Summary:<\/p>\n
Michel Buthion, a French-born chef, passed away in Oklahoma City on February 6, 2026.
\nHe co-owned La Baguette Bistro and influenced multiple dining establishments across the Oklahoma City metro.
\nButhion was known for blending French culture with Oklahoma\u2019s local flavor and was a mentor and family figure to many.<\/p>\n
Oklahoma\u00a0City\u2019s food and dining industry lost a titan with the passing of restaurateur Michel Buthion on Feb. 6, 2026.\n<\/p>\n
Tributes to Buthion poured in immediately on\u00a0social media from\u00a0fellow restaurateurs, chefs, vendors, and others across the industry, sharing memories and love for a man\u00a0whose\u00a0impact was felt everywhere he went.<\/p>\n
Lori Burson, owner of Stella Modern Italian and Lorena Southern Twist, is one of the many in\u00a0Oklahoma\u00a0City who is\u00a0mourning not only\u00a0the loss of a great friend but a pioneer in\u00a0Oklahoma\u00a0cuisine.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is one of the few people that, if you mention his name, I have never heard one negative thing about him,\u201d Burson said. \u201cHe lived life big. When he walked into a room, he just brought sparkle.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
A cultural mashup\n<\/p>\n
Born in Grenoble, France, the story goes that Buthion came to\u00a0Oklahoma\u00a0for love, but what he found was an even deeper affection for a city and state most would imagine far removed from his native country.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cMichel didn\u2019t come here fleeing hardship or oppression or any of those things. He came from a place of comfort and culture and came to\u00a0Oklahoma\u00a0by choice and loved it. He never said a bad word about\u00a0Oklahoma. He loved\u00a0Oklahoma,\u201d said Alex Kroblin, owner of Thirst Wine Merchants. \u201cSo a guy who really, really, really embraced and held onto his French culture and roots, but loved\u00a0Oklahoma\u00a0and 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.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Buthion\u2019s impact can be seen across\u00a0Oklahoma\u00a0City in the growth of the metro\u2019s food and dining repertoire, and in the very businesses he touched throughout his life.\n<\/p>\n
Michel Buthion trained for two years at the Clos D\u2019or 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\u2019Ambassade D\u2019Auvergne and Hotel de Paris, both in Paris; and the Grand Hotel in Grenoble.\n<\/p>\n
More than half a dozen concepts bore the Buthion name, with countless more feeling his impact through silent influence.\n<\/p>\n
After arriving in\u00a0Oklahoma\u00a0City, he served as food and beverage director at the Skirvin Hotel from 1979 until the late \u201980s. 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.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cMichel was the quintessential restaurateur. Hospitality ran in his veins, working or not,\u201d Fleischfresser said. \u201cThe best way for him to have a good time was to be sure everyone around him was having a great time. He was everyone\u2019s best friend.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Through that friendship, and Fleischfresser\u2019s role with The Coach House, came the opportunity for younger brother Alain Buthion to join Michel in\u00a0Oklahoma.\n<\/p>\n
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.\n<\/p>\n
From Michel\u2019s earliest days in\u00a0Oklahoma\u00a0as a sommelier at Legend\u2019s in Norman, to Soleil in The Colcord Hotel, which later became a La Baguette, to the purchase and revitalization of Bellini\u2019s in late 2011, the Buthion\u2019s have touched every corner of the metro.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a giant, and he\u2019s left this legacy,\u201d Kroblin said. \u201cI think it\u2019s impossible to quantify.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
La Baguette\u2019s beginnings, impact\n<\/p>\n
The jewel of the brothers\u2019 achievement remains La Baguette Bistro at 7408 N. May Ave.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s wild from a business standpoint, the icon that restaurant is,\u201d said Eric Smith, chef-owner of The Crown. \u201cThat restaurant, it has lasted this long 1000% because of those two guys\u2019 charisma. It\u2019s just that simple.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The brothers grew the bistro over time from a tiny space to a full-fledged destination \u2013 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.\n<\/p>\n
Michel Buthion\u2019s love for the state and deep ties to his French culture shaped a wholly unique dining experience for those stopping into La Baguette.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, French people stand out in\u00a0Oklahoma. It\u2019s quite a contrast to\u00a0Oklahoma\u00a0in a lot of ways, although there\u2019s some similarities too,\u201d said Christian Trimble, who worked at La Baguette as a teenager and young adult and still calls it his favorite restaurant in the world.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThat 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\u2019d be welcomed the same.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
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.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019d 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,\u201d said Rhett Roberts, who worked for the Buthions for nearly two decades. \u201cHe had a good heart.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
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.\n<\/p>\n
Continuing legacy\n<\/p>\n
Besides being an \u201cicon in the industry,\u201d Burson also pointed to two of Buthion\u2019s other most beloved roles in life, that of father and grandfather.\n<\/p>\n
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.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe 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,\u201d Trimble said. \u201cHe was just very generous with his time and attention with people.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Trimble said he never left an interaction with Buthion without feeling uplifted \u2014 inspired by the man\u2019s warmth and grace.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe 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,\u201d Burson said. \u201cHe had a passion for life that is hard to explain.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Now, two of Buthion\u2019s 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.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cJust this legend, icon. Larger than life,\u201d Kroblin said. \u201cJust a super fun guy to be around.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019s local flavor and was a mentor and family figure to many. Oklahoma\u00a0City\u2019s food and dining industry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[20295,20296,20297,4598,4596,4594,4597,4595,5466,20298,20299],"class_list":["post-21771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oklahoma","tag-1515-bistro","tag-la-baguette-bistro","tag-michel-buthion","tag-oklahoma","tag-oklahoma-dining","tag-oklahoma-food","tag-oklahoma-grocery-stores","tag-oklahoma-restaurants","tag-restaurant-industry","tag-restaurateur","tag-skirvin-hotel"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117303261687155145","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}