Le Bernardin Cookbook: Four-Star Simplicity

`Le Bernardin Cookbook' by highly regarded seafood chef Eric Ripert and restaurateur Maguy Le Coze (cofounder of the restaurant with her brother Gilbert) is the first case where I wished I could give a half a star. In many ways, it is a classic restaurant cookbook which is better than average in many ways, but I usually need a little more than `better than average' to give five stars. In comparison to Rob Feenie's `Lumiere' cookbook I reviewed yesterday, `Le Bernardin' exceeds expectations in the following ways:It is almost entirely a cookbook for all sorts of fish, based primarily on classic French recipes. This means that if you had a shelf of 100 famous restaurant cookbooks and wanted a recipe for fish, you could immediately go to either this book or Bob Kinkead's recent restaurant book, depending on whether you wanted something from Brittany or Baltimore. Oddly, this book also shares with the Kinkead book the fact that at least one recipe author (Bob Kinkead and Gilbert Le Coze) for each book was entirely self-taught.The story behind this book is about as endearing and as interesting as they come. `Le Bernardin' was originally opened in Paris by brother and sister Le Coze in 1972, after the siblings spend their early life together helping their parents run a struggling little restaurant on the coast of Brittany. After an initial splash and failure based on no experience, they ultimately succeeded in Paris. They followed this with opening the Manhattan restaurant in 1986, just as culinary consciousness in New York made it worth their while to open a restaurant which specialized in fish. All of this would be very ordinary if it were not for the incredible affection brother and sister had for one another, ended with the death of Gilbert at the age of forty-eight in 1994, just a year or two after hiring classically trained Eric Rippert as executive chef at the Manhattan restaurant.The recipes, many the creation of unschooled Gilbert, tend to be much more original than what you may find in the standard fish cookbooks by Mark Bittman, James Beard, and Alan Davidson. None of the classic bistro recipes for mussels (which you will find in Tony Bourdain's `Les Halles' book) are here. While some tend to the involved, fish recipes tend to be involved primarily in the preparation of stocks, nages, butter sauces and court bouillons. If you get the techniques for doing these things well, many of the recipes devolve into very simple preparations, befitting the generally fast cooking times for fish.Each recipe has a separate headnote from each author, and the counterpoint between them is almost worth the price of the book in itself. It is not uncommon for Madame Le Coze to really hate a recipe that Monsieur Rippert has just praised up and down the avenue. She usually comes around in the end, but the honesty is so unexpected that you start looking forward to contretemps in the next recipe dialogue.The recipes are organized in a very satisfactory way for a restaurant book on fish. The first chapter is an especially good collection of recipes for the basics. These are for the stocks, nages, butter sauces and court bouillons cited above. This is one of the few cookbooks I can thing of which includes a shrimp, lobster, and clam stock recipe. And, near and dear to my heart is the fact that the chicken stock recipe cooks for only three hours! The following eight chapters on fish dishes is just a little mixed, in that two chapters represent courses, `Salads' and `Appetizers' while six chapters represent the techniques `Raw Fish', `Poached and Steamed Fish', `Sautéed Fish', `Roasted Fish', `Grilled Fish', and `Shellfish'. The penultimate chapter on `Big Parties' gives seven over the top recipes for entertaining, most giving eight servings rather than the usual four to six servings. The last chapter on desserts seems relatively long, giving 31 recipes, including three for basics such as pastry cream, hazelnut-almond cream, ganache, and sweet pastry dough. With all the pastry books available, you will not be buying this book for the desserts, but it does add to the book's value. As usual, some of the dessert recipes are quite involved.There are no chapters or separate recipes for vegetables, as all the vegetable side dishes are included in the recipe for the seafood. This means many of the fish recipes may not be as complicated as they seem from their length if you removed the vegetable garnish, but that would take away the cachet of serving a dish as done at the great and famous Le Bernardin!Ultimately, this book deserves more than four stars because it is a restaurant cookbook that is more valuable than a source of instructive recipes to read. It has lots of great fish recipes that can be made by an amateur at home, as long as you have access to high quality ingredients. My only disappointment in reading the book is the feeling that there is simply no way I would be able to get the kind of fresh fish used by Le Bernardin unless I opened a restaurant in an Atlantic seaport.The mantra for this book that should be intoned as you look for a recipe is to respect the differences between the fishes. Things that work for skate will not work for tuna and vice versa. Respect the fish and you will be rewarded.

