The ‘pope’ of French food is no more
paris — Paul Bocuse, one of the greatest French chefs of all time, died on Saturday aged 91 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Dubbed the “pope” of French cuisine, Bocuse helped shake up the food world in the 1970s with the Nouvelle Cuisine revolution and create the idea of the celebrity chef. French President Emmanuel Macron led the tributes, calling him a “mythic figure who transformed French cuisine. Chefs are crying in their kitchens across France”.
Bocuse was France’s only chef to keep the Michelin food bible’s coveted three-star rating through more than four decades. —
paris — Paul Bocuse, the master chef who defined French cuisine for nearly half a century and put it on tables around the world, a man who raised the profile of top chefs from invisible kitchen artists to international celebrities, has died at 91, France’s interior minister announced on Saturday.
Minister Gerard Collomb tweeted that “Mister Paul was France. Simplicity and generosity. Excellence and art de vivre.”
Bocuse’s temple to French gastronomy, L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges, outside the city of Lyon in southeastern France, has held three stars — without interruption — since 1965 in the Michelin guide, the bible of gastronomes. He also parlayed his business and cooking skills into a globe-spanning gastronomic empire. Bocuse, who underwent a triple heart bypass in 2005, had also been suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
Often referred to as the “pope of French cuisine,” Bocuse was a tireless pioneer, the first chef to blend the art of cooking with savvy business tactics — branding his cuisine and his image to create an empire of restaurants around the globe.
As early as 1982, Bocuse opened a restaurant in the France Pavilion in Walt Disney World’s Epcot Centre in Orlando, Florida, headed by his son Jerome, also a chef. In recent years, Bocuse even dabbled in fast food with two outlets in his home base of Lyon.
“He has been a leader. He took the cook out of the kitchen,” said celebrity French chef Alain Ducasse, speaking at a January 2013 gathering to honor Bocuse — then just shy of his 87th birthday. More than 100 chefs from around the world traveled to Lyon for the occasion — one of a string of such honors bestowed on Bocuse in recent years. Bocuse’s imposing physical stature and his larger-than-life personality matched his bold dreams and his far-flung accomplishments.
“Monsieur Paul,” as he was known, was placed right in the centre of an August 2013 cover of the newsweekly Le Point that exemplified “The French Genius.” —