He had the "kind of French country childhood that involved wading into streams barefoot to catch slippery trout with his hands, but also Nazi interrogations regarding the location of his family’s cows.
"[1] After liberation in 1944, he had an "Escoffier-style feast" at a family friend's home, helping inspire him to stop studying science in favor of apprenticing as a cook.
"[5] In the 1960s, along with Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, and Jean and Pierre Troisgros, "Guérard was a nouvelle cuisine pioneer who... disrupted restaurant culture...
Breaking away from the long-established rules of French haute cuisine, the group pushed for food to look and taste more like the stuff it’s actually made from, to be leaner and lighter and brighter.
They restored the buildings, and Guérard invented a style of food, cuisine minceur, a form of healthy cooking, to cater to health-conscious Parisians.
[1] Guerard stated that he created "great slimming cuisine" when he moved to Eugénie in 1974, an area where patients with metabolic diseases used its hot springs.
[4] SF Moma says "a vanguard of nouvelle cuisine, Michel Guérard was part of the radical shift towards lighter, delicate French cooking– a break from traditional techniques and reliance on heavy, rich sauces.
[1] In 1977 his main restaurant received three Michelin stars, and all his properties in Eugénie have been very successful, transforming the tiny village into a significant tourist destination.