Restaurants

Helen Puolakka 'The customers still want little luxuries'

The corporate high-flyer
Helena Puolakka, 36, Harvey Nichols Fifth Floor Restaurant
Finnish-born Puolakka knew she wanted to come to London as soon as she read Marco Pierre White’s seminal first cookbook ‘White Heat’. ‘I instantly decided that I wanted to work for this guy, but I never managed it.’ She applied to every Michelin-starred restaurant in the capital just to get a foothold and the first to offer her a job was Gordon Ramsay’s Aubergine. ‘I knew nothing about him at the time,’ she recalls. Ironically Ramsay was one of the MPW brigade featured in the book’s photographs. After a long stint with Pierre Kaufman at the now-defunct La Tante Claire and three years at Sonny’s in Barnes, Puolakka is today in charge of food for the restaurant, bar and café at Harvey Nicks, aiming to woo back the ladies who lunch with her astute menus. ‘The customers here fit into dress sizes I’ve never seen in my whole life, but they still want little luxuries like foie gras, truffles and chocolate.’ Meanwhile critical interest has been piqued by the Finnish twists on the menu, such as fresh salmon and halibut hot-smoked to order. These days, when young Finnish chefs want to break into the London restaurant scene, this is who they call.
The Fifth Floor, Harvey Nichols, 109-125 Knightsbridge, SW1X 7RJ (020 7235 5250) Knightsbridge tube. Feature continues