Sven Elverfeld - "The Cookbook"

[teonzo]

Sven Elverfeld is the chef of Aqua, a 3 michelin star restaurant in Wolfsburg, Germany. This is the English edition of his latest book, it's been printed in only 1000 copies and sold only by the restaurant, so if you are interested in it I suppose it's better to hurry before it goes out of print.

Visually the book is simply stunning: great photos, great graphics, great printing and binding quality... every detail is on top level. It's pretty huge (30x26x5 cm, 532 pages) and full of dishes. At first sight it's one of the best cookbooks ever.

There are a lot of snacks (both savoury and sweet), for which you get the photo and the description, no recipes. The recipes are written "only" for the a-la-carte dishes, they are really detailed and precise.

The cooking style is modernist, strongly rooted in the style of the Spanish greats. Here comes the defect of the book: there are a lot of dishes that took huge inspiration from Spanish modern classics. While reading the book you will keep saying "this come from elBulli" (for example there is the reconstructed dandelion or the cheese sphere), "this come from Mugaritz" and so on...

I can't complain with the material quality of the book (top notch), I can't complain with the included dishes (they seem all great, after all it's a 3*), I can complain about the personality (a bit many borrowed ideas).

I spent 131 euro to get it (110 euro for the book, 21 euro for shipping to Italy). If you can read German then the original edition is way cheaper (75 euro instead of 110).

The customer service of Aqua Restaurant has been exceptional: their answers were kind and detailed; the package was more than perfect, with a personalized hand written letter. Top class service.

If only the dishes were highly personal then this would be in the top 5 cookbooks ever.

Teo