2010: Special Award sponsored by Sodexo
Winner - Pierre Koffmann
The legendary Pierre Koffmann is acclaimed as one of Britain’s greatest chefs and has been at the pinnacle of his profession for many years. It is said that with Koffmann there are no celebrity chef style tantrums – just pure magic from a master.
As a young boy, his inspiration was his grandmother Camille, a Gascony farmer, who taught him all about traditional French country cooking in her kitchen.
Koffmann’s passion is deep rooted in this traditional country cuisine, using simple ingredients to produce food that harks back to those childhood days in Gascony.
Coming from a working class farm family, mealtimes just involved cooking food that they liked to eat, and his mother and grandmother were great cooks – living off the land and producing simple food.
His own culinary art is based upon his unique refinement of classic methods, derived from using personally selected fresh produce, a thorough understanding of flavours and a flash of creative genius. Humble ingredients are his speciality, transforming them into works of art – from pig’s trotters and sweetbreads to tongues and brains.
Three years ago this was shown when he was doing a demo for catering butcher Nigel Fredericks and EBLEX. He had his audience spellbound for four hours by his skill as he deftly sliced and diced ingredients preparing classics such as daube de boeuf, lamb stew, leg of lamb with anchovies, salad of lamb’s tongues and brains, and a gourmet burger grilled with foie gras. He probed the meat before and while it was cooking, and dipped into the juices and sauces to test the simple but exquisite creations.
Koffmann displayed this genius while continually referring back to his grandmother’s cooking and guidance when he was young. While sealing beef for the daube, he added a liberal amount of red wine saying: “This is all you need – it’s my granny’s recipe. It doesn’t have to be expensive wine, maybe a Côte du Rhône. We certainly couldn’t afford pricey fine wine when the family sat down to eat.”
His career in the UK began in 1970 at the age of 22 when he arrived in London from France. Two years later he went to work with the Roux brothers at Le Gavroche cooking alongside Michel Roux, before becoming head chef at the brothers’ Waterside Inn in Berkshire, where he earned two Michelin stars.
In 1977 he opened his own restaurant, La Tante Claire on Royal Hospital Road in Chelsea, which quickly became one of London’s top restaurants, earning three Michelin stars and a host of awards both for the restaurant and Koffmann himself. During this time his protégés have been many ranging from Marco Pierre White to Jason Atherton, and he has helped many chefs in their career.
In 1998 however, he decided to move his business to the Berkeley Hotel in London and the Chelsea site became home to Gordon Ramsay’s flagship restaurant.
When he finally called time on La Tante Claire in 2004 he became a consultant and also took on the role of head chef at the Bleeding Heart in the City for a year.
But in 2009 he was lured back to a La Tante Claire style venue on the roof of Selfridges, which had introduced a pop up restaurant to coincide with a new London restaurant festival.
Now it has been announced that he will open a new venture in The Berkeley in Knightsbridge, on the site previously occupied by the Boxwood Café, which closed in April.
He once said: “You have to make sure your concept and cuisine is totally different from next door competitors and always acknowledge progress. I have a passion and always wanted to achieve the same results as my grandmother and then do it for the rest of my life.”
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