Pierre Koffmann

Pierre Koffmann (born 21 August 1948) is a French chef. In 1983, his London restaurant La Tante Claire became the second in the United Kingdom to be awarded three Michelin stars. Until December 2016, he was the head chef of Koffmann's at The Berkeley hotel in Knightsbridge, London.

Early life 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.

He learned how to cook with his maternal grandparents, Camille and Marcel, in Saint-Puy when he visited 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." 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.

The signature dish of the restaurant was pig's trotter with chicken mousseline, sweetbreads and morels.

Following the death of his wife Annie, he closed La Tante Claire in 2003. The space in the Berkeley became the flagship restaurant of Marcus Wareing. 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."

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.

Koffmann has a range of potatoes, chips, fruit and vegetables, sold by The Food Heroes, a company set up by Koffman, his wife and her brother. The chips were initially sold to restaurants but the company now markets products to the public.