Eugénie-les-Bains, France | AFP | Monday 08/19/2024 – Michel Guérard, who died at the age of 91, was the early inventor of a “slimming” cuisine that revolutionized world gastronomy, and many chefs paid tribute Monday to the French chef established in the South-West, who has had three Michelin stars since 1977.
“He died at his home during the night” from Sunday to Monday, Florence Pelizzari, his secretary, and the mayor of Eugénie-les-Bains, Philippe Brethes, a commune in the Landes where the deceased’s famous restaurant, “Les Prés d’Eugénie”, has been located for half a century, told AFP.
The first French chef to grace the cover of Time Magazine, Michel Guérard was considered by some critics and many of his peers to be one of the most talented cooks of the 20th century.
In Eugénie-les-Bains (470 inhabitants), the time on Monday was for contemplation and “discretion”, it was explained to the press, left outside Michel Guérard’s estate.
The restaurant “Les Prés d’Eugénie” did not open its doors, as it does every Monday, and employees were instructed not to speak.
“He was a colorful character, who will survive us all with his cookbooks and recipes,” Véronique Attal, a 55-year-old spa worker, told AFP.
Employed in the Guérard family’s thermal establishment, at the heart of the estate, she evokes “a pride in belonging to a certain French savoir-vivre and savoir-faire”, “of a great house founded by someone who started from a manual trade to reach the summits”.
Omnipresent, “this big boss” and “really good guy” came, “still last year”, “to observe the dishes in the kitchen” and “to greet the spa guests with a friendly word”, recounts another employee of the spa establishment.
– “Gourmet” –
Born on March 27, 1933 in Vétheuil (Val d’Oise), this son of butchers had to abandon his studies very early. While he dreamed of being a doctor, he did his apprenticeship in pastry making in Mantes-la-Jolie.
Meilleur Ouvrier de France at the age of 25, he exercised his talents at the Crillon then at the Lido but it was in a “boui-boui” in the Parisian suburbs that he acquired his letters of nobility.
In 1965, Michel Guérard bought the “Pot-au-feu”, a small North African bistro in Asnières. After a difficult start, he brought all of Paris there, before moving to Eugénie-les-Bains in 1974.
After observing spa guests sitting in front of “poor grated carrots and a piece of ham”, which he found “very depressing”, he developed a tasty “slimming cuisine”. His credo: “change the gestures in the kitchen” to reduce fat and sugar, “but keeping taste as the main line, with its immediate corollary which is pleasure”.
He thus recomposed the recipe for Paris-Brest with beaten egg whites, “and just a touch of whipped cream”: “by taking a little trouble, you can make some pretty great things that are balanced and low in calories,” he said.
– “Precursor” –
Great chefs from France paid tribute to him on Monday.
“One of the pillars of great French cuisine has disappeared. An iconic figure, he enlightened and inspired us all. Bravo, the artist,” said Georges Blanc, who has had three stars in the Michelin Guide since 1981 in Vonnas (Ain).
“Admiring tribute to Michel Guérard, immense poet of gastronomy,” wrote Guy Savoy, a two-star chef in Paris, on Instagram.
“I learned of the death of my mentor chef Michel Guérard,” tweeted Marseille chef Gérald Passedat. “This immense chef, a pioneer of slimming cuisine, an erudite, sensitive visionary, thank you my friend for teaching me everything.”
“Our friend Michel has gone to find the starry constellation, to join the legends of which he is now a part. Thank you master,” reacted Yannick Alléno on Instagram.
For her part, Olivia Grégoire, Minister Delegate for Business, Tourism and Consumer Affairs, hailed “a three-starred star”.
“The immense visionary and innovative chef, Michel Guérard, inventor of nouvelle cuisine, has left us and the world of French gastronomy has lost one of its fathers,” she tweeted.
