Much excitement today as London braces itself for the full time return to the stoves of one of London’s most celebrated chefs. Trading under his own name, he’s to re-launch himself in June, in the site currently occupied by Gordon Ramsay’s Boxwood Café.
Those who assume that fame must always have something to do with being on TV, though, may be a bit perplexed. Why the excitement? Who is this chap Koffmann.
Well, that's simple. Back in the late-’90s, Pierre Koffmann was simply unchallenged as the top name in London’s culinary pecking order.
As we noted in our 1994 guide:
Pierre Koffmann's cooking is simply “without peers” - “consistently the most subtle and pleasurable dining experience in London”; service is “excellent” and not at all intimidating yet, sadly, quite a few find the decoration of this intimate Chelsea establishment “dull” and the atmosphere “very disappointing”; lunch is an unqualified bargain.
Every year, Tante Claire was proclaimed by our survey to offer the best food in London, and essentially the same review was repeated annually until our 1998 guide.
And then it all went wrong. Koffmann moved his restaurant to a much grander site, and the old magic disappeared:
“Oh dear”, Pierre Koffmann's move to Belgravia has, at a stroke, reduced his restaurant - once London's greatest - to also-ran status; there are still “fantastic” results, but for too many they're just “mediocre”, and the atmosphere seems “wrong, cold and expensive. (2000 guide)
Needless to say, it didn’t last very long.
The Belgravia site concerned was at the Berkeley hotel (albeit at the grander end, subsequently occupied by Marcus Wareing).
Fingers crossed, then, that Koffmann’s return to the hotel turns out to be a triumphant one. Given the history, this is far from being a foregone conclusion.
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