Pierre Koffmann (born 21 August 1948) is a French professional
chef
A chef is a trained professional cook and tradesman who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation, often focusing on a particular cuisine. The word "chef" is derived from the term ''chef de cuisine'' (), the director or head of a kitche ...
. He was one of a handful of chefs in the United Kingdom to have been awarded the coveted three
Michelin star
The Michelin Guides ( ) are a series of guide books that have been published by the French tyre company Michelin since 1900. The Guide awards up to three Michelin stars for excellence to a select few establishments. The acquisition or loss of a ...
s at his restaurant
La Tante Claire
La Tante Claire (''The Aunt 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 199 ...
in London. Until December 2016 he was the head chef of
Koffmann's at
The Berkeley
The Berkeley is a five-star deluxe 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.
History 1800s and early 1900s ...
hotel in
Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge is a residential and retail district in central London, south of Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park. It is identified in the London Plan as one of two international retail centres in London, alongside the West End of London, West End.
...
, London.
Early life
Koffmann was born in
Tarbes
Tarbes (; Gascon: ''Tarba'') is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region of southwestern France. It is the capital of Bigorre and of the Hautes-Pyrénées. It has been a commune since 1790. It was known as ''Turba'' ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, on 21 August 1948. He is of Alsatian German ancestry from his paternal side. His father worked as a mechanic for
Citroën
Citroën () is a French automobile brand. The "Automobiles Citroën" manufacturing company was founded in March 1919 by André Citroën. Citroën is owned by Stellantis since 2021 and previously was part of the PSA Group after Peugeot acquired ...
. It was with his maternal grandparents, Camille and Marcel, in
Saint-Puy that he learnt 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
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' 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."
In 1963 he left school and applied for a variety of jobs, but ultimately decided to attend cookery school for the next three years.
Career
Koffmann first worked as a chef in
Strasbourg
Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...
and
Toulon
Toulon (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is th ...
,
before moving in 1970 to the United Kingdom to work with
Michel
Michel may refer to:
* Michel (name), a given name or surname of French origin (and list of people with the name)
* Míchel (nickname), a nickname (a list of people with the nickname, mainly Spanish footballers)
* Míchel (footballer, born 1963), ...
and
Albert Roux
Albert Henri Roux (8 October 1935 – 4 January 2021) was a French-British 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 trai ...
at
Le Gavroche
Le Gavroche (''The Urchin'') is 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 is the current chef pat ...
. He originally only wanted to move to the UK so that he could see
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
play
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
at
rugby
Rugby may refer to:
Sport
* Rugby football in many forms:
** Rugby league: 13 players per side
*** Masters Rugby League
*** Mod league
*** Rugby league nines
*** Rugby league sevens
*** Touch (sport)
*** Wheelchair rugby league
** Rugby union: 1 ...
at
Twickenham Stadium
Twickenham Stadium () in Twickenham, south-west London, England, is a rugby union stadium owned by the Rugby Football Union (RFU), English rugby union governing body, which has its headquarters there. The England national rugby union team play ...
.
He moved to the Roux brothers'
Waterside Inn
The Waterside Inn, located 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 ...
in
Bray, Berkshire
Bray, occasionally Bray on Thames, is a large suburban village and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire. It sits on the banks of the River Thames, to the southeast of Maidenhead of which it is a suburb. The village is mentioned in th ...
, 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.
He opened his first restaurant,
La Tante Claire
La Tante Claire (''The Aunt 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 199 ...
, in 1977 in
Royal Hospital Road
Royal Hospital Road is a street in Chelsea, London, England. It runs between Chelsea Embankment on the north bank of the River Thames to the southwest and a junction with Lower Sloane Street, Pimlico Road and Chelsea Bridge Road to the northeas ...
, Chelsea.
[ Six years after it opened, the restaurant gained its third ]Michelin star
The Michelin Guides ( ) are a series of guide books that have been published by the French tyre company Michelin since 1900. The Guide awards up to three Michelin stars for excellence to a select few establishments. The acquisition or loss of a ...
.[ La Tante Claire moved to ]The Berkeley
The Berkeley is a five-star deluxe 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.
History 1800s and early 1900s ...
hotel in Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge is a residential and retail district in central London, south of Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park. It is identified in the London Plan as one of two international retail centres in London, alongside the West End of London, West End.
