 Bernard and Dominique Loiseau |
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| Born | January 13, 1951 Chamalières, France |
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| Died | February 24, 2003 (aged 52) |
| Education | La Maison Troisgros |
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Bernard Loiseau (January 13, 1951 – February 24, 2003) was a French chef.
Loiseau was born in Chamalières, in the Auvergne region of central France. He decided to become a chef as a teenager, apprenticing at the famous La Maison Troisgros run by the brothers Jean and Pierre Troisgros in Roanne between 1968 and 1971. In 1972, he began working for restaurateur Claude Verger at La Barrière de Clichy, and was soon hailed as a prodigy by the Gault Millau guide, a proponent of the nouvelle cuisine style that emphasized lightness and freshness in contrast to the cuisine classique of traditional French gastronomy. When Verger bought the formerly prestigious La Côte d'Or of Saulieu in 1975, he installed Loiseau as chef and soon stood aside to allow him to develop a highly personal style of cuisine. Loiseau bought La Côte d'Or from Verger in 1982, and the well known Michelin Guide bestowed the coveted 3-star rating on his establishment in 1991. His fanatic attention to detail, frenetic work ethic and discerning palate propelled him to the top of his profession and earned him a knowledgeable and loyal but unforgiving and demanding clientèle.
Bernard Loiseau established Bernard Loiseau SA in 1998, and was the first star restaurateur to establish the concept of having one's restaurant incorporated and traded. At the time of his death, he was the only French chef traded on the stock exchange[1]. Under Bernard Loiseau SA, Loiseau published numerous books, established a line of frozen foods, and opened three eateries in Paris, in addition to running La Côte d'Or and its adjoining boutique shop.
The French government awarded him its highest honour, the decorations of Chevalier (Knight) de la Légion d'honneur in 1994[2], Chevalier (Knight) de l'Ordre national du Mérite in 1986[3], Officier (Officer) de l'Ordre national du Mérite in 2002[3] and Chevalier du Mérite agricole.
In the late 1990s a new form of Asian-inspired "fusion cuisine" swept France, catering to an international corporate class and pleasing trend-driven "foodies" (a neologism of the movement), which Loiseau resisted. The prevailing notion, however, was that the pre-eminent Loiseau's grip was slipping — that his cuisine and philosophy were being superseded by newer trends. He was by this time deeply in debt, and suffered from bouts of increasingly severe depression.
Loiseau committed suicide on February 24, 2003, shooting himself in the mouth with his hunting rifle after a full day of work in his kitchen.[4] The Gault Millau guide had recently downgraded his restaurant from 19/20 to 17/20, and there were also rumors in Le Figaro[5] that Michelin was planning to remove one of La Côte d'Or's three stars.
Loiseau had made a life's ambition of becoming a 3-star chef, a goal which had required 17 years of hard work at La Cote d'Or to achieve. After his death, three-star chef Jacques Lameloise said Loiseau had once confided, "If I lose a star, I'll kill myself".[1]
A few weeks before his death, Loiseau was notified by Michelin that he would keep his third star. Nevertheless, the food writer Francois Simon wrote in Le Figaro that Loiseau and his third star were "living on borrowed time." [6]
As of 2007, La Côte d'Or, now in the hands of executive chef Patrick Bertron, is still a three-star establishment, due much to the efforts of Bertron and Loiseau's second wife Dominique.
The plot of the Pixar film Ratatouille has its roots in Loiseau's life story[citation needed].
Notes
- ^ a b http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/25/world/main541899.shtml
- ^ "Décret du 13 juillet 1994 portant promotion et nomination". JORF 1994 (162): 10178. 1994-07-14. PREX9411369D. http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/WAspad/UnTexteDeJorf?numjo=PREX9411369D. Retrieved 2009-03-15.
- ^ a b "Décret du 30 avril 2002 portant promotion et nomination". JORF 2002 (102): 7882. 02-05-2002. PREX0205524D. http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/WAspad/UnTexteDeJorf?numjo=PREX0205524D. Retrieved 2009-03-15.
- ^ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,428007,00.html
- ^ http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/05/12/030512fa_fact2
- ^ The New Yorker, November 23, 2009, p. 46.
Further reading
- Rudolph Chelminski, 2005. The Perfectionist : Life and Death in Haute Cuisine (Gotham/Penguin). Biography
- William Echikson, 1995. "Burgundy Stars: A Year in the Life of a Great French Restaurant" (Little, Brown).
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