# Suggestion: Top Fine Dining Cook Book



## keith grima

Hi Guys,

I need some help choosing a good Fine Dining cookbook, I need something similar to an Alinea cookbook but is not based on molecular gastronomy.

I would appreciate if you can give me some names.

Thanks in advance.


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## keith grima

Other information you may need,

I have experience in the kitchen,

I am mostly looking for a fine dining cookbook aslong as it's not based on molecular gastronomy

Recipe Dificility and complexity is not an issue

If the book contains some garnishing techqinues that is a big plus !!!

Thanks guys


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## chicagoterry

Do you specifically want restaurant-related cookbook suggestions?

Here are a few:

Bouchon by Thomas Keller


Manresa


Noma


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## keith grima

First of all thanks for the reply Therry,

Basically the food category I am looking for in the cookbook, if I am not mistaken falls under gourmet. View this pics below:

http://www.hannasgourmetcatering.com/Hanna_s_Gourmet-19.jpg

http://www.igourmet.com/images/topics/gourmet-meats.jpg

http://kievukraine.info/im/gourmet1.jpg

Can you confirm that atleast one of these cookbooks falls under this category, again thanks so much I have been searching the net for days without success.

One main request is that it is packed with recipies and not a coffee table cookbook.


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## grande

Is it pictures or recipes you want? Those are books from some of the top restaurants in the world. They will have the recipes that made them famous and nice glossy pictures. If you're looking for presentation help, it would be a great place to start. Unfortunstly those pictures you posted don't tell us what the food tastes like, so we can't really say what kind of recipes you're looking for from that.


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## keith grima

Basically the book I need, needs to be a mix between pictures and recipies.

The pictures I posted are examples of the type of reciepies I am looking for, obviosly I have no idea how to re create them. 

Thats where the book comes in and pictures will be helpfull to plate them.

Like I mentioned I am looking for "gourmet" cookbook and I am finding it really hard to find one as I am ending up with either 

molecular gastronomy or coffee table cookbooks.

Any type of input of books that fall under this category(Fine Dining/Gourmet) will be gladly appreciated, then I will handle the reserach behind them myself.


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## grande

Well, i can definately recommend the bouchon book, it has great recipes with very refined methods in a classic sort of french bougoise style, and good pictures of the dishes. The other two i haven't seen but they are books from the restsurants, and should be in the same vein.
What I was trying to say about the pictures is that, pretty much anything can be presented like that, you don't have to follow a specofic recipe to get that presentation; you can also make really good food and not make it pretty.
Cookbooks i'm looking at now:
The art of Living according to Joe Beef

Le Pigeon:Cooking at the dirty bird by Gabriel Rucker

A girl and her pig by April Bloomfield


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## keith grima

I cannot agree more, thing is I need to build my "knowledge" with dishes like these and having a recipe book for this is helpfull.

Thanks for your input


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## chicagoterry

The quality of pictures is very good in all three books.

You probably can't go wrong wit Bouchon.

Ten Speed Books, which publishes Manresa, makes gorgeous and carefully edited cookbooks. It is definitely their niche in American publishing. I looked at it around Christmas and decided against buying it because, while beautiful, the recipes were more complicated than what I would normally make, so I dismissed it as "food porn," but it sounds like a little food porn might be exactly what you are looking for. I tend to prefer cookbooks without a lot of pictures but Ten Speed's books always make the food look gorgeous.

Phaiden, which publishes Noma is essentially an art book publisher, so the photography is excellent.  If I recall, though, his plating is a bit minimalist, though beautiful.


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## keith grima

Great I will definatilly be buying Bouchon, I will take a look at the other books today while at the bookstore 

I hope it's what I am looking for, like I said complexity is not an issue unless it turns into gastronomy, I want to cook and plate properly not build a nuclear warhead xD 

Thanks guy much appreciated will let you know what I think of Bouchon or any other book incase I find something better


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## brianshaw

I can relate to the plating/garnish aspects of this thread more than the cooking./recipe part.  While there are many books that balance recipe with pictures I find them only partially useful... primarily because the pictures are often highly stylized and not representative of what a home cook will get.  It is AMAZING what food stylists can do when involved in food photography!

My first impression, which may be wrong, was that the more useful tome would be one on plating and garnish... which I have yet to find.


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## sunny cooks

I can recommend the following:

The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter - Charlie Trotter (buy this one, Charlie passed away recently so there won't be more)

The Three Chimneys - this is The cookbook of the famous restaurant and hotel on the island of Skye

The French Laundry Cookbook - Herbert Keller

Jean-Georges, Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef - JG Vongerichten and Mark Bittman

All have great recipes and beautiful pictures.


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## phatch

The Kitchen Sessions was also very good on video. Worth watching the DVDs if you can find them. You'll see a lot of good technique, plating and more.


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## wlong

Keith, 

A quick way to find a recipes when you find a picture you like is to Google the name and put recipe after it.

One on your post was Hanna's Gourmet Catering and it was a flour-less chocolate cake.  So Google flour-less chocolate cake recipes.  Sometimes in most searches  there will be a big list images you can also look at and go to a webpage that interest you.


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## chicagoterry

There's also the original Charlie Trotter Cookbook. One of the original "food porn" cookbooks--and I say that fondly.

You can get a look at some of the photos on Amazon. You have to click through a lot of pages of the kitchen and the chefs but be patient and you will be rewarded with pictures of beautifully plated dishes. I used to own that cookbook and just gawk at the pictures but then realized I was never going to make any of that food, so I donated it in the interest of making room for a cookbook I would actually use. Stylized plating is just not something I'm into.


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## keith grima

Ok so guys thanks for all the replies sadly I had missed some of them and I had already bought my cookbooks

Basically I bought



I have went through most of them and I can assure everyone that they are complex but are exectly what I was looking for.

I went over some other books while at the book store which I can highly recommend.




http://www.amazon.com/dp/2812306629/?tag=cheftalk01-20

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1909342114/?tag=cheftalk01-20

Ok basically these are all I can remember. I will highly recommend the ones that I bought, again they are very complex but I am looking forward for my first recipe 

Thanks for all your support guys


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## chicagoterry

I was going to suggest Le Livre Blanc but I thought I remembered foams and other such molecular gastronomy innovations in her repertoire.


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## chrisbelgium

"D.O.M." by Brazilian extravagant chef Alex Atala, a book called after the name of his restaurant.

I browsed his book a few times but I didn't buy it because he uses a lot of totally unknown ingredients from his country. Stunning book, more an art book.

I just bought "Poissons un art du Japon" written by Chihiro Masui (it's a she) and photography by Richard Haughton. It's in French, don't know if there's an English version. Same comment as above but this book has a lot of practical information and technique.


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## chicagoterry

Yeah...I'm gonna get right on clicking on that link to an unnamed "cookbook" with "clickbank" as part of the address, posted by someone who has just "joined" Cheftalk today.


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## pete

Come on Terry, live dangerously!!!! /img/vbsmilies/smilies/cool.gif


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## passthegravy

Eleven Madison Park: The Cookbook

Some absolutely mind blowing dishes in there, really good for inspiration and getting ideas together.


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