Paul Prudhomme, the chef who popularized modern Cajun and Creole cuisine in New Orleans and across the country, has died at the age of 75. Prudhomme’s name may not have made it as far and wide as Wolfgang Puck’s, but the two chefs share the distinction of being the first-ever celebrity chefs in the United States.

Prior to 1970, Prudhomme — who also went by the name Gene Autry Prudhomme — bounced around kitchens in Colorado after a failed stint as the owner of a burger restaurant called Big Daddy-O’s. When in the late 1960s he realized the cooking of his mother and grandmother was not known outside of the South, he moved back to his home town and landed a job as the first American chef to run the kitchen at Commander’s Palace, New Orleans’s fine-dining mainstay.

Prudhomme’s legacy is felt strongly at Commander’s Palace, where he helmed the kitchen for four years. In 1979 he left to open his own restaurant, K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen, with the woman who would become his wife, K Hinrichs. Not long after, a young chef named Emeril Lagasse took over Commander’s stoves.

At K-Paul’s — which celebrated its 30th anniversary earlier this year — Prudhomme refined his style of authentic but elevated local cuisine, influenced by the traditional Creole and Cajun recipes he grew up eating. John Pope of The Times-Picayune writes:

At first, it was a neighborhood restaurant, a dim, even cozy spot in an unpretentious brick building, designed for French Quarter residents and their friends. But word of its specialties — redfish Czarina, sweet-potato pecan pie and, of course, blackened redfish — spread, and out-of-town food writers — most notably Craig Claiborne of The New York Times — joined the line outside the door. They came out raving over what they ate inside.

The restaurant remains a popular fixture among NOLA’s elite dining establishments. By the 1980s, Prudhomme was a household name, with cookbooks and television shows under his belt. His book Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen, which was published in 1984, is still considered a classic. He authored 11 books in total, hosted in five television series, and starred in two videos, “Louisiana Kitchen: Vol. 1: Cajun Blackened Redfish” (1986) and “Louisiana Kitchen: Vol. 2: Cajun & Creole Classics” (1990). In 2009, a filmed biography of his life titled Paul Prudhomme: Cajun Sensation was released.