2008-07-28 Great recipes but poor illustrations

This book is produced by Pierre Gagnaire who has held the title of the 3rd best restaurant in the world for the past few years (El Buli and the Fat Duck being 1st and 2nd respectively.

It is a good quality book with about 50 michelin 3 star recipes. As usual with these books some recipes are very do able by the skilled home chef and others really need a brigade of chefs. That does not bother me as with all these books you are pushing the envolope as to what is possible at home which I like.

Although the recipes are on a par with the French Laundry (Thomas Keller 4th best restaurant)and Recipes of a 3 star chef (Gordon Ramsey) the book is not as sumptuous as these works in terms of layout and photos. Both of these books particularly the French Laundry have a wow factor which is a little lacking in this book. This a comparative statement however because if you had not seen these other two you might be impressed.

Although some of the recipes have photos with them 80% do not and although the dishes have assembly instructions I prefer a photo to aim for so for me this lets it down compared to the aforementioned works.

That said I like the fact that he has given 3 star recipes for this book from the last 40yrs of his practice and has included the menus on which these dishes appeared to set them in context.

At the end of the day I buy a cookbook for recipes and cookbooks from 3 star chefs for 3 star recipes. On this level therefore the book unquestionably delivers and will take pride of place with Recipes from a 3 Star Chef, the The French Laundry Cookbook, Essence: Recipes from Le Champignon Sauvage and soon the The Big Fat Duck Cookbook(Heston Blumenthal)