Europe's gourmet scene is mourning the loss of cooking legend Heinz Winkler, who was the youngest chef ever to rack up three Michelin stars.
Heinz Winkler, one of the most decorated chefs in Germany, has died unexpectedly at the age of 73. The top chef passed away on 28 October. Winkler's hotel and restaurant Residenz Heinz Winkler, located between Salzburg and Munich, confirmed his death via a Facebook post. "A great person has passed away," the post reads. "After a short, serious illness, his family said goodbye in deep mourning."
According to media reports, Winkler collapsed at home in Aschau on Friday evening and was taken to a clinic in Rosenheim. Attempts were made to revive him but he suffered multiple organ failure and was put into a medically induced coma before his life-support machine was switched off on Friday night.
Winkler had a decisive influence on Germany's gourmet landscape. Born in Bolzano in 1949, the South Tyrolean was the youngest of 11 children in a mountain farming family. He started his career in the kitchen at the age of 14 when he began training at Hotel Laurenz in Bolzano in 1963. Ten years later he was already chef de cuisine at the Schlosshotel Pontresina and Kulm Hotel in St. Moritz.
After working under French 'chef of the century' Paul Bocuse, Winkler headed for Germany and helped shape the product-focused nouvelle cuisine. In 1978 he took over as head chef at Tantris in Munich, succeeding top Austrian chef Eckart Witzigmann, who put the restaurant on the gourmet map. He held onto the restaurant's two Michelin stars and in 1981, at the age of just 31, cooked up a coveted three stars, the highest award in the culinary world. Winkler thus became the youngest three-star chef in the world.
Winkler opened the two-star Residenz Heinz Winkler in 1991. Its post announcing his death said the spirit of the chef's work would be carried on by his family and closest confidants.
