Today, it is night in the paradise of Prés d’Eugénie. Michel Guérard, 91, has left the park and its immense trees with leaves as slender as bonsai, the lounges where he always passed from one to the other joyfully, the restaurant where he took the pulse of each customer and, of course, this immense white kitchen with small blue tiles where he rose to the summit of gastronomy.
» Find the latest interview with Michel Guérard given to “Sud Ouest” by clicking here
With the departure of Michel Guérard, one of the most beautiful chapters in the history of French cuisine closes, a story that he essentially wrote in the Landes, in this small spa resort owned by his wife Christine, which this close-knit couple – who addressed each other formally &ndash…
Today, it is night in the paradise of Prés d’Eugénie. Michel Guérard, 91, has left the park and its immense trees with leaves as slender as bonsai, the lounges where he always passed from one to the other joyfully, the restaurant where he took the pulse of each customer and, of course, this immense white kitchen with small blue tiles where he rose to the summit of gastronomy.
» Find the latest interview with Michel Guérard given to “Sud Ouest” by clicking here
With the departure of Michel Guérard, one of the most beautiful chapters in the history of French cuisine closes, a story that he essentially wrote in the Landes, in this small spa resort owned by his wife Christine, which this close-knit couple – who addressed each other formally – built into a palace in the countryside.
For forty-seven years, Michel Guérard has kept intact the three stars that the Michelin Guide awarded him in 1977. A leader of “nouvelle cuisine” with Alain Chapel, Alain Senderens and Pierre and Jean Troisgros, he has never left the kitchen. Until recently, he would leave the service at 1 a.m., once the last customer had left, to return to his beautiful property in Bachen, where he cultivated wine, another of his passions.
“I do crazy things”
In 2021, after a lockdown that he had experienced as a parenthesis of intense reflection (“I have a lot of fun, I do crazy things,” he confided on the phone), he had decided to change everything at Eugénie-les-Bains. To everyone, in the kitchen and at the hotel, he had distributed a manifesto entitled “Timelessness.”
In the spring, without fanfare, the metamorphosis had taken place. Les Prés d’Eugénie had been given a new atmosphere, without altering the spirit of the place. Christened “Jour de fête” and “Palais enchanté”, two breathtaking menus revealed the form of restlessness to which Michel Guérard was forcing himself. “The world of gastronomy is changing, we must not remain by the wayside”, he confided, while his daughter Éléonore was amazed by the “creative breath” that he continued to transmit to the entire staff.
The ingredients that made Michel Guérard a unique person can be found in his childhood. Born in Vétheuil (Val-d’Oise), in a village near Giverny, he spent hours watching his grandmother prepare fruit tarts. “Monuments of delicacy whose secret lay in their innocent simplicity,” he remembered. It was through his contact with her that his vocation as a cook was born, even if he was at one time attracted to the seminary and medicine.
He was 6 years old when his parents repatriated him with his brother to Pavilly, in Normandy, where they had opened a butcher’s shop. Michel Guérard often spoke of this time “of fear and hunger” during the Second World War, notably the day he was lined up against the kitchen wall facing three SS men pointing their machine guns at him.
Pastry chef at Crillon
This youth forged the man he became, at once tenacious, curious about everything and everyone, full of kindness and enjoying the present time. Because Michel Guérard was a merry fellow! Landed in Paris, hired to his great surprise as pastry chef at the Crillon, his life oscillates between sleepless nights imagining a new society and wedding cakes brought in great pomp to the Palace of Versailles for the first visit to France of the young Queen Elizabeth II.
At 24, he was the Meilleur Ouvrier de France in pastry making and the darling of the Lido. As in Lent, he imagined monumental cakes from which emerged creatures all in rhinestones and feathers. “Paris laughed at the crack of night,” confided this man who had acquired a beautiful handwriting. The champagne flowed freely and the young Guérard, mischievous, impertinent, free, understood that another world was about to spring forth and that he would be an actor in it.
