Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
style of cooking emphasizing freshness and presentation, 1975, French, literally "new cooking."
Wiktionary
n. A French approach to cookery, contrasted with "cuisine classique" (classical cuisine), that is typified by its lighter, more delicate dishes and emphasis on presentation.
WordNet
n. a school of French cooking that uses light sauces and tries to bring out the natural flavors of foods instead of making heavy use of butter and cream
Wikipedia
Nouvelle cuisine (French, "new cuisine") is an approach to cooking and food presentation in French cuisine. In contrast to cuisine classique, an older form of haute cuisine, nouvelle cuisine is characterized by lighter, more delicate dishes and an increased emphasis on presentation. It was popularized in the 1960s by the food critics Henri Gault, who invented the phrase, and his colleagues André Gayot and Christian Millau in a new restaurant guide, the Gault-Millau, or Le Nouveau Guide.
Usage examples of "nouvelle cuisine".
When Tessa returned from the kitchen with my second helping of dinner, the plate no longer exhibited the finer points of la nouvelle cuisine.
People come into the restaurant where I work and pretend to like nouvelle cuisine, but they don't.
That's all nouvelle cuisine is anyway -- a clever new way of cheating a customer out of their money's worth.
From all this, you will gather that Hilda's honest cooking is sufficient but not exotic, and that happily the terrible curse of nouvelle cuisine has not infected Froxbury Mansions in the Gloucester Road.
Its style was New England nouvelle cuisine, if such a thing were imaginable.