Three-star Michelin guide | French chef Michel Guérard dies

(Paris) French chef Michel Guérard, who died on the night of Sunday to Monday, revolutionized gastronomy in the 1970s with nouvelle cuisine, of which he was one of the leaders, and invented a new tasty repertoire of “slimming cuisine.”

Based in the Landes region in the southwest of France, a region of foie gras, duck confit and duck breasts, “he was a very great visionary chef, who knew how to adapt to the department with all the producers, breeders and force-feeders and paid tribute to this heritage in his menu. France will miss him,” his friend, Michelin-starred chef Jean Coussau, told AFP.

Three Michelin stars since 1977, first French chef to have made the cover of the American magazine Timehe is considered by some critics and many of his peers to be one of the most talented chefs of the 20th century.^e century.

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”.

Stuffed cabbage or cassoulet and even, why not, a Paris-Brest, replacing the praline buttercream in this pastry with beaten egg whites “and just a touch of whipped cream”: “With a little effort, you can make some pretty great things, balanced and low in calories,” he said.

Michel Guérard says he was inspired by the observation in Eugénie-les-Bains (Landes), before settling there in 1974, of spa guests seated in front of “poor grated carrots and a piece of ham”.

Born on March 27, 1933, this son of butchers from the Paris region dropped out of school early. While he dreamed of becoming a doctor, he did his apprenticeship in pastry making in Mantes-la-Jolie, about fifty kilometers from Paris.

“A fascinating and passionate life,” he says of his journey, that of a child who “was ‘lucky’ enough to have experienced war and to have been hungry and cold, which allowed him to put everything else into perspective.”

Meilleur Ouvrier de France at the age of 25, he exercised his talents at the Crillon, a luxury hotel in the French capital, then at the Lido, a former Parisian cabaret.

In 1965, he bought a small North African bistro in the northwest of Paris. After a difficult start, he brought all of Paris to his establishment, christened the “Pot-au-feu”, with its “crazy salad”, which became “gourmet”, combining foie gras shavings and vinaigrette, an unthinkable combination at the time.

“Lose weight with pleasure”

A first Michelin star was awarded in 1967, followed by a second three years later.

Expropriated from the “Pot-au-feu” in 1972, he multiplied his projects, notably helping the singer Régine to open clubs in Moscow, then New York.

Two years later, he moved into the spa resort of his young wife Christine’s family.

An apostle of “eating well”, he became known to the general public through two publishing successes: The great slimming kitchen (1976) and Gourmet cuisine (1978), translated into around fifteen languages, then by television broadcasts.

Michel Guérard, for example, suggests confit byaldi, a piperade of grilled peppers, tomatoes, zucchini and aubergines, covered with a dash of vinaigrette, popularized by the American chef Thomas Keller to the point of becoming the flagship dish of the animated film. Ratatouille (2007).

Despite the controversy, he worked for a long time as a consultant for the Nestlé group.

In 2013, he founded his “Health Cooking School”, the Michel Guérard Institute, in Eugénie-les-Bains, with the idea of ​​contributing to the fight against chronic diseases of modern life (obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, etc.)

“If cuisine were to win a Nobel Prize, it would be our first Nobel Prize,” stressed Michel Sarran, his student, the Toulouse chef with two Michelin stars, in 2022.

“The elders told me this joke: ‘You’re going to eat at Guérard, don’t forget your prescription.’ We made fun of him a little but he was right. Just open any magazine, that’s all we talk about today,” he summed up.