The French chef Michel Guérard, who has died aged 91, was to many British diners, readers and cooks the chief exponent of nouvelle cuisine. This way of cooking gained wide acceptance in the 1970s. It broke away from classical culinary tropes in search of greater lightness, directness and invention.
Guérard was but one of a group of transformational chefs in the nouvelle cuisine movement, including Paul Bocuse, the brothers Troisgros, and his early mentor Jean Delaveyne of the Camélia restaurant in Bougival. However, it was his book La Grande Cuisine Minceur, published in 1976, that first delivered this style of cookery to tables worldwide (more than a million copies sold, in 13 languages) even though the recipes it contained were in fact calibrated for customers on a diet.
