Latest News...

French accent

Pierre Koffmann of La Tante Claire is back, with a new bistro and a long line in Gascon classics

Pierre Koffmann is running through some of his favourite dishes ahead of the opening of his new bistro at the Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge. You could call it a dry run, but that would imply a need to practise, and a chef of Koffmann’s standing has no need of that, especially when the dishes are those he grew up on in Gascony. At 61, his legs may tire after a long day at the stove, but the fingers are as quick as ever – he prides himself on being able to bone a pig’s trotter quicker than anyone else in his brigade. “I notice the tiredness at night,” he says. “But the speed is still there. I have the experience to go faster than the young guys.”

Today he is preparing a lunch of typical dishes from southwest France – a simple summer salad, followed by duck with cherries and a light vanilla mousse with strawberries. “The flavours you tasted when you were a child always stay with you,” he says. “As you get older you tend to return to those comfort foods.” For him that means lots of poultry and game – “My grandmother made the most fantastic jugged hare” – and other timeless classics such as bouillabaisse, smoked eels with bordelaise sauce, escabeche of mackerel, Pyrenean shoulders of lamb boulangère and hearty terrines. These are just the sorts of dishes he will be serving at Koffmann’s when it opens at the end of the month.

It is six years since Koffmann closed La Tante Claire, also housed in the Berkeley, but he doesn’t find it strange going back, albeit this time to the basement site that was until recently occupied by Gordon Ramsay’s Boxwood. “When I left, it was my own choice,” he explains, “and now I’m going back of my own choice.” The reason for his return is down to the success of his pop-up restaurant at Selfridges last autumn. “We planned to be open for one week, and ended up doing two months. In the end, I had to say, ‘Enough.’ I assumed it would only be my old customers who came – well, those who were still alive – but three quarters of them were in their twenties and thirties.”

It was enough to convince him to return to the fray full time, so now we will again be able to enjoy his celebrated pig’s trotter stuffed with sweetbreads and morels (he sold 3,200 at Selfridges) and his pistachio soufflé. With Daniel Boulud recently having opened his bistro at the Mandarin Oriental nearby, this part of London is becoming like a corner of southwestern France. “The idea of going to France, stopping at the first restaurant and having a fantastic meal is finished,” Koffmann says. Perhaps tourists should make their first stop Knightsbridge instead.

Koffmann’s, The Berkeley Hotel, London SW1 (020-7235 1010; koffmanns.co.uk)