Les Platanes by Thierry Laborde and Anton Efimov to launch in May

Les Platanes, opening on 20 May, is the new French restaurant by Thierry Laborde and Anton Efimov. The restaurant will be a contemporary French Bistrot de Luxe with an emphasis on cuisine from the south of France. Located in a 19th Century townhouse on Bruton Place, a small cobbled street behind Berkeley Square, Les Platanes’ guests can expect to find exquisite French cooking in a casual yet refined bistro. Heading up the kitchen will be Thierry Laborde, one of the UK’s leading French chefs who has worked in some of London’s French establishments including Le Gavroche, Restaurant Le Louis XV, L’Oranger. He also opened Chabrot Bistrot d’Amis in 2011. Anton Efimov will be Les Platanes’ operations director having previously worked in establishments including Mari Vanna UK, Raffles Townhouse, Chinawhite on Air Street, and Buta Kitchen LTD Azerbaijan. The restaurant will celebrate Southern French cuisine with a menu featuring contemporary reinventions of classic dishes. The menu will offer starters including lobster salad with fennel and peaches, and a potato salad, topped with a poached duck egg and Ossetra caviar. Main dishes will feature Cornish turbot accompanied by Artichokes à la Barigoule alongside sweetbreads, fresh morels, and asparagus. Larger sharing dishes such as roast chicken from Gascony, served with foie gras and extra fine beans will also be available. Dessert will include homemade Paris-Brest and organic lemon sorbet, Armagnac and lime zest will be on offer. A menu du jour will also be available during lunchtime, offering three courses for £36, alongside a carafe of house wine with coffee to finish. Ingredients will be sourced from France; the chicken served at Les Platanes comes from Gascony, sourced from a medieval village where the poultry roam freelys. The family’s poultry breeding methods are rooted in tradition but use modern feeding and monitoring techniques to ensure the best quality product. Les Platanes’ cheese and butter are sourced from a family run business in a small town south of Loire-Atlantique, which still use artisanal processes of double harvesting while keeping the milk unpasteurised. The cows are raised on the green pastures of the Vendée region and their milk is regularly analysed. The wine list will comprise options from the South of France including a selection of Bordeaux, Provence and Languedoc. The restaurant will offer wines by the carafe in addition to a small selection by the glass. The list will extend to over 130 choices including some lesser known bottles from small producers as well as favourites from well known vineyards, including 2015 Château Simone Rouge, Provence and 2016 La Syrah, Famille Dardé, Languedoc. Les Platanes will also offer a selection of wines with rare vintages at accessible prices such as the 1996 Chablis Grand Cru Valmur, Maison Verget, and a 1986 Château L'Evangile, Pomerol. Inspired by the trees to line the lanes of Provence and nearby Berkeley Square, Les Platanes takes its name from the French for ‘plane trees’; famous for their historical ties to both London and the South of France The décor at Les Platanes will take inspiration from classic French bistros with a colour scheme featuring cream walls with accents of teal and by oak wood flooring, complemented by recreations of great 19th and 20th Century artwork.