Tribute to Michel Guérard
Michel Guérard, legendary French chef and Founding Father of Nouvelle Cuisine, passed away at 91, leaving behind an immeasurable culinary legacy.
The son of butchers, Michel Guérard began his career as an apprentice pastry chef at 14. Quickly recognized for his exceptional talent, he became “Meilleur Ouvrier de France” in 1958. His passion for cooking matched his dynamism and ability to celebrate life.
It is surely this fire that has always driven him that made him join the kitchens of the Lido, Maxim’s, and La Pérouse and then encouraged him to accompany the famous Régine in the opening of her Russian cabaret. There, he met Christine, and together, they wrote the first chapter of what is today a gastronomic and thermal saga, a story of family and happiness.
In 1965, Michel opened his first restaurant, Le Pot-au-Feu, near Paris, where he began to make his mark on the gastronomic scene. But in 1974, with his move to Eugénie-les-Bains and the opening of Les Prés d’Eugénie, his career took a decisive turn.
He developed a revolutionary cuisine that combined haute cuisine with dietary principles there. This innovative concept advocated light but tasty dishes, such as his famous grapefruit sorbet or his hen egg with caviar, proving that indulgence, gastronomy, and health could go together divinely.
Under his leadership, Les Prés d’Eugénie obtained three Michelin stars in 1977, which it has retained. Always faithful to his avant-garde approach, Michel Guérard also founded a cooking school dedicated to promoting healthy eating and wrote several books that have become references, such as “La Grande Cuisine Minceur”.
Michel Guérard never stopped innovating and challenging culinary conventions. For Les Grandes Tables du Monde members, he symbolized a vision of gastronomy rooted in tradition but resolutely turned towards the future. His work redefined what healthy cuisine could be and inspired generations of chefs worldwide.
Michel Guérard will remain essential in world gastronomy, a model of excellence and innovation. His passage marks an era, and his spirit will continue to influence culinary art for future generations of restaurateurs.
Michel, for your 90th birthday, we had to think about what we could offer you. When we surveyed the other members of the association, your peers and friends, they all highlighted your voice, your culinary language so unique as it combined an artistic dimension (all this gastronomic art that is unique to you – no past tense to use, your art is eternal) and this practical reflection of thermal and health constraints. This duality that was only one word, yours, and which today continues to train, make people think, and guide generations of cooks and restaurateurs.
During our visit, we gave you the poetic works of Yves Bonnefoy. Between essayist and poet, he used his pen as you use your knife to write relevant, inspiring, and beautiful art—a bridge that made sense to us for the scholar that you were.
Because more than ever, your words, as much as your hospitality, make sense, so we allow ourselves to recall this essential speech you told us:
“If you ever have the privilege of having to create or participate in the creation of a hotel, a restaurant, then do not hesitate for a single moment, be crazy, insatiable, dream of this hotel, this restaurant, this “Palace of Pleasures”, in difference, in distinction, in creative fantasy, refusing any concession to this or that trend which would quickly make it boring, obsolete and, by the same token, of ordinary consumption.
Mark it deeply in the DNA of your dreams so that it stands the test of time. And while you’re at it, and because a restaurant is, in a way, a theater, take advantage of it, for example, to dream of the service differently, dare to take it off the rails, from its formatted classicism and, if you think it’s dragging its feet a little too much, invent a new scenography for it, in which its actors can evolve quite naturally with an elegant assurance, jubilant ease, like actors coming out of the “Actors Studio”.
As for the kitchen, one of the building’s key pieces, flee, from the outset, the artificial one with its gimmicky effects, which has been plagiarized. Never live with the thoughts of others, and avoid the ridicule of plagiarizing them in turn.
Dream yours, it will gain the extra soul. There is only a breath between the dream of a dish and the gesture that gives it life. In the kitchen, the hand is the magic wand of the dream.
(…)
At the very end, after the excitement and the tumult, there is a great feeling of calm, peace and profound happiness. And happiness, all things considered, is only a few droplets of dreams that we sprinkle ourselves with every morning… provided, of course, that we always have a bottle of it on us…”
Rest in peace, dear Michel. Find your Christine, and thank you for everything you have brought us. All our thoughts go to Eléonore and Adeline. If we could only admire the vision and talent of the Guérard quartet, your philosophy would grow and evolve in the brilliant hands of your daughters.
With all our respect and friendship,
David Sinapian for the Board of Directors and the team of Les Grandes Tables du Monde
