The French master chef Joël Robuchon, who rebelled against the stuffy world of fine dining, elevated mashed potato into an art form, and built up a culinary empire across the world, has died aged 73.

Named the “chef of the century” by the Gault et Millau cooking guide in 1990, Robuchon was both a highly disciplined perfectionist and a kitchen rebel who became known for cooking mashed potato so exquisitely that critics described eating it as an overwhelmingly “emotional” experience.

Robuchon went from working-class roots to young stardom in the 1970s Paris world of fine dining, where eye-watering prices, starched tablecloths and silver cutlery were the norm. But he was credited with changing the rules of French cooking and restoring heartiness to the stark dishes of nouvelle cuisine.

He believed it was not the tiny sculpted portions on platters that should matter to diners, but hearty and simple dishes – truffle tart, creamed cauliflower, langoustine ravioli – cooked without mixing too many flavours at once, and sourcing the best produce.

He did not shy away from luxury products such as caviar, but his food was described as simple because he preached the use of only three or four ingredients in most dishes, and his goal was always to show off their flavours.

During his first 30 years in leading restaurants, he built up a stellar reputation, a long list of Michelin stars and prizes in the upper echelons of fine French cooking.

Then suddenly, aged 51, Robuchon announced he was giving this up to spend more time with his family, live life to the full and enjoy nature. After spending all his time in kitchens from the age of 15, he said he had never taken the time to see a snowy mountain top.

“You have to know when it’s time to quit,” he said at the time. “A great chef has to be in great shape. Cooking is tough. It’s like being an athlete who has to stay really fit.”

Robuchon was also critical of the stuffy, snobbish and pressurised world of French restaurant rankings, where he felt ironed tablecloths were wrongly taking precedence over the value of flavours.

But he burst back on to the restaurant scene a few years later with fresh ideas about the notion of community and shared, sociable eating. Robuchon was credited with transforming restaurant tradition with his notion of ateliers (workshops) – intimate restaurants where diners sat at a counter surrounding the kitchen.

There was no dress code and no reservations, even if the queues were vast. Guy Job, who worked with Robuchon, called this “three-star food with stainless steel cutlery and glass glasses, not crystal ones”.

Over the next 20 years, Robuchon built up a multimillion-euro global empire of 39 establishments, from fine restaurants to clubs. In 2016, he held a world record 32 Michelin stars. This year, he still had 31 stars, including five three-star restaurants. He owned restaurants in cities including Paris, Monaco, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Tokyo and Bangkok.

But Robuchon had also become a celebrity chef who insisted it was important to pass his knowledge on, with TV shows, books, courses and even by advising supermarket brands.

Throughout his career, his name would be for ever associated with mashed potato.

“These mashed potatoes, it’s true, made my reputation. I owe everything to these mashed potatoes,” he said once during a demonstration of how to make the almost liquid dish.

“Maybe it’s a little bit of nostalgia, Proust’s madeleines. Everyone has in his memory the mashed potatoes of his mother, the mashed potatoes of his grandmother.”

Robuchon was born just before the end of the second world war into a working-class family in Poitiers, western France. His father was a stonemason and his mother was a cleaner, and he grew up steeped in Catholicism.

It was when he entered seminary school aged 12 and found he preferred to spend his time helping nuns prepare vegetables that he realised he was interested in cooking.

Later, everyone would assume the rebellious act of dressing himself and his chefs in black instead of the traditional white was a nod to his Catholicism. He insisted it was not, saying: “I just don’t like ties.”

He was extremely competitive, a perfectionist who asked a lot of his staff. The British chef Gordon Ramsay described working for him as like working for the special forces, accusing Robuchon of once throwing a plate of langoustine ravioli at him for not cooking it properly.

Robuchon later admitted to an interviewer that the incident took place, but insisted it was the only time he had thrown a plate of food.

The chef Jean Sulpice described Robuchon as a chef who “gave his life for this trade” and had “such impressive talent that when you saw him, you’d almost tremble in front of him”.

He added: “Every time I make mashed potato, I can’t help thinking of him. Because he knew how to show that cooking could be simple but good.”

The French president Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Robuchon’s global standing as an innovative chef adored worldwide. “Joel Robuchon’s style was above all about a fundamental, almost obsessional, focus on the quality of produce,” said a statement from the president’s office, lauding the perfectionism that turned the simplicity of his dishes into “accomplished harmony”.