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Phil Howard is known as the chef’s chef - a solid and dependable chef who built up his revered reputation at Mayfair’s The Square, which he owned for 25 years and secured two Michelin stars.
Now in charge of the more relaxed Elystan Street in Chelsea, he’s mixed things up even further and last winter opened a restaurant, Union, in unassuming La Plagne, in the French Alps.
We caught up with the talented chef to talk about the merits of Alpine food and early-morning ski touring.
What attracted you to La Plagne?
About 12 years ago, when the kids were still young, my wife and I wanted to buy a chalet in the Alps and by the time we took all our wishes into account we ended up with not a huge list of resorts. La Plagne wasn’t somewhere we’d skied before but it met all our requirements (huge terrain, high-altitude skiing, French speaking, affordable), and we saw a chalet in Montalbert, one of La Plagne’s 10 villages, that we loved enormously so we bought it.
How did you meet Martin, the co-owner of Union?
Martin runs the ski shop in Montalbert. He’s a hugely experienced ski technician and coached the French slalom team. Montalbert is very modest but his passion for skiing and the mountains is huge. We met through ski rental and became good mates. He introduced me to ski touring, which we’ve done a lot together, and we’ve just taken it from there.
And does he have any restaurant experience?
No, he has no useful restaurant experience, at all! People might have questioned my judgement, but the truth is I liked the idea of opening a restaurant and he was really into the idea of doing it. It makes life a lot easier and is massively beneficial having someone on board who is a prominent figure in the local community.
When did you start skiing?
I started when I was about 10. I grew up in South Africa and left there when I was about eight. We came over to live in England and did the classic one week a year ski trip until I was about 20. Then life, work, kids and other commitments took over and I didn’t ski for...
