‘Pope of French cuisine’ first to blend cooking, business tactics
PARIS — Paul Bocuse, the master chef who defined French cuisine for more than a half-century and put it on tables around the world, has died. He was 91.
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.
Bocuse died Saturday at Collonges-au-Mont-d’or, the place where he was born and had his restaurant.
“French gastronomy loses a mythical figure,” French President Emmanuel Macron said. “The chefs cry in their kitchens, at the Elysee [presidential palace] and everywhere in France.”
Interior Minister Gerard Collomb tweeted that “Mister Paul was France. Simplicity and generosity. Excellence and art de vivre.”
Bocuse, who underwent a triple heart bypass in 2005, had also been suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
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.
“Monsieur Paul,” as he was known, was placed right in the center of 2013 cover of the newsweekly Le Point that exemplified “The French Genius.” He was winged by Marie Curie, Louis Pasteur and Coco Chanel, among other French luminaries.
Born into a family of cooks that he dates to the 1700s, Bocuse stood guard over the kitchen of his world-famous restaurant even in retirement. In a 2011 interview with The Associated Press, Bocuse said he slept in the room where he was born above the dining rooms.
“But I changed the sheets,” he added with characteristic wry humor.
Born on Feb. 11, 1926, Bocuse entered his first apprenticeship at 16. He worked at the famed La Mere Brazier in Lyon, then spent eight years with one of his culinary idols, Fernand Point, whose cooking was a precursor to France’s nouvelle cuisine movement, with lighter sauces and lightly cooked fresh vegetables.
Bocuse’s career in the kitchen traversed the ages. He went from apprenticeships and cooking “brigades,” as kitchen teams are known, when stoves were coalfired and chefs also served as scullery maids, to the ultra-modern kitchen of his Auberge.