"Taillevent was the alias of Guillaume Tirel, a notoriously overweight and talented fourteenth-century French chef who spent most of his career cooking for kings... At the request of Charles V, Taillevent compiled the first known cookbook in 1379, entitled Le Viandier. [It] is still in print."

"Taillevent [is] a Michelin three-star restaurant considered by many critics to be the finest in France and thus the world."

These and other quotes are taken from "A Meal Observed", Andrew Todhunter's account of his informal apprenticeship in the kitchens at Taillevent, and of a dinner eaten there with his wife. His impressions of the restaurant so closely match my own (I read the book on the recommendation of a friend after returning from France), I cannot improve on his observations.