Today’s Special edited by Emily Takoudes

What’s the USP? Twenty of the world’s leading chefs choose 100 emerging chefs to create a survey of ‘the most exciting rising stars paving the future of the (restaurant) industry’. Each chef gets a short profile and has contributed several recipes.

Who’s the author? The book has no attributed author but it has been edited by Emily Takoudes, Executive Commissioning Editor of Food & Drink at Phaidon Press.

Is it good bedtime reading? The 100 short chef profiles that accompany the emerging chef’s recipes make the book ideal for browsing through. In addition, there are brief biographies for the ‘leading chefs’ and each of the emerging chefs also get a biog in addition to their profile. There is also a one page introduction from Takoudes.

Will I have trouble finding ingredients? Quite possibly, unless you know a good place to to get blackthroat seaperch (skewered and grilled by chef Izumi Kimura of Sushijin in Japan); Australian pepperberries (served with roasted oysters and sake butter by Mat Lindsay of Ester and Poly restaurants in Sydney), or deer heart (served with trout roe mayo, smoked oyster mushrooms and pine vinegar by Jakob Pintar of Tabar in Ljubljana, Slovenia).

What’s the faff factor? There is no doubt whatsoever that these are restaurant recipes and as such you just have to accept the faff. There are some simpler recipes, for example Yuval Leshem of Hasalon in New York’s Maitake Entrecote Steak is made with just a maitake mushroom, olive oil and seasoning and is served with a sauce made with chicken stock, garlic and butter, and Danielle Alvarez of Fred’s in Sydney’s chilled beet and tomato soup with wild fennel and crème fraîche is pretty straightforward, but otherwise mainly expect multi-element dishes that often require lots of ingredients and time.

How often will I cook from the book? Depends how often you fancy ‘Coffee, Caviar, Lapsang’ for pudding I suppose. I’m being sarcastic. Not every dish is as  recherché as that and you may well cook Neil Borthwick of The French House in London’s lamb navarin or pumpkin, beet, bitter leaf and pickled walnut salad quite regularly. But unless you are a professional chef, it’s probably best to treat the book as an interesting read that will introduce you to chefs and restaurants you may never have heard about before rather than an everyday cookbook.

Killer recipes? Broccolini and passionfruit bearnaise; celeriac pasta; chicken liver terrine; pizza bianca al formaggi; potato croissant; octopus, salt-baked avocado, black garlic; hazelnut praline eclair; chocolate mousse.

What will I love? This is a truly global and diverse selection that includes chefs working in Brazil, India, Hong Kong, Thailand, Nigeria, Slovenia, Peru, China, Rwanda, Venezuela and Israel as well as North America, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the UK and mainland Europe. At over 400 pages, there are more than 300 recipes to provide professional chefs and keen amateurs with plenty of  inspiration.

What won’t I like? Apart from their biographies and a one line quote for each of their chosen chefs, the leading chefs are oddly absent from the book. Each of the chef profiles has not been written by the leading chefs who chose them but by a team of writers. Although expertly done, the profiles of the emerging chefs are rather anonymous and include no comments or direct quotes from either the chef in question or from the leading chef that chose them. If the profiles have been pieced together from anything other than CVs, information from the restaurant’s website and trawling the internet for reviews and interviews, then it is not clear from reading them. They are informative and you will learn a lot, but they lack the personal touch.

Unless you are a hospitality professional or a very serious restaurant nerd, many of the leading chef’s names may be unfamiliar to you. Ottolenghi is probably the most famous name involved, followed by New York based Michelin star chef Daniel Boulud. If you are a fan of the TV series Top Chef, you will recognise Hugh Acheson and Washington-based José Andrés’ tireless work with his World Central Kitchen non-profit organisation that’s devoted to providing meals in the wake of natural disasters has raised his profile above his standing as an innovative Michelin starred chef. But there’s no Gordon Ramsay or Jamie Oliver, or even Thomas Keller, which may limit the book’s appeal.

However, it is perhaps irrelevant who the leading chefs actually are as, between them, they have picked a very interesting group of ’emerging’ chefs, some of which have been mentioned above. Exactly how ’emerging’ those chefs actually are is somewhat up for debate as many are very well established including Neil Borthwick in London, Michelin star holder Tomos Parry (also in London), Evan Funke in California (who has had a very good feature-length documentary made about him), Josh Niland in Australia who has published his own acclaimed and influential cookbook and Jeremiah Stone and Fabian Von Hauseke Valtierra of New York who also already have their own cookbook.

Should I buy it? If you plan your travels around dining out, the book will provide hours of fun daydreaming about the destination for your first post-lockdown trip. In the meantime, you can discover some novel and innovative dishes to try out in your own kitchen while you wait for some sort of normality to be restored.

Cuisine: International
Suitable for: Confident home cooks/Professional Chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: Four stars

Buy this book
Today’s Special: 20 Leading Chefs Choose 100 Emerging Chefs
£39.95, Phaidon

Cook from this book
Concha by Elena Reygadas of Rosetta, Mexico City
Cheesecake and wood roasted peaches by Tomos Parry of Brat, London
Lamb navarin by Neil Borthwick, The French House, London