On the Menu

Featuring interviews with world-renowned chefs Heston Blumenthal (The Fat Duck), Massimo Bottura (Osteria Francescana), Rene Redzepi (Noma), Michel Roux Jr (Le Gavroche), April Bloomfield (The Spotted Pig), Daniel Boulud (Bar Boulud), Ruth Rogers (The River Cafe) and many more. In this book they reveal how they decide what food to serve and what inspires them to write their menus. In this much-anticipated book, Nicholas Lander, restaurant critic and author of The Art of the Restaurateur, rejoices in the history, design and evolution of the world's favourite piece of paper: the menu. On the Menu presents over 100 stunning, full-colour reproductions of menus - some at the cutting edge of contemporary culinary innovation, and others that are relics from another time: the last menu from The French House Dining Room before Fergus Henderson departed for St John; and the final menu from Ferran Adria's three Michelin-starred elBulli in Spain. From the classic to the innovative: a Christmas menu served during the siege of Paris in 1870, which featured rats and zoo animals; the wittily illustrated menu at Quo Vadis in London, which gave the restaurant a new lease of life; and many, many more. Between the reproductions, Lander examines the principles of menu design and layout; the evolution of wine and cocktail lists; the menu as a record of the past; and he even takes us behind the scenes at Mario Batali's Babbo, to sit in as the staff are briefed on the evening's menu. These are truly pages to drool over.