Christian Millau obituary

Food critic and co-founder of the restaurant guide at the heart of the nouvelle cuisine movement

In 1969, Christian Millau, who has died aged 88, founded, with his business partner, Henri Gault, a monthly culinary magazine, Le Nouveau Guide Gault-Millau. Three years later it became an annual guide – Gault & Millau – and challenged the supremacy of the red Michelin guide to the restaurants of France.

The pair had spotted a tendency among younger French chefs that they baptised nouvelle cuisine. Departing from the traditional cuisine codified by Auguste Escoffier, the new chefs shunned flour-based sauces and long cooking times, favouring reduced pan juices, vegetables that retained some bite, flash-cooked meat and fish, an appreciation of novel ingredients and technique, and – notoriously – smaller portions.

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