French chef who pioneered nouvelle cuisine dies at age of 91

Michel Guérard, a French chef who held three Michelin stars for a record 47 years, and is considered one of the pioneers of ‘nouvelle cuisine’, has died at the age of 91.

The chef, who is hailed as one of the most successful and influential French pioneers of the 20th century, died overnight on August 18-19.

Mr Guérard was among the first chefs in France to celebrate the idea that healthier food - lower in fat and sugar - need not be to the detriment of flavour. He dubbed this “nouvelle cuisine” in the 1970s, starting a movement that would become known the world over becoming the first chef to appear on the iconic cover of Time magazine in the United States.

His flagship restaurant is Les Prés d'Eugénie, in the spa resort of Eugénie-les-Bains (Landes, Nouvelle-Aquitaine). He first won the coveted, highest accolade of three Michelin stars in 1977, and went on to hold it for a record time: 47 years.

A star is born

Mr Guérard was born on March 27, 1933 in Vétheuil (Val-d'Oise), and was the son of butchers. Although he once had ambitions to become a doctor, his cooking career began with an apprenticeship in pastry in Mantes-la-Jolie.

He would go on to be named Meilleur Ouvrier de France at just 25 years of age, and worked at high-end establishments including the Hotel Crillon in Paris.

Mr Guérard would later buy Le Pot-au-feu, a small bistro in Asnières (Hauts-de-Seine, Ile-de-France), in 1965, and would eventually make it a destination Paris restaurant. He became particularly well-known for his gourmet salad, made with foie gras, green beans and asparagus.

He would then settle in Landes in 1974, and - with his wife, who died in 2017 - make the spa resort of Eugénie-les-Bains a global destination for food lovers. He would later also write several successful cookbooks.

Mr Guérard once called his life “exciting and passionate”, and said that his experience of war in his early life meant he had “been lucky” enough to feel cold and hungry, which helped him “put everything else into perspective”.

Mr Guérard is survived by his two daughters, Adeline and Eléonore, who took over the running of their father’s flagship site in 2018.

Tributes pour in

The Michelin Guide team has paid tribute to the late chef, saying that he left “a considerable culinary legacy, a true embodiment of his skills, his dedication to cooking and his generosity”.

The UK Michelin Guide also posted a tribute.

 Michel Sarran, a Toulouse chef with two Michelin stars, who was one of Mr Guérard’s students, described his former mentor in 2022: “If cuisine was eligible for the Nobel Prize, he would have been our first Nobel Prizewinner”. 

Upon learning of Mr Guérard’s death, Guy Savoy, also once a three-star chef, lauded him as “the immense poet of gastronomy”.

Ferran Adria, the Spanish former head chef of the restaurant, El Bulli, posted on X (Twitter) that Mr Guérard was “one of the best chefs I have ever known…I learned so much from him as a human and as a chef”. 

Luxury hotel group Relais & Châteaux - to which Mr Guérard’s restaurant belongs - called the chef “an undisputed figure in the landscape of French and global gastronomy”.

Landes MP Geneviève Darrieussecq posted that Mr Guérard was a “simple, cheeky, refined, passionate man” who “inspired emotions and was a genius chef”. She sent all her condolences and “thoughts to his daughters, and everyone who works at Prés d’Eugénie”.