles as co-judge and voiceover respectively. Michel Roux Jr., a two-Michelin-star chef, assisted, from 2009, by his sous-chef Monica Galetti. Since 2011, Sean Pertwee has taken over Fisher's role as voiceover.
La Tante Claire was a restaurant in Chelsea, London, which opened in 1977 and 1998. Owned and operated by Pierre Koffmann, it gained three Michelin stars in 1983, and held all three until the restaurant moved premises in 1998. It was sold to Gordon Ramsay for his flagship restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay.
Martijn Kajuiter is a Dutch Michelin star winning head chef with Cliff House Hotel in Ardmore, County Waterford.
Pétrus is a restaurant in London, which serves modern French cuisine. It is located in Kinnerton Street, Belgravia and is part of Gordon Ramsay restaurants owned by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's Gordon Ramsay Restaurants Ltd. It has held one Michelin star since 2011, and 3 AA Rosettes.
Harveys was a restaurant in Wandsworth, London, run by chef Marco Pierre White between 1987 and 1993. Its French cuisine was warmly received by food critics, and it was named Restaurant of the Year by The Times in 1987.
Aubergine was a restaurant in Chelsea, London. Owned by A-Z Restaurants, it was opened under chef Gordon Ramsay in 1993. Aubergine was awarded two Michelin stars in 1997, which it held until Ramsay left the restaurant in July 1998 following the sacking of Marcus Wareing from sister restaurant L'Oranger. It subsequently reopened and held a single Michelin star under William Drabble until he left the restaurant in 2009. Aubergine closed in 2010, pending a relaunch as an informal Italian restaurant.
David Collins was an Irish architect who specialised in designing the interiors of bars and restaurants in London.
The Restaurant Marco Pierre White, also known as The Restaurant, Restaurant Marco Pierre White and later Oak Room Marco Pierre White, was a restaurant run by chef proprietor Marco Pierre White. The Restaurant was opened at the Hyde Park Hotel, London, on 14 September 1993, after White left his previous restaurant, Harveys. Following the move, the kitchen staff was more than doubled in number, and White used Pierre Koffmann's La Tante Claire as a template to pursue his third Michelin star. This was awarded in the 1995 Michelin guide. White then moved the restaurant to the Le Méridien Piccadilly Hotel, London, in 1997, taking on the listed Oak Room as the main dining room. He sought a further rating of five red forks and spoons in the guide, to gain the highest possible rating for the restaurant. It gained this award in the following guide.
