Influential chef Paul Prudhomme dies at 75

Paul Pruhomme's Louisiana kitchen We have more sad news to report, as we have learned that legendary chef Paul Prudhomme passed away today at age 75. Prudhomme popularized Cajun and Creole cooking, elevating the status of those cuisines through his restaurants, cookbooks, and television programs.

New Orleans restaurateur Mary Sonnier, who worked for Prudhomme in the 1980s, says his vision for cooking was a drastic departure from the status quo. "He sort of started the whole farm-to-table movement," she said. "When we opened every night, we opened with a new menu. We didn't buy food for the menu, the menu was created based on what food we had."

Prudhomme influenced chefs in his native Louisiana as well as countless chefs and home cooks across the globe. In addition to running his flagship restaurant, K-Paul, he hosted several cooking shows, wrote numerous cookbooks, and created his own line of spices and seasonings.

2 comments

RinshinOctober 9, 2015

Love him and his cooking. He came out to our area once and had the pleasure of eating his gumbo. RIP chef.

GioOctober 9, 2015

My husband and I met Chef at one of his cooking demos in Boston area during the late '80s and were enthralled. I had taken three of his cookbooks bought several years before and he signed them gladly. He seemed genuinely surprised and pleased when he saw they were first editions, and had actually been used. One of our great culinary masters Chef Paul will be sadly missed.