Ask one of the world’s greatest French chefs why he thinks the food of his homeland is suddenly cool again and he’s initially stumped. He’s happy about it; of course he is. At 70, Pierre Koffmann is old enough to have seen the rise and fall – and now, the first stirrings of a rise again – of French cuisine, and it’s “very nice” to see the food he grew up with finding a whole new audience.

“Perhaps it’s because we are going through difficult economic times,” he says finally, over the phone from London, his accent undiluted by nearly five decades of living abroad.