Summary:
Michel Buthion, a French-born chef, passed away in Oklahoma City on February 6, 2026.
He co-owned La Baguette Bistro and influenced multiple dining establishments across the Oklahoma City metro.
Buthion was known for blending French culture with Oklahoma’s local flavor and was a mentor and family figure to many.
Oklahoma City’s food and dining industry lost a titan with the passing of restaurateur Michel Buthion on Feb. 6, 2026.
Tributes to Buthion poured in immediately on social media from fellow restaurateurs, chefs, vendors, and others across the industry, sharing memories and love for a man whose impact was felt everywhere he went.
Lori Burson, owner of Stella Modern Italian and Lorena Southern Twist, is one of the many in Oklahoma City who is mourning not only the loss of a great friend but a pioneer in Oklahoma cuisine.
“He is one of the few people that, if you mention his name, I have never heard one negative thing about him,” Burson said. “He lived life big. When he walked into a room, he just brought sparkle.”
A pillar in the industry, Buthion, 67, owned La Baguette Bistro alongside his brother Alain Buthion, but that is not where his journey in the city began.
A cultural mashup
Born in Grenoble, France, the story goes that Buthion came to Oklahoma for love, but what he found was an even deeper affection for a city and state most would imagine far removed from his native country.
“Michel didn’t come here fleeing hardship or oppression or any of those things. He came from a place of comfort and culture and came to Oklahoma by choice and loved it. He never said a bad word about Oklahoma. He loved Oklahoma,” said Alex Kroblin, owner of Thirst Wine Merchants. “So a guy who really, really, really embraced and held onto his French culture and roots, but loved Oklahoma and loved being an American and everything that came with it. It was just like this perfect mashup, this cultural mashup of cowboy and a French guy.”
Buthion’s impact can be seen across Oklahoma City in the growth of the metro’s food and dining repertoire, and in the very businesses he touched throughout his life.
Michel Buthion trained for two years at the Clos D’or hotel and restaurant school in Grenoble and apprenticed at the Monte Carlo restaurant there. Later, he worked at the Wessex Hotel in Winchester, England; the L’Ambassade D’Auvergne and Hotel de Paris, both in Paris; and the Grand Hotel in Grenoble.
More than half a dozen concepts bore the Buthion name, with countless more feeling his impact through silent influence.
After arriving in Oklahoma City, he served as food and beverage director at the Skirvin Hotel from 1979 until the late ’80s. It was in that role that he met and worked with Kurt Fleischfresser for the first time. The two would go on to form a deep, abiding friendship spanning nearly four decades.
“Michel was the quintessential restaurateur. Hospitality ran in his veins, working or not,” Fleischfresser said. “The best way for him to have a good time was to be sure everyone around him was having a great time. He was everyone’s best friend.”
Through that friendship, and Fleischfresser’s role with The Coach House, came the opportunity for younger brother Alain Buthion to join Michel in Oklahoma.
Together, the brothers took on the development of La Baguette Bistro, working with original owner Johnny Jazzar, before buying him out and expanding their operations. At one point, the Buthions had additional La Baguette locations, including one in the basement of the Journal Record building that was open for a couple of years for lunch only before it was lost in the Murrah Building bombing in 1995.
From Michel’s earliest days in Oklahoma as a sommelier at Legend’s in Norman, to Soleil in The Colcord Hotel, which later became a La Baguette, to the purchase and revitalization of Bellini’s in late 2011, the Buthion’s have touched every corner of the metro.
“He was a giant, and he’s left this legacy,” Kroblin said. “I think it’s impossible to quantify.”
La Baguette’s beginnings, impact
The jewel of the brothers’ achievement remains La Baguette Bistro at 7408 N. May Ave.
“It’s wild from a business standpoint, the icon that restaurant is,” said Eric Smith, chef-owner of The Crown. “That restaurant, it has lasted this long 1000% because of those two guys’ charisma. It’s just that simple.”
The brothers grew the bistro over time from a tiny space to a full-fledged destination – adding more seats, renting and eventually purchasing neighboring spaces and expanding purposefully to include a meat market and wine shop. That idea was modeled after a family business in Beaurepaire in southern France, where the family once owned a grocery store, cafe and neighborhood meat market, all connected.
Michel Buthion’s love for the state and deep ties to his French culture shaped a wholly unique dining experience for those stopping into La Baguette.
“Obviously, French people stand out in Oklahoma. It’s quite a contrast to Oklahoma in a lot of ways, although there’s some similarities too,” said Christian Trimble, who worked at La Baguette as a teenager and young adult and still calls it his favorite restaurant in the world.
“That bistro approach to food really creates a community because you can go into that place on a big night before the symphony dressed in a tuxedo, or you could go in a hoodie and shorts and you’d be welcomed the same.”
An incredible friend and true host, Buthion lived his life giving to others. Former employees recall a big personality, but more than that, they remember his even bigger heart.
“He’d light up the room and he could work the room and he would come and touch every patron that would eat there and just kind of really take them through the experience and the food,” said Rhett Roberts, who worked for the Buthions for nearly two decades. “He had a good heart.”
Never one to slow down or grow complacent, in more recent years, Buthion helped establish 1515 Bistro at the 1515 Lincoln Gallery near the state capitol in 2024.
Continuing legacy
Besides being an “icon in the industry,” Burson also pointed to two of Buthion’s other most beloved roles in life, that of father and grandfather.
A father of four and grandfather to many, Buthion cherished family and relished time spent with them. In fact, family was so important that he worked to craft a feeling of family for those who worked for him and his brother at La Baguette.
“He showed us how to treat people. And I think particularly for a lot of the young men that worked for him, he was kind of a default father figure to a lot of us,” Trimble said. “He was just very generous with his time and attention with people.”
Trimble said he never left an interaction with Buthion without feeling uplifted — inspired by the man’s warmth and grace.
“He had an incredible way of living that made every day a fabulous adventure, regardless if you were seeing Paris with him or enjoying time with him at his home or restaurant,” Burson said. “He had a passion for life that is hard to explain.”
Now, two of Buthion’s own sons are deeply entrenched in the restaurant industry themselves, working at La Baguette, having been shown exactly how to make your own success through hard work, determination and a heaping dose of infectiously charismatic energy.
“Just this legend, icon. Larger than life,” Kroblin said. “Just a super fun guy to be around.”
Dining and Cooking