The “crazy salad”, symbol of “nouvelle cuisine”
It was the 1960s, and the revolution was underway. While the “new novel” was livening up conversations on the terrace of the Deux Magots, and the New Wave was shaking up the film industry, the “new cuisine” was putting heavy sauces and the pompous ceremonies of the waiters in restaurants to the test. In Asnières, Michel Guérard had just bought the Pot-au-feu, a small bistro with 30 seats, by candlelight. There he served a “crazy salad” made up of green beans, asparagus, truffle slices, shavings of raw foie gras and sherry vinegar. Ted Kennedy met Gainsbourg and Birkin, Deneuve and Mastroianni, Charles Trenet and Jacques Brel. The Pot-au-feu was the epicentre of the new French gastronomy, which would radiate abroad for a long time.
But it was during a meeting with Christine Barthélémy at Régine’s that everything changed. “The sun exists, I met it,” he would later write to her on a paper napkin. Heir to what would become the Chaîne thermale du Soleil, she would convince him to follow her to the Landes, to this village lost on the borders of the Gers, far from any tourist trail. It is here that the two of them would build this Eden of gluttony and well-being.
She is keen on decoration and has a business sense; he is in the kitchen and very perplexed by the food served to spa guests. Founder of the “new cuisine”, he will go even further by inventing slimming cuisine. “I did not understand how one could oppose weight loss and the pleasure of eating”, he explained. His premise hits the mark. In 1976, his recipe book sold a million and a half copies and was translated into twelve languages. In the United States, he was the first chef in the world to make the cover of “Time”.
He trained several generations of chefs
Adored by the media, host of “La cuisine légère”, the flagship show of the first channel between 1977 and 1981, Michel Guérard always kept a healthy distance from fame. He took pride in the myriad of young people trained at Eugénie: Michel Troisgros, Gérald Passédat, Arnaud Donckele, Alexandre Couillon, Sébastien Bras, Michel Sarran and Alain Ducasse. “I would not be the chef I have become without having learned from Michel Guérard”, Martin Berasategui, one of the architects of the Spanish gastronomic revolution in the 1990s, told us a few years ago.
Nor did he ever want to scatter his name around the world. He preferred to focus his energy on a fight that resonates even more today than yesterday. Despairing at seeing that nothing was being done to educate children about taste and to promote a balanced diet in collective catering, he stormed ministries. In particular, he sent Roselyne Bachelot an implacable white paper when she was Minister of Health. He sadly got lost in a pile of files. Ten years ago, he took the bull by the horns and launched an institute to train cooks working in company restaurants. He has never been empty since.
Today, all the leaders mourn the one who, in all humility, had become their guide. Michel Guérard was a warm and endearing person like few others. The years passed but he kept his childlike soul. It is only in paradise that we rejoice to see him arrive with his mischievous smile for the eternal banquet.
To his daughters Adeline and Eléonore, to his grandchildren as well as to his entire family and the staff of Prés d’Eugénie, “Sud Ouest” presents its sincere condolences.
Michel Guérard, master enchanter
Long before the term appeared, Michel Guérard’s cuisine was already one of naturalness. Vegetables and herbs, grown in Eugénie’s sublime simples garden, have always played an essential role on the plate. We recently remember a small brioche that was enjoyed with a granita of fennel, liquorice, tarragon, lovage, mint and coriander.
When he talked about the creation of his dishes, he became an alchemist. Above all, he loved inventing new recipes, but he also knew that people came to his house to savor his classic scores. This was the case with the famous hen’s egg with caviar, the lobster smoked in the fireplace, or the sweet happiness that was the soft pillow of mushrooms and morels. Originally a pastry chef, Michel Guérard was a virtuoso of desserts. Ah! the verbena soufflé and the famous soft cake of the Marquis de Béchamel were pure delights…
Each meal at Prés d’Eugénie or at the Ferme aux grives (more accessible) was a gift to memory, because one never wanted to forget the purity of the tastes, the nuances of textures, the subtle cooking. And the tremendous joy that burst from his dishes.