In the first meditation of Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's immortal work, The Physiology of Taste, the writer suggests that the way to revive a jaded palate is to bring together all those elements we call taste. A sumptuous meal needed to be served in a room “decorated with mirrors, paintings, sculptures and flowers; scented with perfumes, enriched by pretty women and filled with the sounds of gentle harmony.”

A generation ago, the criteria for awarding three Michelin stars reflected this universality of taste as perceived by Brillat. Good food was not enough: there had to be lovely pictures, Gobelins tapestries, the best crystal and porcelain, the finest silver, and the most perfect service, before the ultimate award could be considered.

The restaurant Taillevent near the Champs Élysées in Paris had just that. It was housed in the former town palace of the duc de Morny, half-brother of Napoleon III; a libertine and gourmand who inspired a recipe for sole. Taillevent was one of the last top restaurants to adhere to the traditional style; it was not a show-place for a chef's ego. Jean-Claude Vrinat, the owner, dictated the style, received his guests at lunch and dinner, put them at ease and made useful suggestions, while the chef remained firmly in his kitchen.

Vrinat naturally had the pick of the best cordon bleus in France, but when you went to Taillevent chefs such as Claude Deligne, Philippe Legendre and Alain Solivérès took second billing. They were there to make sure that there was continuity, and that the food was always up to standard, that Taillevent was always Taillevent.

The kitchen possibly achieved its greatest heights under Legendre when an early spring lunch might have involved a watercress soup strewn with caviar; a potato galette filled with asparagus tips and morels; a pig's trotter stuffed with truffles; iced nougatine with pears and a warm vanilla mille-feuille; with best wines of Raveneau in Chablis or Guigal in Côte Rôtie.

Jean-Claude Edouard Simon Vrinat was born in Villeneuve-l'Archevêque in Burgundy in 1936, the son of the restaurateur André Vrinat and the chemical engineer Marie-Thérèse Mangin.

He was 10 when his father opened the first incarnation of Taillevent in the Hôtel Worms in the Ninth Arrondissement soon after the Second World War. The restaurant was named after the medieval author of the first French recipe book. André Vrinat won a Michelin star two years later. In 1950 Taillevent was relocated to the Hôtel de Morny in the rue Lammenais in the Eighth. A second star followed in 1956. Jean-Claude was now at business school. He was not being put through the seven branches of the kitchen, instead he entered the HEC (Hautes Études Commerciales). He had the idea he was going into the motor industry, but his father called him to his side, and he remained a restaurateur all his working life.

Armed with the HEC's prestigious diploma, Vrinat worked as a humble wine waiter before joining his father in 1959. More than anything else, wine was his thing. He took over the restaurant in 1962. In those days it was famous for proposing a different region of France every day, as well as for its cellar of 130,000 bottles going back to the first years of the 19th century. It achieved its third Michelin star in 1973, dropping back to two in 2006.

Taillevent was a family business; the Vrinats lived upstairs. Vrinat's wife, Sabine, was his chief of staff and his only child, Valérie, was his successor when he decided to take a back seat.

The wine list at Taillevent was one of its most notable features and was voted the best by the American magazine Wine Spectator in 1984. He established Caves Taillevent as a separate business in 1987.

In 1993 a Japanese company asked him to manage Prunier-Traktir in the avenue Victor Hugo. The great fish restaurant was terribly run down when it closed its doors in 1989, but Vrinat gave it a new lease of life. In 2001 he opened another restaurant near Taillevent, L'Angle du Faubourg.

Vrinat was always on hand to propose one of his magnificent collection of eaux de vie. If you ate there on his terms you revelled in taste in its broadest sense.

Jean-Claude Vrinat was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur. He is survived by his wife and daughter.

Jean-Claude Vrinat, restaurateur, was born on April 12, 1936. He died of lung cancer on January 7, 2008, aged 71