Fiery chef who won 32 Michelin stars

Joël Robuchon was one of the greatest cooks of his generation. The Frenchman earned more Michelin stars than any other chef in history (32 in total) and ran swish restaurants on three continents. In 1990, the Gault-millau guide named him a “chef of the century”. Yet the dish for which Robuchon won most acclaim wasn’t his much-copied chocolate tart or his caviar jelly topped with cauliflower cream, said The New York Times. It was his mashed potato. Using dried potatoes, salt, boiling milk and 25% chilled butter, the dish epitomised his back-to-basics style; restricting himself to three or four flavours at most. A chef’s job, he said, “is not to make a mushroom taste like a carrot, but to make a mushroom taste as much like a mushroom as it can”.

Joël Robuchon, who has died aged 73, was born in Poitiers, France, in 1945. His parents – a barely literate builder and a housewife – were devout Catholics. Aged 12, Joël entered a seminary. It was there, helping out in the kitchens, that he fell in love with cooking, said The Times. When he had to leave, aged 15, because of his parents’ divorce, he signed up for a cooking apprenticeship at a smart hotel in Poitiers. In his 20s, he began working in kitchens in Paris, and in 1974, aged 29, he took the reins at the Concorde La Fayette hotel, where he oversaw 90 chefs putting out thousands of dishes a day. He won his first Michelin stars, at Hôtel Nikko, in 1978. Three years later, he took the plunge, and sold his flat to set up his own restaurant.

It was apparent from the start that Jamin, in the 16th arrondissement, wasn’t like France’s other top restaurants, said The Guardian. The food was haute cuisine, but absent was the fusty atmosphere: staff were less formal, and on occasion, guests were even “offered a second helping”. Winning three Michelin stars after only three years, it “became a place of gastronomic pilgrimage”. In the kitchen, Robuchon insisted on total perfection from subordinates: a young Gordon Ramsay walked out after having substandard ravioli hurled at his head. Then, in 1996, at the height of his fame, Robuchon announced his retirement. He said he wanted to experience life outside the kitchen, noting that he hadn’t seen a mountain with snow on it until he was 45. But the break proved short-lived, said The Daily Telegraph. In 2003, Robuchon “bounced back” with the launch of L’atelier in Tokyo. It spawned outposts all over the world. Yet for all his success, the chef insisted he remained at heart a man of simple pleasures. “I do have this vision that if I ever get to heaven, someone will sit me down and say, ‘This is our menu for today,’” he once said. “But I’d be quite happy with a baguette with some fantastic cheese and a glass of wine.”