Nouvelle cuisine

It was in 1742 that Menon introduced the term nouvelle cuisine as the title of the third volume of his Nouveau traité.

[2] The modern usage is variously attributed to authors Henri Gault, Christian Millau, and André Gayot,[3][4] who used nouvelle cuisine to describe the cooking of Paul Bocuse,[5] Alain Chapel, Jean and Pierre Troisgros, Michel Guérard, Roger Vergé, and Raymond Oliver, many of whom were once students of Fernand Point.

[7] The style Gault and Millau wrote about was a reaction to the French cuisine classique placed into "orthodoxy" by Escoffier.

It has been speculated that the outbreak of World War II was a significant contributor to nouvelle cuisine's creation—the short supply of animal protein during the German occupation made it a natural development.

Much of what it stood for—particularly its preference for lightly presented, fresh flavours—has been assimilated into mainstream restaurant cooking.