Michel Guérard, genius of slimming delicacies – 08/19/2024 at 1:09 p.m.

Michel Guérard, who died during the night from Sunday to Monday, is a chef from Landes who revolutionized gastronomy in the 1970s with nouvelle cuisine, of which he is one of the leaders, and invented a new tasty repertoire of “slimming cuisine”.

“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, the first French chef to have made the cover of the American magazine Time, he is considered by some critics and many of his peers to be one of the most talented chefs of the 20th 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”.

Chef Michel Guérard, who has had three Michelin stars since 1977, poses in the kitchen of his restaurant Les Prés d’Eugénie, in Eugénie-les-Bains, in the Landes region, on November 28, 2008 (AFP / PIERRE ANDRIEU)

Stuffed cabbage or cassoulet and even, why not, a Paris-Brest by replacing the cream with beaten egg whites “and just a touch of whipped cream”: “by taking a little trouble, you can make some pretty great things that are balanced and low in calories”, said the chef.

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, originally from the Seine Valley so often painted by Monet, had to abandon his studies very early. While he dreamed of being a doctor, he did his apprenticeship in pastry making in Mantes-la-Jolie.

“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 then at the Lido, where he discovered that “basically, a restaurant is a theatre stage”.

Chef Michel Guérard, who has had three Michelin stars since 1977, poses in his restaurant Les Prés d’Eugénie, in Eugénie-les-Bains, in the Landes region, on September 26, 2013 (AFP / Nicolas TUCAT)

In 1965, he bought the “Pot-au-feu”, a small North African bistro in Asnières, in the suburbs of Paris. After a difficult start, he brought all of Paris there with his “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 and then New York.

Two years later, he moved into the spa resort of the family of his young wife Christine, heiress of the Chaîne thermale du soleil.

An apostle of “eating well”, he strives to make people “lose weight with pleasure”. He then became known to the general public through two publishing successes: “La grande cuisine minceur” (1976) and “La cuisine gourmande” (1978), translated into around fifteen languages, then through television shows.

Michel Guérard, for example, offers 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).

Chef Michel Guérard poses on November 28, 2022 in Paris (AFP / JOEL SAGET)

Despite the controversy, Guérard 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 his stronghold of 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 be awarded a Nobel Prize, it would be our first Nobel Prize,” stressed Michel Sarran, his student, the Toulouse chef with two Michelin stars, during a tribute in 2022.

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