 Trade In this Item for up to £6.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Pierre Gagnaire: Reinventing French Cuisine for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £6.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Pierre Gagnaire is a considered one of the finest chefs in the world. He was at the forefront of the fusion movement, blasting through established conventions of classic French cooking by introducing jarring juxtapositions of flavours, tastes, textures and ingredients. He is the owner of the eponymous Pierre Gagnaire in Paris and Head Chef of Sketch in London, two restaurants that in 2005 were ranked in the top 20 in the world by the industry magazine "Restaurant". And in 2006, the magazine ranked Gagnaire as the third best chef in the world.This memoir/cookbook is a delightful tour of his life and recipes as a cook since 1966, from his first very simple recipe, a potatoes gratin, to the last, a flower-shaped haddock. Beautifully illustrated, the book is a testament to Gagnaire's ever-expanding palate as an expert chef who considers himself a beginner, and that his most amazing recipe is yet to come.
About the Author
Pierre Gagnaire was born into a family of restauranteurs and opened his first restaurant in 1980. He is the Author of STC's Pierre Gagnaire: Reflections on Culinary Artistry. Jean-Francois Abert writes for the Dauphine Libere and has collaborated on numerous cookbooks. Photographer Peter Lippmann has worked in Paris for 25 years. He contributes regularly to Vogue, the New York Times magazine, Marie Claire and Le Figaro.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
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)
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)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
France's maverick genius, Pierre Gagnaire, is famous for publishing beautifully photographed books - works of art, in fact - that encompass his food philosophy and musings on ingredients, but lack recipes. So get ready for a shock: he's rectified that in the latest, English, version of Reinventing French Cuisine.
As he says himself in the book's preface, it was time for his "persistent and complete allergy to carefully weighted, well-expressed, and clearly articulated recipes" to bite the dust.
So here, in addition to a definitive laying out of his career in chronological order (from Lyon to Paris, and everything in between, from the mid-'60s to the present), is a definitive number of recipes reflecting the influences on, and development of, his cooking. So, if you have just one Gagnaire book in your library, it should be this one.
There are four main chapters, equating to certain phases in Gagnaire's culinary life, and within these each recipe has an identifying year. For instance, the first recipe - "La Marta", which refers directly to favourite childhood sweets - is stamped with 1965. Typically for Gagnaire, he gives you the bones of the recipe, in this case how to make little chocolate moulds, but leaves you to work out fillings for these, handing on tantalising suggestions, like redcurrant jelly and passion fruit seeds for white chocolate cases, without specifying quantities. It's a reflection of his well-known tendency to improvise, but you don't hold three Michelin stars without consistency, do you? Thankfully, other recipes are more detailed.
There's a bonus section of "basic" recipes at the back of the book, which besides stocks includes chantilly foie gras "in the style of Herve This", and various spice and aromatic pastes: anyone for tobacco powder? And the book is bursting with enough Gagnaire dishes to give a window on his culinary soul.
Gagnaire is known for surprising and multiple-ingredient matches, skilful temperature and texture contrasts, and unmatched visual artistry on the plate. The complexity of his food has divided opinion over the years, but there's no doubt the book sheds light on the very individual style of one of the world's great chefs, providing huge inspiration in the process
As he says himself in the book's preface, it was time for his "persistent and complete allergy to carefully weighted, well-expressed, and clearly articulated recipes" to bite the dust.
So here, in addition to a definitive laying out of his career in chronological order (from Lyon to Paris, and everything in between, from the mid-'60s to the present), is a definitive number of recipes reflecting the influences on, and development of, his cooking. So, if you have just one Gagnaire book in your library, it should be this one.
There are four main chapters, equating to certain phases in Gagnaire's culinary life, and within these each recipe has an identifying year. For instance, the first recipe - "La Marta", which refers directly to favourite childhood sweets - is stamped with 1965. Typically for Gagnaire, he gives you the bones of the recipe, in this case how to make little chocolate moulds, but leaves you to work out fillings for these, handing on tantalising suggestions, like redcurrant jelly and passion fruit seeds for white chocolate cases, without specifying quantities. It's a reflection of his well-known tendency to improvise, but you don't hold three Michelin stars without consistency, do you? Thankfully, other recipes are more detailed.
There's a bonus section of "basic" recipes at the back of the book, which besides stocks includes chantilly foie gras "in the style of Herve This", and various spice and aromatic pastes: anyone for tobacco powder? And the book is bursting with enough Gagnaire dishes to give a window on his culinary soul.
Gagnaire is known for surprising and multiple-ingredient matches, skilful temperature and texture contrasts, and unmatched visual artistry on the plate. The complexity of his food has divided opinion over the years, but there's no doubt the book sheds light on the very individual style of one of the world's great chefs, providing huge inspiration in the process
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
call me old fashioned but, since the invention of the camera I expect photos to accompany all recipes and a minimum background to the dish if really needed when I buy cookery books. So that's not always the case but this is taking the biscuit! If photos don't accompany all the dishes as an issue of price why include hazy shots of raw turnips? To much self indulgence sir..the clue is in the title..COOKBOOK
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
chefs only
this is a brilliant book for chefs only and with ways to get out in the trade and cook with these fantastic ingredients
Published 15 months ago by Mr. Paul Huddleston
great
For those who is cooking a way of live you can not mis this book in your collection.
Published on 2 Mar 2009 by A. J. Eleveld
Beautiful book - impossible recipes
I was terribly dissapointed with my recent attempt to cook guinea fowl breasts described in this book. Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2009 by Mr. William J. Watters
Classic Must have
Having read most 3 star chefs books and tried to understand where they are coming from i found myself reading this book and what can i say its truly eye opening. Read more
Published on 21 Oct 2007 by D. Salmon
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
