Eugénie Brazier

Eugénie Brazier (12 June 1895 – 2 March 1977), known as "la Mère Brazier", was a French chef who, in 1933, became the first person awarded six Michelin stars, three each at two restaurants: La Mère Brazier in the rue Royale, one of the main streets of Lyon, and a second, also called La Mère Brazier, outside the city. This achievement was unmatched until Alain Ducasse was awarded six stars with the publication of the 1998 Michelin Guide.

Born in La Tranclière in the French departement of Ain, near Lyon, Brazier was raised on a small farm, and entered domestic service in her teens. She learned to cook for her employers, and was taken on as a junior cook by the proprietor of a leading restaurant in Lyon. In 1921 she opened her own restaurant there, and having built the establishment into a nationally famous restaurant by the end of the decade, she opened a second in a converted chalet at the Col de la Luère in the foothills of the Massif Central above the city.

Brazier followed the traditions of Lyon's famous female cooks – the Mères lyonnaises – in avoiding over-elaborate dishes, preferring to offer fairly simple food of the highest quality. She influenced subsequent generations of French cooks, including Paul Bocuse and Bernard Pacaud, whom she trained at her restaurant. She is commemorated in scholarships and annual prizes for cookery writing awarded in her name. Her own recipes were collected and published in 1977 and an English translation was issued in 2014. She was offered but declined the Légion d'honneur, the highest French order of merit. Her original restaurant in Lyon, run by her family for many years after her death, was bought by the Michelin-starred chef Mathieu Viannay in 2007, who retains her classics on the menu.