Roger Vergé, a founding father of nouvelle cuisine who developed a highly influential version of Provençal cooking, which he called “the cuisine of the sun,” at his renowned restaurant Le Moulin de Mougins near Cannes, France, died on Friday at his home in Mougins. He was 85.

The cause was complications of diabetes, his daughter Cordélia Vergé said.

In the 1960s, Mr. Vergé, along with chefs like Paul Bocuse, the Troisgros brothers and Michel Guérard, helped blaze the trail for nouvelle cuisine, a pared-down internationalized version of French cooking that placed a premium on fresh ingredients prepared in a lighter style and presented artistically on the plate.

Mr. Vergé brought to Provençal cuisine many of the flavors and ingredients that he had encountered on his extensive culinary travels, which took him from Africa and Jamaica to Mougins. While cooking in North Africa, for example, he developed a fondness for fruit in savory dishes, reflected in one of the signature appetizers at the Moulin de Mougins: hot oysters on the half shell with orange sections and orange butter.

Unlike many of the nouvelle cuisine chefs who came after him, Mr. Vergé steered clear of trickery and sensation-seeking. The key to his culinary style, he often liked to say, could be found in the simple but artfully prepared dishes — the “happy cuisine,” as he put it — served by his mother and his Aunt Célestine, to whom he dedicated several of his cookbooks.