Alain Senderens, who has died aged 77, was one of a small group of French chefs whose nouvelle cuisine transformed European cooking in the late 1960s and early 70s, not only by the rejection of elaborate dishes heavily doused with cream, fats and flour-thickened sauces, but also by their declaration of the independence of the chef-patron, and their willingness to absorb ideas from sometimes alien cultures.
In 1985, moving from his small restaurant, L’Archestrate (named after the ancient Greek gastronomic poet Archestratus), Senderens took by storm one of those citadels of the old ways of cooking, the restaurant Lucas Carton on the Place de la Madeleine, which had served Paris since 1860. However, he shocked the gastronomic establishment in 2005 by “returning” his three Michelin stars and transforming the restaurant, of which he now had sole ownership and which he rechristened Senderens, into somewhere that served food of the highest quality, but without the “tra-la-las and chichi” of high-end dining.
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