André Soltner, the famous Chef of Lutèce New York, has died at the age of 92

For a time, he and James Beard ran a local cooking school, but now Mr. Surmain envisions a restaurant that, he bombastically declares, will be the best in the world. At the suggestion of a pastry chef who worked under Mr. Soltner, he dined at Chez Hansi.

Impressed, Mr. Surmain brought Soltner to New York to work at his new restaurant, Lutèce, named after the ancient Latin for Paris. “I thought I might stay for two years,” Mr. Soltner told Nation’s Restaurant News in 1996. He never quit. During the thirty years he lived in Lutèce, he only had four days off work—for the funeral of his father and brother.

The restaurant, in spite of Mr. Surmain’s declaration, has been in its infancy.

Craig Claiborne of The New York Times gave it a scathing review. “Some of the dishes, the fois gras en brioche or the roasted veal with seeds, for example, can be good; others, such as poussin rôti aux girolles (chicken squab with wild mushrooms), are classics,” he wrote. Overall, he concluded, “the food there cannot be called grand cooking. Lutece”.

“Lutèce got the same rating as Chock Full o’ Nuts,” Mr. Soltner told The Times in 1995. “One star!”

The fortunes of the restaurant changed when Mr. Glorious Surmain and, in 1973, sold his share to Mr. Soltner, who became Lutèce’s public face.

One night the tone changed. The surroundings remained lavish – Baccarat crystal, Christofle silver, bone china and Redouté rose prints on the menus – but Mr. Soltner ran the restaurant like a bistro. He abolished the Surmain system of sitting on charters. He worked the dining room. The patron responded humbly.