Born into a family of cooks that he dates to the 1700s, Bocuse stood guard over the kitchen of his world-famous restaurant even in retirement. In a 2011 interview with The Associated Press, Bocuse said he slept in the room where he was born above the dining rooms.

"But I changed the sheets," he added with characteristic wry humor.

Born on Feb 11, 1926, Bocuse entered his first apprenticeship at 16. He worked at the famed La Mere Brazier in Lyon, then spent eight years with one of his culinary idols, Fernand Point, whose cooking was a precursor to France's nouvelle cuisine movement, with lighter sauces and lightly cooked fresh vegetables.

Bocuse's career in the kitchen traversed the ages. He went from apprenticeships and cooking "brigades", as kitchen teams are known, when stoves were coal-fired and chefs also served as scullery maids, to the ultramodern kitchen of his Auberge.

"There was rigor," Bocuse told the AP. "(At La Mere Brazier) you had to wake up early and milk the cows, feed the pigs, do the laundry and cook ... It was a very tough school of hard knocks."