Culinary icon Roger Vergé passes away

Legendary French chef Roger Vergé died on June 5 at age 85. Verge led the culinary movement that became known as nouvelle cuisine, where lighter and fresher fare replaced the heavy, fat- and cream-based sauces of traditional French cooking. Vergé’s particular brand of nouvelle cuisine came to be called cuisine du soleil, or cuisine of the sun, which consisted of mainly Mediterranean foods enhanced with vegetable essences and fruit reductions.

Vergé opened several restaurants, and in the 1970s he held the most number of Michelin stars of any single chef in France. Chefs that trained in his kitchens include giants like Daniel Boulud, Alain Ducasse, and Hubert Keller. In the following decades, Vergé opened or consulted on many restaurants and wrote dozens of cookbooks in both French and in English.

Unlike many chefs of his era, who were reluctant to share recipes with others, Vergé freely shared his skill set as he felt it would benefit other cooks. Vergé once said [translated], “The more knowledge we share, the more the cuisine is enriched; we succeed if we make what we love popular.”