Frenchman Claude Bosi is one of the UK’s most recognisable chefs and is renowned for having won two Michelin stars an incredible three times with different restaurants.
Growing up in Lyon, Bosi completed his apprenticeship at two Michelin-starred restaurant Leon de Lyon and went on to work in some of France’s prestigious kitchens. This included working under Alain Passard at L’Arpège in Paris, where he was part of the kitchen brigade when the restaurant won its third Michelin star, and with legendary French chef Alain Ducasse.
At the age of 24 in 1998 he crossed the Channel to the UK, eschewing the bright lights of the capital to work in Ludlow, in Shropshire, at Overton Grange. It is here the Bosi’s talent really began to shine, with him quickly being promoted to head chef and the restaurant winning a Michelin star within a year of him working there.
Ludlow would remain Bosi’s heartland for the next few years with the chef leaving Overton Grange to open his own restaurant, Hibiscus, in the town in 2000. The restaurant won its first Michelin star just nine months later, with a second following in 2004.
In 2007 Bosi closed Hibiscus, relocating it to London’s Mayfair, with the new restaurant eventually reclaiming the two Michelin stars it lost as a result of the move. The second incarnation of Hibiscus remained for nearly a decade with Bosi announcing its closure in August 2016 saying that he wanted a new challenge for himself and having been given an offer on the restaurant he couldn’t refuse.
He now oversees two restaurants at the iconic Michelin building in Chelsea, the downstairs oyster bar and the more formal upstairs Claude Bosi at Bibendum, which now also currently holds two Michelin stars, the first restaurant in the former headquarters of the tyre company to ever be awarded a star.
