book: coco

Ten 'world-leading masters' (Gordon Ramsay, Ferran Adria, Alain Ducasse, Alice Waters, Rene Redzepi, Jacky Yu, Yoshihiro Murata, Fergus Henderson, Shannon Bennett, Mario Batali) choose one hundred contemporary chefs. The subtitle says it all.

Coco is yet another book that tries to provide an overview of the work of a lot of international chefs in a few hundred pages. Typically, these books don't work. Coco does, though, at least on a couple of levels.

I like that while some of the 100 are known--some really well known--that there aren't any glowing reports on Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller or the lovely Elena Arzak. I like all those guys and girls. I do. Really. But we know all about them. There are the books. The television shows, in some cases. The appearances on top 50 and top 100 lists. Most of the names in the list aren't household names (although there are exceptions like David Chang and Skye Gyngell), but you'll be familiar with more than you think if you've watched Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations--he's visited a lot of their restaurants (I remember seeing Alvin Leung, the demon chef, on an old episode). A couple, from memory, have appeared on the American version of Iron Chef.

Coco tries to capture as many modern trends as it can. The 100 chefs--and a couple aren't chefs at all, so maybe we should say 98 chefs and a guy who makes coffee and a lass who makes icecream--aren't just molecular-types. Each of the 'world-leading masters' focuses on a specific trend or movement. Henderson, unsurprisingly, lists in his 'top ten' chefs who focus on rustic, meaty fare such as Chris Cosentino.

Given the book's broad focus, it's nice to see a few Australian chefs and restaurants--Attica and Cutler & Co among others--make the cut.

For each of the 100 chefs there is a brief profile, a spiel from one of the 'masters' on why this person made the cut, a couple of recipes and a few photos. I've only borrowed this book, but there are a few recipes I'll be copying down to try at a later date.

The broad focus and the recipes are the book's strongest selling points. If you're after a detailed biography of each of the 100 then you probably won't like the book. If you're after the real big names, you won't like the book--some of those big names have contributed the book and, as such, aren't profiled at all (although each contributes a signature recipe) and others are mentioned only in passing (i.e. this hot new chef passed through Heston Blumenthal or Marco Pierre White or whoever's kitchen to gain experience).