Raymond Oliver

Raymond Oliver (born March 27, 1909 in Langon , † November 5, 1990 in Paris ) was a French cook and cookbook author.

Oliver learned his trade in Langon ( Gascony ) from his father, a hotelier. Until the time after the Second World War, he worked in various French restaurants, including L'Alpe d'Huez .

From 1948 he ran the Le Grand Véfour restaurant in the Palais Royal in Paris. Louis Vaudable, owner of Maxim’s , bought this traditional but closed house after the war and after renovation transferred it to Oliver. It became one of the most famous Parisian restaurants of the 1950s and 1960s and a popular meeting place for politicians, industrialists, stars and artists, including Colette and Jean Cocteau , who lived in the Palais Royal. In 1953, Raymond Oliver cooked up three Michelin stars and kept them until 1980.

In 1953 Oliver made his debut as the first French television chef together with Catherine Langeais in the program Art et magie de la cuisine , which was very successful for years. In 1956 he and other Parisian chefs founded the Traditions & Qualité - Les Grandes Tables du monde restaurant association . In 1976 he was a juror on the Paris Wine Jury .

In December 1983 the Grand Véfour was assassinated, injuring 12 people. In 1984 Oliver sold the restaurant to the Taittinger Group and retired.

Oliver wrote about 30 cookbooks. He was a collector of gastronomic books and owned more than 3,000 volumes, some of which were very valuable, which are known today under the ex-libris name Rouvier de Vaulgran .

His son Michel Oliver also became a television chef and cookbook author. Raymond Oliver's grave is in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris .

Bibliography (selection)

• La cuisine, sa technique, ses secrets , Bordas, Paris 1965

German editions:

• France dining , Prestel, Munich 1969
• The great French cookbook , Moderne Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich 1971

Web links

• Obituary in the New York Times
• Side of the Père Lachaise cemetery
• Literature by and about Raymond Oliver in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
• Information on Raymond Oliver in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France .