Paul Bocuse Is Dead at 91

Celebrated French chef Paul Bocuse has died. The French Interior Minister, calling him the “pope” of French gastronomy, announced the news at around 7 a.m..

Bocuse trained under the influential Eugénie Brazier and Fernand Point, has held three Michelin stars at his l’Auberge du Pont de Collonges for decades, and was one of the early proponents of nouvelle cuisine, a style of cooking that focused on light sauces, minimal cooking times, and artful presentations. Nouvelle cuisine spread into a new movement that reshaped what it meant to cook and eat at the highest levels.

Bocuse was most famous for iconic dishes like his much-imitated fillet of red mullet covered in playful potato “scales,” and his truffle soup V.G.E., comprised of truffles and foie gras in a chicken broth cooked in a dish covered in puff pastry.

He was also one of the first celebrity chefs, parlaying his success in France into international acclaim, appearing on the covers of magazines in the 1970s and opening a restaurant in EPCOT center in the ’80s (now run by his son Jérôme). The bi-annual 30 year-old international cooking competition Bocuse d’Or — thought of as the Olympics of cooking — is named after him.

Here’s some initial twitter mourning, but expect more tributes and celebrations in the days to come. He was a lion of modern cuisine.