Restaurant books for pastries and desserts: your favorites?

[Lia Tumkus]

Hi everybody!

 

Working in restaurants is a totally different experience for me, I've being doing for the past one and a half years, and I still feel I'm miles away from the mindset I would like to achieve. It is a different way of looking at the pastry world. I found reading good restaurant books very inspiring when creating dessert elements and I would like to hear what are your favorite restaurant books. (The professional ones, with elaborated recipes not the ones for amateurs to do at home  ). 

 

Thanks in advance for the inputs!

[CatPoet]

I know this isnt technically a restaurant book but it gives  an insight in pastry, which is both fun and enjoyable to read.   A Cookie Lover's History Book by  Eva Helena  Ulvros and Dick Harrision, I only found it once translated to English but if you find it, it is worth the read.

[pastrygirl]

Most of the books I am going to list are not particularly new, so may be hard to find, but may also be available used at a good price.  Looking through my bookshelf, these are the books that have been most useful and inspiring to me in my restaurant pastry chef career of the past 15 years:

 

Los Postres de El Bulli, Adria - in Spanish and impossible to find, but gorgeous photos and interesting ideas if you do find it.  His newer one, Natura, is also beautiful and even more modernist.

 

Grand Finales: The Art of the plated Dessert, Boyle & Moriarty

 

The Notebooks of Michel Bras: Desserts, Bras - more for inspiration than recipes

 

The Last Course, Fleming - this one can be very hard to find

 

Desserts by Pierre Herme, Herme and Greenspan

 

Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme, Greenspan

 

Dessert Fourplay, Iuzzini - actually not a favorite but more recent and some interesting ideas

 

Sweet Seasons, Leach - plated restaurant desserts organized by season

 

Elements of Dessert, Migoya - another new one, modernist and gorgeous

 

New Classic Desserts, MacLauchlan - I don't have this anymore, managed to lose two copies, and its 1994 so it may seem dated, but at the time it was one of my first introductions to plated desserts and I loved it. And you can get it for five bucks on Amazon!

 

The Sweet Spot, Ong - some interesting Asian twists

 

Book of Tarts, Rubin

 

Charlie Trotters Desserts, Trotter - a little older  - 1998 - but gorgeous and very inspiring to me when i was just getting started in restaurants.

 

David Lebovitz and Emily Luchetti are also pretty reliable dessert authors, but tend to be more fancified homestyle than multi-component plated desserts.

 

Bachour Simply Beautiful by Antonio Bachour might be a good one as well.  I have not seen the book, but I follow him on Instagram and he does indeed make beautiful things.

[JeanneCake]

I agree with all of pastrygirl's recommendations (even the same opinion of Iuzzini's book) and that you can't go wrong with Lebovitz and Luchetti's books (her first book, Stars Desserts can also be hard to find).Pichet Ong's recipe for pate a choux is the best one I've ever tried.  Bachour's books are very beautiful and have great inspiration, but I haven't made anything from them yet.  His verrines are gorgeous.

 

I've found that Maida Heatter's books have been good for inspiration although they are written for home cooks.  She made desserts for her husband's restaurant for many years and a lot of the recipes in her first two books were ones she made frequently for the restaurant.  I have also used The Cake Bible for components (cake, pastry cream, bavarian, blini, curd).

[Bojana]

For restaurant books where desserts are only a part of, I recommend Eleven Madison Park (even with the recipes in imperial metrics, it is still very inspirational) and Volt, Inc

[Matthew Kirshner]

Two books i refer to for restaurant plating is:

 

The Dessert Architect-Robert Wemischner.  Interesting plating designs and components

 

Grand Livre de Cuisine- Alain Ducasse.  Some recipes may seem a little unusal, but the end results are fantastic.  lots of petit four ideas as well.

 

Both can be found on amazon

[nicolasmauran24]

Hello.iam looking for antonio bachour pastry book?

[JeanneCake]

Hello.iam looking for antonio bachour pastry book?

 

He has two books; Bachour and Bachour Simply Beautiful; both should be available from Amazon....or you can contact him on his Facebook page for more information....

[ChrisZ]

I was given "Dessert Divas", by Christine Manfield for Christmas. She is a very well know pastry chef in Australia. The recipes are complex, interesting and gorgeous. I haven't made anything from it yet and I think any attempts will need a lot of forward planning.

The book doesn't seem to be available on Amazon, so it may take some effort to buy outside of Australia - or at least ordering it from an Australian site.

I found an article/review that includes one of Manfield's most famous desserts, so click here for a indication of what the whole book is like.

[AAQuesada]

Two books i refer to for restaurant plating is:

 

The Dessert Architect-Robert Wemischner.  Interesting plating designs and components

 

Grand Livre de Cuisine- Alain Ducasse.  Some recipes may seem a little unusal, but the end results are fantastic.  lots of petit four ideas as well.

 

Both can be found on amazon

 

Chef Bob is Awesome and a great, chef, teacher and person. I wasn't in the baking program but went to LATTC where he teaches (to give props to an excellent community college program)

 

http://robertwemischner.com/

[AAQuesada]

Oh and this question so remindes me of Brooks Headley's (Del Posto 4* NYT) book 'Fancy Dessert's'- decidedly not fancy but good technique and ideas

[ChocoMom]

The huge, fantastic book is Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme.  

Chocolate Bar by Matt Lewis and Alison Nelson(2004).   Includes more homey-type recipes (I think) than restaurant calibur pieces, and plenty of other items than desserts...like the Chocolate Martini, and the Chocolate Body Scrub. It's more fun than anything else. Having said that, the Chocolate Fantasy Cake is outstanding- and once plated, the slices look amazing. 

Given to me as gift....1,000 Chocolate Baking and Dessert Recipes.  The pictures alone are inspiring.  Lots of non-chocolate recipes inside also...which begs the question: why are they included?... I have no idea.

 

Caramel by Peggy Cullen (2003)..., Flan,  Souffle, Cakes, Tarts, Ice Cream....and ideas for the garnish- like corkscrews.