...
, London, in 1998,[ with the former site being sold to become the flagship restaurant of ]Gordon Ramsay
Gordon James Ramsay (; born ) is a British chef, restaurateur, television personality and writer. His restaurant group, Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, was founded in 1997 and has been awarded 17 Michelin stars overall; it currently holds a tot ...
. During his time at La Tante Claire, Koffmann worked with several eminent chefs, including Ramsay, Marco Pierre White
Marco Pierre White (born 11 December 1961) is a British chef, restaurateur, and television personality. He has been dubbed "the first celebrity chef" and the ''enfant terrible'' of the UK restaurant scene. In January 1995, aged 33, White became ...
, Marcus Wareing
Marcus Wareing (born 29 June 1970) is an English celebrity chef who is currently Chef-Owner of the one-Michelin-starred restaurant Marcus (formerly Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley) in Knightsbridge. Since 2014, Wareing has been a judge on '' Mast ...
and Tom Kitchin
Thomas William Kitchin is a Scottish chef and owner of The Kitchin, where he became Scotland's youngest winner of a Michelin star.
Kitchin and his wife Michaela opened The Kitchin in 2006 on Leith’s waterfront. The restaurant was awarded a ...
.[ 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."] More recently Wareing speaks better of Koffmann, saying "Koffmann is a complete thoroughbred. He ran the kitchen from the stove." The signature dish of the restaurant was pig's trotter
A pig's trotter, also known as a pettitoe, or sometimes known as a pig's foot, is the culinary term for the foot of a pig. The cuts are used in various dishes around the world, and experienced a resurgence in the late 2000s.
Description
Pigs' t ...
with chicken mousseline, sweetbread
Sweetbread is a culinary name for the thymus (also called throat, gullet, or neck sweetbread) or pancreas (also called stomach, belly or gut sweetbread), typically from calf (french: ris de veau, es, hígado) or lamb (). Sweetbreads have a ri ...
s and morel
''Morchella'', the true morels, is a genus of edible sac fungi closely related to anatomically simpler cup fungi in the order Pezizales (division Ascomycota). These distinctive fungi have a honeycomb appearance due to the network of ridges with ...
s.[ Marco Pierre White has called this his "favourite dish of all time".]
Following the death of his wife Annie, he closed La Tante Claire in 2003. The space became the flagship restaurant of Marcus Wareing. After taking a break from restaurants, he was briefly head chef at the Bleeding Heart pub in Clerkenwell
Clerkenwell () is an area of central London, England.
Clerkenwell was an ancient parish from the mediaeval period onwards, and now forms the south-western part of the London Borough of Islington.
The well after which it was named was redisco ...
. In 2009, he opened a pop-up restaurant
A pop-up restaurant is a temporary restaurant. These restaurants often operate from a private home, former factory, existing restaurants or similar space, and during festivals. Various other names have been used to describe the concept of settin ...
at Selfridges
Selfridges, also known as Selfridges & Co., is a chain of high-end department stores in the United Kingdom that is operated by Selfridges Retail Limited, part of the Selfridges Group of department stores. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge ...
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
Foie gras (, ; ) is a specialty food product made of the liver of a duck or goose. According to French law, foie gras is defined as the liver of a duck or goose fattened by gavage (force feeding).
Foie gras is a popular and well-known delicacy ...
, the pistachio soufflé
A soufflé is a baked egg-based dish originating in France in the early eighteenth century. Combined with various other ingredients, it can be served as a savory main dish or sweetened as a dessert. The word soufflé is the past participle of t ...
. But maybe I do a new dish each day, as a special." The ten days turned into two months. Koffmann described the first month as "a kind of hell", but 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."
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. He said he was no longer chasing Michelin stars, and would instead cook the Gascon style food he remembered from his childhood.
Koffmann's at The Berkeley closed on 31 December 2016.[ ] The space it occupied was due to be replaced by a gym.
In 2021, he launched a restaurant-review website koffmannandvines.com with Richard Vines, the former Chief Food Critic at Bloomberg.
References
External links
Koffmann's at The Berkeley
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koffmann, Pierre
1948 births
Living people
French chefs
People from Tarbes
Head chefs of Michelin starred restaurants