Haute cuisine or grande cuisine is the cuisine of "high-level" posh dining establishments, gourmet restaurants, and luxury hotels that are catered to a profile of more affluent clientele exhibiting more discerning tastes and enthusiasm. Haute cuisine is characterized by its higher degree of punctiliousness and higher caliber of more refined and elaborate food preparation techniques, complex usage of ingredients with the more carefully crafted displays of aesthetics, and sophisticated standards of presentation of food prepared more often by more highly-skilled gourmet chefs that are offered at a higher quality and price.
Nouvelle cuisine is an approach to cooking and food presentation in French cuisine. In contrast to cuisine classique, an older form of haute cuisine, nouvelle cuisine is characterized by lighter, more delicate dishes and an increased emphasis on presentation. It was popularized in the 1960s by the food critic Henri Gault, who invented the phrase, and his colleagues André Gayot and Christian Millau in a new restaurant guide, the Gault-Millau, or Le Nouveau Guide.
Alain Ducasse is a French-born Monégasque chef. He operates a number of restaurants including Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester which holds three stars in the Michelin Guide.
Eric Ripert is a French chef, author, and television personality specializing in modern French cuisine and noted for his work with seafood.
Daniel Boulud is a French chef and restaurateur with restaurants in New York City, Palm Beach, Miami, Toronto, Montréal, Singapore, the Bahamas, and Dubai. He is best known for his eponymous restaurant Daniel, opened in New York City in 1993, which currently holds two Michelin stars.
Éric Aubriot is a French-American chef.
Brasserie Les Halles was a French-brasserie-style restaurant located on 15 John Street in Manhattan, New York City. Previous locations were on Park Avenue South in Manhattan, in Tokyo, Miami, and Washington, D.C. Author and television host Anthony Bourdain was the predecessor to the executive chef of Brasserie Les Halles, Carlos Llaguno. The restaurant went bankrupt in August 2017.
Cuisine minceur is a style of cooking created by French chef Michel Guérard, which recreated lighter versions of traditional nouvelle cuisine dishes. Contemporary critics acknowledged that the minceur versions by Guérard tasted better and were less filling than their nouvelle cuisine originals.
Roland Passot is a French chef and restaurateur. His most well-known restaurant, La Folie, was open in San Francisco from 1988 to 2020. He is also owner of the more casual Left Bank Basseries and LB Steak restaurants. Passot was named one of "the eight wonders of Bay Area dining" by San Francisco Chronicle lead critic Michael Bauer.
Alain Chapel was a French chef, credited with being one of the originators of Nouvelle Cuisine. He earned three Michelin stars.
Michel Robert-Guérard, known as Michel Guérard is a French chef, author, one of the founders of nouvelle cuisine, and the inventor of cuisine minceur.
Pierre Troisgros was a French chef and restaurateur, best known for his restaurant Frères Troisgros. Pierre Troisgros and his brother continued their father's restaurant Hôtel Moderne, where they invented "Escalope de saumon à l’oseille Troisgros," or salmon with sorrel sauce, which became their signature dish. At the time of his death, he had set a record by never losing his three Michelin stars once he was first awarded them. Stephen Harris for the Telegraph described him "the father of nouvelle cuisine."
Troisgros is a French restaurant and hotel with a primary location in Ouches and additional affiliated restaurants in Roanne and Iguerande, in France.
Cyril Lignac is a French chef.
Marc Forgione is an American chef who competed in Food Network's Iron Chef America and is now owner of Restaurant Marc Forgione in Tribeca, New York City, Peasant in NOLITA NYC and One Fifth in NYC. He was born on December 16, 1978, and raised in Bellerose, New York. Chef Forgione won the season three of The Next Iron Chef in 2010.
Tanya Holland is an American celebrity chef, restaurateur, podcast host, writer, and cookbook author. She is known as an expert of soul food. Holland is an alumna of Bravo TV's Top Chef, where she competed on the 15th season. She was the owner of Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland, California, which received national recognition and multiple Michelin Bib Gourmand awards.
Christopher Kostow is the executive chef at The Restaurant at Meadowood in Napa Valley, California. Under Chef Kostow, The restaurant was awarded three stars from the Michelin Guide in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. In 2013, Chef Kostow was awarded the James Beard Foundation Award for "Best Chef: West".
Thomas McNaughton is an American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook writer. He is the chef and owner of Flour + Water, Penny Roma and Flour + Water Pasta Shop in San Francisco, California.
Javier Plascencia is a chef from Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, considered the most famous chef of the city and of all chefs, the one whose cuisine most helped define a new cuisine, Baja Med.
Antoine Westermann is a French chef born in 1949 in the Alsatian town of Wissembourg, on the northeast border of France.
