The top French chef Paul Bocuse has died, French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb has announced on Twitter.
Bocuse, who had suffered from Parkinson's disease for several years, was 91.
He died in his famous restaurant near Lyon, according to a local chef close to the family, reports a news agency.
He rose to fame in the 1970s as a proponent of "nouvelle cuisine", a healthier form of cooking.
His restaurant, L'Auberge du Pont de Collonges, has been the recipient of three Michelin stars since 1965, reports BBC.
He was named "chef of the century" by Michelin's rival guide, the Gault-Millau, in 1989, and again by the Culinary Institute of America in 2011.
Mr Collomb - himself mayor of Lyon for 16 years - said: "Paul Bocuse is dead. Gastronomy is in mourning.
"Mr Paul was France. Simplicity and generosity. Excellence and art of living. The pope of gastronomes leaves us. May our chefs, in Lyon, as in the four corners of the world, long cultivate the fruits of his passion."
