Overview

Walk into any chef’s kitchen, and dig around long enough, and you’ll find a buried treasure of recipes. Mine is a humble stack of tattered, splattered papers sitting on a shelf in unruly fashion. A more experienced chef will have a file cabinet, a binder with sheets neatly tucked into plastic protectors, or laminated sheets clipped on a wall. The Complete Robuchon is that treasure chest for Joël Robuchon and his army of cooks.

Robuchon, cited as the “Chef of the Century” by Gault Millau in 1989, operates restaurants in Hong Kong, Paris, Las Vegas, and New York among others, garnering 25 Michelin stars among his fleet. He is also considered the most influential in moving French cuisine away from the nouvelle movement, and solidifying “cuisine actuelle” which focuses on highlighting each individual ingredient.

I have no doubt that the 800 plus recipes (with no pictures) are so completely engrained into the memory of every Robuchon cook and chef that no books lie around (unless they are using it as a pot holder), and certainly the current and secret recipes don’t grace the pages. However, for any cook who dreams of creating “Baked Eggs with Mushroom Cream”, or “Flattened Grilled Chicken”, this tome is a fantastic resource. What Bittman’s How to Cook Everything has accomplished for the “every man”, Robuchon has created for the “every chef”.

The recipes run from mundane (Steamed Poultry Breast) to exotic (Foie Gras-Stuffed Pheasant with Endive), but are all easily read and followed. A lack of photographs, and shortened instructions will turn many away from this important book, which is fine since Robuchon style cooking is not necessarily appropriate in every kitchen.  Just as my cooks learn in short fashion – the words on the page are only a starting point – recipes assume a certain level of knowledge and interpretation. Almost any cook can make almost any recipe in this book given the appropriate ingredients. But, to make a dish worthy of a Robuchon priced meal, one would require the best ingredients and a well-honed tongue to season the dish.

“French home cooking for the way we live now” is an apt subtitle for this book, and deserves its place next to the other oversized cookbooks in your kitchen. In fact, I suggest placing it right next to Bittman, and between those two resources, you really could cook anything.