THE man most celebrity chefs acknowledge as the founding father of TV gourmet cooking died after a last meal at fellow top chef Mark Hix’s Fish House restaurant in Lyme Regis.

Not that Keith Floyd had ever heard of Mark Hix, said girlfriend Celia Martin, who was there with him celebrating her 65th birthday.

Although the great man ordered grouse he was served partridge by mistake but graciously refused to make a fuss, said Mrs Martin.

“It was a lovely sunny day. He didn’t know anything about Hix, he didn’t even know he existed. I was a huge friend of Ernie Hix, Mark’s father. That was one of the reasons I wanted to go. Also I knew Mark’s mother, who was an extra on Harbour Lights when I was in charge of the extras.

“Keith would have been amazed that Hix could that honest to tell you about the order mistake. He didn’t make a fuss though. We went there because I had never been. We always go to Arthur’s at The Riverside, my favourite restaurant, but we had already been down there a couple of days ago with my late husband’s writing partner Bob Baker and his wife.”

Mr Hix said: “Well, interestingly and sadly Keith had his last supper at the Fish House – well lunch, after visiting his doctor. I think the doctor recommended cutting down on the booze.

“Our boys in the kitchen messed up and served him roast partridge instead of grouse. I’m putting on Floyd’s last supper today ‘partridge dressed as grouse’ in memory of a great TV cook and character.”

Arthur Watson of the Riverside Restaurant at West Bay was a long-time friend of Keith Floyd, who last dined there on Thursday.

Mr Watson said: “He was a one-off original and paved the way for every other TV chef who came after him to have this sort of off the cuff attitude, causal approach and to make cooking fun at home.

“It was a terrible tragedy that he never found the same success in running his own businesses as he did as a TV personality.

“He was one of the great eccentric British characters without which we can’t survive – it’s a hallmark of being British having someone like Keith Floyd. He was much loved and will be sadly missed by all who knew him.”

TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall said he was a huge admirer of Floyd.

He said: “He had a huge influence on me. When he first started I was an addict of his shows and he was brilliant at what he did.

“He was responsible for a breakthrough – to take the food out of the studio and go and meet the people who were producing his ingredients. He did it with a sense of adventure and fun and mischief.”

Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall said one sequence in particular summed-up Floyd's brilliance.

“He was on a trawler being tossed around on a high sea and he picked up a fish from the fish box, took it back into the galley and cooked it while talking away to Clive,” he said.

“My memory is that he did it all in a single take like a Scorsese film.

“TV chefs after Floyd could only aspire to his natural manner and easy charm in front of the camera.”