Chef and author Bill Granger has died at 54

Today we learned the sad news that Australian chef, television presenter. and author Bill Granger died on Christmas Day at the far too young age of 54. His family reported that he passed away peacefully, with his wife, Natalie Elliott, and three daughters, Edie, Inès and Bunny, by his side. According to the New Zealand Herald, it is believed that Granger had been diagnosed with cancer earlier this year.

Granger changed the face of contemporary Australian dining with his uncomplicated approach to food and laid-back style. After he opened his first restaurant, bill’s, in 1993, it wasn’t long before Sydney-siders were clamoring for his signature scrambled eggs and ricotta hotcakes with banana and honeycomb butter. Granger was known as the “godfather” of avocado toast, putting it on the menu at his first restaurant because he “had to make breakfast work” because the only lease he could get limited his working hours from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. He told Taste in a 2018 interview that the only reason he put a recipe for avocado toast in his 1999 cookbook Bill’s Sydney Food, to fill out empty page space. “I thought it was embarrassing at the time,” he said.

Granger opened additional restaurants in Sydney and Japan in addition to publishing several bestselling cookbooks. He was a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines across the globe. His TV series, bill’s food and bill’s holiday have screened in Australia, the UK and over 30 other countries.

Various celebrity chefs and authors including Jamie Olive and Nigella Lawson shared an outpouring of love and admiration for the late chef. In an Instagram post, Lawson remembered Granger as “the loveliest man” saying that “the joy he gave us – whether through his food, his books, the spaces he made for us, or in person – came from the kindness and generosity and sheer, shining exuberance of his very self.”