An example of a gourmet is the chef, Julia Child.
Origin of gourmetFrench ; from Old French gormet, gromet, servant, wine taster, vintner's assistant: meaning influenced, influence by gourmand
- that is of a quality fit for a gourmet: gourmet cheeses
- of or having to do with fine foods and beverages: gourmet cooking
Origin of gourmetFrench, from Old French, alteration (influenced by gourmand, glutton) of groumet, servant, valet in charge of wines, from Middle English grom, boy, valet.
- (of food) fine
- Gourmet coffee is just like regular coffee, only better.
- We need to go to the gourmet grocery store to get the exotic ingredients for this recipe.
Gourmet has become somewhat debased by marketing usage, and is considered by some a pretentious middlebrow term. Such users tend to prefer terms such as artisanal (emphasizing the craft) for fine food.
Gourmet emphasizes interest in quality of food and enjoyment of eating, sometimes to an obsessive degree: someone who “lives to eat rather than eating to live”. By contrast, a gourmand is someone more interested in quantity of food than quality.
 Borrowing from French gourmet, from Middle French gourmet, from Old French groumet (“wine broker, valet in charge of wines, servant”) from Old French grommes (“manservant”), of Germanic origin, akin to Middle English grom, grome (“boy, valet, servant”), of unknown origin, perhaps from Old English *grōma (“male child, boy, youth”) from Old English grōwan (“to grow”). More at groom.