Gilbert Le Coze; Innovative Seafood Chef

Gilbert Le Coze, 49, a French-born chef whose innovative way with seafood influenced a generation of cooks. Le Coze had a major influence on the technique of treating fish the way one treats meat--basing cooking times on a particular fish’s texture and character, not according to a fixed formula. His first restaurant, which he and his sister bought in 1972, was named “Le Bernardin” after a folk song their father had sung to them as children--”Les Moines de St. Bernardin.” The New York restaurant drew rave reviews and influenced chefs from coast to coast with Le Coze’s presentations and unusual techniques. A typical Le Coze dish might be sheets of black bass flecked with coriander and basil and lacquered with extra-virgin olive oil; black bass with a coriander infusion; saffron-tinted sea scallops served in their shells, or fresh sea urchins with truffle juice. Le Coze learned his trade from his father, also a chef, and his grandfather, who had been a fisherman. At 13, Le Coze began working in the kitchen of an inn his parents owned in Port Navolo, a seaport town on the coast of Brittany. In New York City on Thursday of a heart attack.