I first read this classic (copyright 1998) from my public library, but was delighted to buy it for my kindle reading. Since I first read it, I've read not only Chef Ripert's "On the Line," but also his "32 Yolks," so weaving in my recollections of his memories from these books with his early memories of the New York years of Le Bernardin was fascinating.Most of the recollections in the book are from Maguy Le Coze: growing up with her beloved brother Gilbert in Brittany, pressed into service at a young age at her parents' Hotel du Rhuys in Navarro, a small, family-run hotel. Her writing about their childhood by the sea is beautiful and evocative. And Eric shares his recollections about the early years of Le Bernadin New York.To me, the most charming thing about the book--after Maguy's recollections--is the headnotes, which are almost always a dialogue between Eric and Maguy. Sometimes they agree, often they disagree, and I love that: for me, reading headnotes that make me want to read a recipe (or not) are a hallmark of the very best cookbooks.Kindle format review: Very good: TOC is clickable; recipes are clickable from chapter TOC's; index is clickable, and embedded recipes are clickable. Except for the "memoir" portions, there are no photographs in the kindle version.Most important, do be mindful that this book is not intended for home chefs: many of the ingredients may be challenging to find, and many of the techniques and timing may be challenging for home chefs. In that regard, it's a lot like "The French Laundry Cookbook:" it's more about the fact that these world-class restaurants are willing to share their recipes with us than that we'll be up to making them. I believe it's worth reading for the tips on buying, storing, handling, and cooking fish alone, AND over the years, the "poached halibut in warm herb vinaigrette" has become a staple in my kitchen. I also had good success with "pan-roasted salmon with red wine & lentil sauce (modified), and I have for years used Chef Ripert's tip for poaching ("always slide the fish into gently simmering water"). I love that their editor let them list paragraphs of ingredients, and let the recipes--with detailed instructions as to technique--run on for pages.If you love cooking as much as I do, especially love cooking seafood, are somewhat adventurous in the kitchen and, most of all, love reading cookbooks the way I do--from cover to cover--you will love this book and feel as though every recollection, every memoir is a gift to the reader. And, of course, if you've ever been so fortunate as to dine at Le Bernardin (or even watched Chef Ripert on "Avec Eric" or "Top Chef"), you'll love it even more.

This book is a joy to discover and to go back to, time and time again...Great recipes, so elegant made, to help you remember the importantparts of preparing great food.E.Ripert is so down to earth, and yet a dreamer and an inventor. But, allthe time, remaining very humble and unassuming.The book is superb in its visual appeal with great french charm and joie de vivre.I don't collect cookbooks but I will keep this one close by, to remindme of life made wonderful by just paying attention to the very simplest things....

Great cookbook! I’ve made tons of recipes already. Easy to follow, and the food tastes delicious.

Beautiful food and photography. Recipes are very doable.

This book goes beyond just fish, Le Bernardin's specialty. I enjoyed the history of how this restaurant came into existence and how Eric Ripert came to becoming the chef. I was drawn to this book because of my interest in cooking fish, a food that I think is more difficult than its other meat counterparts. I've been of the belief if you could cook fish and do it well, you could just about cook anything. I think this is a great book and should be in any serious cook's library.

Food just looks no where near the way they make it at le Bernadin now. Decent recipes, on the line is just so much better. I have both love chef Ripert

I purchased this used. Seller said it has slight water damage. To be honest I couldn’t even tell where the damage was at first. Very happy with purchase.