In accordance with the publisher’s request, I will not publish the following review to Goodreads until 11 April 2017, which is within one week of the book’s publication date.

I thought that I was burned out on the restaurant cookbook genre, until I saw the cookbook for the Chiltern Firehouse on Ten Speed Press’s NetGalley page. There was something about the write-up that intrigued me, although right now I’m hard pressed to remember what it was. I live in New England, and my only visit to London was six years ago, so I wasn’t even familiar with the restaurant when I finally started reading the book.

The Introduction by Stephen Fry outlines the opening of restaurant in a derelict fire station in Marylebone and attempts to explain its success. Essentially, he attributes the success of the restaurant to its cocktails and its food, which is a product of the “extraordinary passion and creativity” of the head chef and his staff. Reading the cookbook, the passion and creativity of Nuno Mendes, the head chef, comes through in the very personal headnotes to the food recipes.

After the Introduction, there are six chapters of recipes: cocktails, snacks, starters, mains, desserts, and brunch. The chapters on cocktails, mains, and brunch each begins with a short introduction about how the group of recipes that follows is treated at Chiltern Firehouse. For example, the introduction to the cocktails chapter discusses the Chiltern Firehouse method of mixing a cocktail, which is very precise with respect to the alcohol and the ice used in the cocktail. As a result, the ingredients list for the cocktail recipes can be very specific with respect to the alcohol used and the amount of stirring/shaking with the ice. The Negroni recipe, for example, uses three different brands of vermouth (and no Campari!). The subsection on aperitivi within the cocktail chapter highlights the bar’s stock of more than fifty different vermouths. Each aperitif calls for a specific brand and type of vermouth. The introduction to the mains chapter discusses the head chef’s formative years and how those influenced the cuisine he prepares at Chiltern Firehouse. The introduction to the brunch chapter talks about the Firehouse Bloody Mary.

The recipes themselves seem to be well written and easy to follow. With the exception of the Martini, the cocktail recipes lack headnotes. The syrups and macerations in the cocktail chapter have a one to three sentence headnote that describes the recipe. Almost all of the food recipes outside of the cocktail section have lengthy headnotes, and sometimes also have chef’s tips as well. The ingredients list provides both Imperial and Metric measurements, when appropriate. A drop or a dash are universal measurements. The ingredients list in the cocktail chapter does include exotic or hard to find ingredients, such as orange citrate in a Manhattan, juniper extract in a Vesper, and truffle honey in a third house cocktail recipe. The recipes in the food chapters also contain some unusual ingredients, such as truffle paste, sea bream, samphire, and sprouting broccoli. The recipe steps are written in paragraph format and provide very specific instructions. The cocktail recipes often dictate the number of times a cocktail should be stirred in the mixing glass or the seconds the cocktail should be shaken in the shaker. The longer food recipes are broken into bolded text summary steps (e.g., “make the doughnuts,” “make the tomato juice,” “make the crab doughnut filling,” “assemble and serve”); these summary steps contain paragraph(s) of instructional text. The last step in the longer recipes is usually serving the food; the “serve” step is usually very specific about plating and garnishing the food.

Sprinkled among the recipes in the food chapters are portraits of employees of Chiltern Firehouse, including the Chief Oysterman and the Head Sommelier. These portraits contain a few paragraphs about the individual’s philosophy about and/or approach to his or her job.

The full color photography included a lot of location photography from the beginning of the book through the cocktail chapter. In these sections, there was only occasional photography of identifiable finished recipes. Some of the finished recipe photographs were labeled, but the label is written so unobtrusively that it is difficult to notice. The remaining chapters of the book do have ample full color photography of the finished recipes. Almost every food recipe has a photograph. The description of “How We Cure Our Fish” was followed by a series of four photographs that illustrated the steps in the curing process. The recipe for herb gnocchi was also followed by a series of instructional photographs, as was the unique recipe for key lime pie. I found those all very helpful.

While I was working on a blog post about champagne cocktails, I tested the recipes for Blueberry Lavender Syrup, the Sex and Violets, and the Chiltern Aviation. I chose the recipes because I had a ready source of culinary lavender and blueberries were on sale at my local supermarket. The ingredients were super specific so as to improve the result. For example, the Chiltern Aviation recipe called for an “aromatic gin with forward juniper notes.” The recipe instructions were very easy to follow despite being very specific, such as shaking the Sex and Violets for four seconds (exactly). All three recipes turned out very well. The Blueberry Lavender Syrup recipe made well over the 3½ cups stated by the recipe, which was fine because it was really good stuff. The Sex and Violets was by far my favorite of the half-dozen champagne cocktails that I tested, although I preferred it with double the amount of Blueberry Lavender syrup required by the recipe. The Chiltern Aviation was another good recipe that I would definitely make again, as long as I have the Blueberry Lavender syrup to make it.

While I was working on a blog post about cold weather whiskey cocktails, I tested the book’s recipe for the Manhattan in order to compare it to the recipe that the restaurant contributed to Bon Appetit in 2015 (posted to Epicurious) and the recipe that a friend’s mom gave me. The Bon Appetit recipe was for four cocktails as opposed to the single cocktail recipe in the book, so it was difficult to determine whether the ratio of bourbon to vermouth differed between the two recipes. The main differences were that the book’s recipe used a dash of orange citrate, was super specific about the amount of stirring in the mixing glass, and lacked a cherry garnish. Since I didn’t have any orange citrate – nor did I know where to buy it – I omitted it when preparing the book recipe.

Despite my success with the cocktail recipes from this cookbook, I am reluctant to add it to my already overstocked culinary library. The food seems very time consuming to make; each recipe seems to have at least two or three different components. The dishes seem to be so spectacular that they are not suitable for every day dinners at home, which is the main purpose of my cooking. However, for aspiring chefs or professional chefs, I can see that this book would be a lovely addition to their libraries as it is both well-written and creative.