Keith Floyd, the man who brought a fresh approach to eating out in Bristol, has been praised by those who knew him best.

Floyd, who had been diagnosed with bowel cancer in June, died of a heart attack at his partner Celia Martin's Dorset home on Monday.

The couple had enjoyed lunch at an upmarket restaurant in Lyme Regis before returning home, intending to watch a documentary screened on Channel Four at 10pm that night featuring Floyd and actor Keith Allen, called Keith meets Keith.

Floyd fell asleep before the programme came on and at 8.30pm started to experience breathing difficulties. Mrs Martin dialled 999 and an ambulance arrived within minutes but the TV chef, who made 18 series and wrote 33 books dedicated to food and drink, could not be saved.

He began his professional life as a journalist with the Bristol Evening Post. But after watching the film Zulu, he decided to join the army, becoming a second lieutenant in the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment, then stationed in Germany.

After leaving the army, Floyd worked in London and France as a barman, dishwasher and vegetable peeler as well as undertaking many other kitchen duties.

By 1971, Floyd owned three restaurants in Bristol which he eventually sold. Running a business was not his strong point, but those who worked for him, and alongside him, say his lively approach to cooking, and his unstoppable personality, made him a legend in the city.

Showbiz agent John Miles was Floyd's manager during the TV chef's golden years.

He recalled the night he first took on the role when Floyd made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

He said: "He was running his restaurant in Chandos Road at the time and rang me to say that it had closed down. Keith told me 'I owe £100,000, would you manage me?' I remember saying to him 'That's a bit of a challenge and that I had never managed a bankrupt before.'

"Keith retorted: 'I don't want to be bankrupt – make me famous!'"

Floyd's call could not have been any more fortuitous for it coincided with a plan for him to appear in a new BBC show, Floyd On Fish, produced by David Pritchard and screened across the West Country.

The rest, as they say, is a bit of TV history. Under John Miles' guidance as a manager and David Pritchard's success as a producer, Floyd's star dazzled all-comers.

Although not born here, Floyd grew up in Bristol and his mother lived in Sea Mills.

John Miles had known Floyd for some while before that momentous managerial decision.

"It goes back across 40 years," he recalled. "I knew him even before he opened his first restaurant. He was working as a chef at a restaurant owned by Acker Bilk and his brother. It was called Number 10 and was in The Mall, Clifton."

After various restaurant ventures in the city and a spell in France, Floyd returned to run the Chandos Road business ahead of that first tentative step into the world of television. He never looked back.

Mr Miles said: "He made lots and lots of money and spent lots of it. I managed him for 10 years, from the very first Floyd On Fish, and can say that it made my hair change colour in that time.

"When we parted company he promised to pay me every penny I was owed and he did.

"And when my first wife Gloria died, Keith used to ring me up at weekends and invite me round to lunch and to watch rugby. He was such an understanding and kind guy – but he could so be an unreasonable monster.

"Keith was the first of a new generation of TV chefs. A legend."

Bristol writer and broadcaster Richard Hope-Hawkins began work at Floyd's Bistro in Clifton's Princess Victoria Street under the guidance of chef Neal Ramsay.

He said: "Candlelit, the Bistro played loud music and the seating was arranged on long tables covered in red tablecloths with benches and chairs.

"Dishes I remember included beef goulash, French onion soup au gratin, coq au vin, Greek moussaka, whitebait, sweetbreads and jugged hare. At the time, most dishes were less than a £1 and the Good Food Guide described Floyd's Bistro as 'rough and noisy with lavish helpings, Moroccan red at £1.25p a litre'. It was a terrific success'."

He continued: "The clientele loved Keith. He had a lovely personality and was generous as an employer. He later decided to expand his business by leasing a property in Oakfield Road, transforming an old chemist's shop into Floyd's Restaurant. This was his showpiece – pure 1970s Habitat complete with bric-a-brac thrown in."

With Old Vic students working as waitresses, the restaurant rapidly became a great success.

Mr Hope-Hawkins said: "Then one day Keith announced that he was going to start a third restaurant. Leasing the old Swiss restaurant Guido's in The Mall and calling it Floyd's Chop House, he served up traditional British fare – pigs' trotters and pease pudding, lamb chops with mint sauce, steak and kidney pie and delicious Sunday roast."

Steven Markwick, head chef at Culinaria in Chandos Road, Redland, knew Keith during his time in Bristol after his return from France.

He said: "He opened a restaurant over the road from where we are now. In those days I was running Bistro 21 in Cotham Road South, but he would often come over at the end of an evening to share a glass of wine and we would wind down together after a night in our respective kitchens.

"He was always a flamboyant, larger-than-life personality. When he was on form, he was a great chef – I had some of the best meals I've ever had in his restaurant."

But Steven, like all Keith's friends, was also well aware that at the worst times, Keith's talents could be overpowered by drink problems.

He said: "None of his restaurants were successful in the long term. But they all had an unmistakable atmosphere – a feeling in the air that you could only really sum up with the words 'Keith Floyd'.

"He was a true bon vivant – his style of cooking was incredibly generous and opulent in its own way. I don't know how many fortunes he made and lost in his time in the industry, but he was certainly made for a career in TV."