Hibiscus in Mayfair and Piquet, just off Oxford Street, are both shutting down in the most prominent restaurant closures so far this year in London. Koffmann’s, the current perch of veteran chef Pierre Koffmann in the Berkeley hotel in Knightsbridge, is also closing its doors at the end of December.
Piquet, which chef Allan Pickett opened to general acclaim less than a year ago and is shortlisted as “best for business” in the new Harden’s London Restaurant Awards later this month, served its last meals on Friday September 2.
Hibiscus closes on October 1, ending the Mayfair gastro temple’s 16-year run as showcase for chef-patron Claude Bosi, who has polarized Harden’s reporters with his “adventurous” and “exciting” cooking. He is planning to open a new London restaurant early next year, but a spokeswoman confirmed that the Hibiscus name would now be retired. Bosi, who grew up in Lyons, made his name after opening Hibiscus in Ludlow, Shropshire, at the age of 27, and in 2007 he shifted the operation to the heart of London.
