POLPO: A Venetian Cookbook (Of Sorts)

Product Information

A luscious cookbook of little known Venetian specialties from one of London's hottest restaurants, accompanied by luminous photographs. The best place to drink a spritz, the city's signature aperitif, is outdoors at the Caffè Rosso in the Campo Santa Margherita. You can tell that the square is close to the university, because it's full of noisy students. This, Russell says, is "where I downed gallons of spritz on my research trips; the spritz at Polpo is based exactly on their recipe. It's scruffy, studenty – the loos are disgusting. I love it".

I lost my hardcover edition of this book and I just bought the kindle version because I missed it so much. The subtitle of this book is "A Venetian Cookbook (Of Sorts)" is perfect because the book contains many recipes that lovers of Italian foods from other regions of Italy will recognize and love, but the many photos of Venice, along with the "Gazetteer" and list of cafes and restaurants at the book's end, will have every lover of that city pining away for it. First, the book's construction and print quality are over the top. It's in the tradition of the finest bookbinder's craft. The book is constructed with lay-flat, saddle-stitched binding. Cookbooks will not typically lay flat when they are opened. That's a problem for texts that are referred to often, like a cookbook. You want those kinds of books to lay flat on your counter. The mozzarella bocconcini - mozzarella dipped in breadcrumbed and deep fried were interesting. The mozzarella just melted out and I had to cut the ball in half as it was quite chewy. In a large mixing bowl, place the yogurt, 300g of the caster sugar and the lightly beaten eggs. Stir in the cooled butter.You could also fry the meatballs (in fact the NYT recipe suggests that)or if you cooked them for longer they could just cook in the broth. To go along with it, we made the lamb and pistachio meatballs, as they were a little unusual and putting them in the oven took out the messy job of frying them off in a pan. They are moreish bite-sized of yummyness. Definitely worth making. Roast Potatoes & Rosemary - a little bit of additional work is required but it makes for a creamy on the inside and crispy on the outside result. So good. Russell Norman is a restaurateur. Over the last 20 years he has worked in many of London's landmark restaurants as a waiter, bartender, maître d', general manager and operations director. In 2009 he founded an independent restaurant company with his best friend and has since opened eight restaurants in central London including Polpo, Spuntino and Mishkin's. His book POLPO: A Venetian Cookbook (of Sorts) and was voted Waterstones Book of the Year 2012. In 2014 he presented The Restaurant Man, a six-part prime-time documentary for BBC2, and his second book SPUNTINO: Comfort Food, New York Style will be published in September 2015. And as if that unique and beautiful detail wasn't enough, there are full color images of the dishes, and they are gorgeous! Absolutely swoon worthy. The recipes themselves are mouthwatering and not too complicated, surprisingly! I think most can be easily followed by any intermediate home chef. The ingredients are accessible for the most part and not so outlandish and bougie that you'd have to make a trek to a specialty shop for them, but the combinations are ingenious.

One thing to note, however, is that the measurements in the book are metric. In the non-digital version, it was easy to make hand-written notes next to the amounts but that is neither as easy nor as practical to do in the digital version. At least not as far as I have discovered.However, one of the main reasons that I love Polpo is because it's a 'small plate' place, where you mix several dishes between everyone. But while I love eating out that way, it's certainly not very easy to recreate at home. I have managed to put together mezze meals before with the help of a friend or two, but it's always rather stressful. So while I'm very happy to try out a lot of the recipes in this book, I think I'll enjoy leaving the complete Polpo experience to the experts... Basic Tomato Sauce - this is a delicious one. Make a lot to keep on hand for itself and for other recipes. The Gnocchi - I can't believe I made gnocchi that was so easy and so light on the first try. Why would I ever buy it again? The consultancy researched old Venetian books and typography, before developing a design with a stripped-away spine, which uses the Venetian typeface – but only type sizes that would have existed in letterpress printing.

I love this kind of Thai soup/pho kind of thing .... it’s always a crowd pleaser, it’s easy to adapt to what you have and you can easily dial up or down flavours or chilli heat to suit your audience and your store cupboard. It’s also pretty healthy. I made it last night and the response was pretty good. The restaurants in Venice have an appalling reputation." So says London restaurateur Russell Norman, whose Venetian-style bacaro, Polpo, opened in 2009. It was so successful that he's opened four more restaurants since then and has another on the way.

My trip to one of the world's most romantic cities was inspired by the least romantic of situations: a boys' night out in Soho, London, the kind that ends up in a random curry house before falling asleep on the night bus. On this night, however, we fell, quite by chance, into Polpo ( see Jay Rayner's review), a relatively new restaurant that appeared to be some kind of tapas bar, was lively and not too pricey – yes, this would do. Here at The Happy Foodie, we’re somewhat obsessed with cookbooks. Can you tell us a bit about your favourites? Drinks - The Negronis, a spritz, a Bellini and the Elderflower Lemonade fully cover my desires in this department. A visit to Venice notwithstanding, this cookbook is the next best thing. The unfussy, generally easy, and wonderfully delicious recipes evoke not only the flavors of Venice, but capture the languorous atmosphere of the city as well.

The chef is Bruno, but you should ask for his co-owner, Luca," he said. "And bag an evening table – they only have 23 seats. The food there is the best in Venice. In fact, it might be the best in Italy." At €180 for two, including wine and tip, it was the most expensive meal we ate all week: fresh, simple and worth every cent. Start with the razor clams.Praline creative director David Tanguy says, ‘We wanted to create a book which felt at the same time old and contemporary, capturing both the spirit of the real Venice and the unfussy charm of Polpo and its location in London’s Soho.’ Spread In place of a spine, the book’s binding is revealed – with stitching in bright green. Praline says the decision to remove the spine was also a practical one, as it allows the book to be laid out flat in the kitchen. Spread