The battered body of Jean-François Poinard, 71, was found in a freezer in his girlfriend's home in Lyon on Tuesday. (CBC)

The body of celebrated French chef Jean-François Poinard was found in his girlfriend's freezer Tuesday, two years after he disappeared.

Poinard, 71, was a popular chef in France's gastronomic capital, Lyon, from the 1960s to the early 1990s.

Authorities say his body had been frozen following a gruesome domestic assault in November 2008.

Guylene Collober, 51, has admitted beating Poinard to death and purchasing the freezer to contain his corpse.

An investigation into Collober has been opened, and she is in police custody, according to reports in the French newspaper Le Monde.

According to reports, Poinard had been spotted several times with bruises.

Thibault Worth, a Paris-based journalist for Radio France Internationale, told CBC News that Poinard had been well liked in Lyon.

"He was a fourth-generation member of one of Lyon's great cooking dynasties, and he was active for a long period of time," he said.

Collober, he said, was less well received.

"The prosecutor [investigating the case] said she was narcissistic and possessive and violent," Worth said.

A neighbour in Poinard's building allegedly overheard frequent quarrels between the couple.

Poinard's body was found after Collober let slip to her daughter that something had happened.

"They were apparently drunk together," Worth said. "The next thing that happened is the police showed up and found Mr. Poinard in a fetal position in this freezer that she had purchased to contain him.

"She put him in the freezer, and people just assumed that they had broken up."

An autopsy will be conducted once Poinard's body has thawed.