Chef Christian F. Puglisi opened restaurant Relæ in 2010 with innovative, substantive cooking. Like Puglisi’s restaurant, the book is honest, unconventional in both content and design, and challenges our expectations of what a cookbook should be. Rather than focusing on recipes, the core of the book is a series of interconnected ‘idea essays’, which reveal the ingredients, practical techniques, and philosophies that inform Puglisi’s cooking. Each essay is connected to one (or many) of the dishes he serves, and one can flip through the book in whatever sequence inspires them-from idea to dish and back to idea again. The result is a deeply personal, utterly unique reading experience: a rare glimpse into the mind of a top chef, and the opportunity to learn the language of one of the world’s most pioneering and acclaimed restaurants.
Photography Oscar Meyer.
