Nationality France Name Gaston Lenotre | Occupation pastry chef. caterer Role Pastry chef | |
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Born 20 May 1920 ( 1920-05-20 ) Normandy, France Died January 8, 2009, Paris, France Similar People Pierre Herme, Paul Bocuse, Mercotte, Philippe Conticini | ||
Lenôtre Cafe Paris
Gaston Lenotre (20 May 1920 – 8 January 2009) was a French pastry chef and caterer.
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Biography
Lenotre was born in Normandy, France. His mother, Eleonore, was one of the first women chefs in Paris during the 1900s, and was the chef of the Rothschild family. His brother Marcel was also a talented chef who worked for the Grand Hotel in Paris.
As a patriarch, he liked to work with his family members, twelve of them at one time; including the third generation of Lenotre chefs, amongst which was his son Alain, the founder of the Culinary Institute located in Houston, USA.
He is the uncle of Patrick Lenotre (Pavillon des Princes, Paris), a well known French chef .
Achievements
Lenotre made bold moves during his lifetime. Among his list of firsts: the first chain of upscale bakeries in Paris, a bakery-cafe bistro in the first French shopping mall, the first central kitchen in the country outside of Paris, the first professional French re-training chef school, the first line of frozen desserts distributed all over France, and the first International bakery franchises (now in a dozen countries including Germany, Japan and Kuwait) Edit: There is no store in Hong Kong. Among the prominent chefs he trained are David Bouley and Michel Richard. He was one of the main inspirations for the character Gusteau in the 2007 Pixar film Ratatouille.
Lenotre wrote nine recipe books with his daughter Sylvie that have been translated into English, German, and Japanese and have sold close to a million copies. He also was the official caterer of the Football World Championship held in France in 1998 and of the French Olympic team in Sydney, Australia. He catered for presidents, kings, and celebrities all over the world.
Death
Lenotre died at his home in the central French region of Sologne after a long illness on 8 January 2009, aged 88.