Product Description

Philadelphia enjoys one of the country's most dynamic food scenes, and Marc Vetri is its top culinary talent. Mario Batali called Vetri Ristorante "possibly the best Italian restaurant on the East Coast." Vetri's refined rustic-Italian cuisine is on brilliant display in IL VIAGGIO DI VETRI. The recipes showcase the chef's soulful renditions of Italian classics, and accompanying notes by sommelier Jeff Benjamin offer lively lessons on the classic and lesser-known wines of the region. Throughout, Vetri shares tales of his cooking apprenticeship in northern Italy and shows how to bring the lessons he learned there into the home kitchen.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17750 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-01
• Released on: 2008-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781580088886
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. More than a cookbook, this debut from acclaimed Philadelphia chef/restaurateur Vetri is a guide through the particular Italian cuisine and culture on which he has based his career. In brief memoir-style essays, Vetri describes the Lombardy taverna education that transformed a struggling jazz guitarist with a keen interest in his family's native cuisine into the creator of what some critics have called America's best Italian eateries. Repaying the generosity of his mentors, Vetri opens up his kitchen, too, including his signature dishes: impossibly light spinach gnocchi, sweet onion crepes and rustic stewed rabbit over polenta. Trusty sommelier Jeff Benjamin provides wine notes for each. While Vetri presumes that the reader has a fairly sophisticated palate and an expansive amount of free time to cook, Prep Ahead and Improv tips included for many dishes invite creative variations and allow for the occasional skipped step. And as exotic as veal sweetbreads with rhubarb and crispy brain Milanese might sound, dishes like a cucumber salad spiked with ribbons of preserved lemon or salt-baked whole fish lavished in a truffle-butter sauce are relatively simple. Amateur chefs may have only dreamed of having a culinary journey like Vetri's, but with this book he has given them a reliable key to turning dream into reality. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Vetri serves as chef, owner, and eponym of Philadelphia’s celebrated Italian restaurant. His cooking has earned him accolades for its remarkable inventiveness. Although he bases his dishes on a firm foundation of Italian principles, his creativity launches them in utterly new directions, which he characterizes as his own personal journey. He credits a number of influences, principally the cooking of Bergamo, a Lombard town in the Alpine foothills. Vetri’s take on this cuisine also owes plenty to his decided sophistication. He turns cauliflower regal by pureeing it into a flan flecked with truffle. His version of classic vitello tonnato retains the tuna sauce but substitutes elaborate stuffed pork belly for the veal. Squab sauce crowns an unusual chocolate-kissed pasta. Elegant, large-format photographs enshrine both the food and cooks significant to Vetri’s education. Jeff Benjamin provides wine notes specifying the best Italian vintages. --Mark Knoblauch

Review
"Mark Vetri has the heart and soul of an ancient and serene Italian grandmother, and his cooking shares that soul with each of the guests at his perfect and delicious eponymous ristorante in Philly. Now home cooks can get a slice of that perfection with this magnificent tome of uncompromisingly excellent yet very straightforward recipes from his heart and the hearts of Italian cooks. There is no doubt in my mind that this book will be a classic for decades--an essential for anyone who wants to cook like a real Italian at home."  --Mario Batali, author of Molto Italiano
 
"If I were going to eat one Italian meal in America, it would be at Marc Vetri's place."  --Alan Richman, author of Fork It Over
 
"Like Marc Vetri's food, his new book reflects a philosophy I enthusiastically embrace: honor clarity and simplicity above all, and remain true to yourself by pouring your heart and soul into each and every effort. Marc is clearly inspiring, and when I put his book down, I couldn't decide whether to race to the kitchen or book a flight to Italy!"  --Patricia Wells, author of Vegetable Harvest

"There's a lot the restaurants Osteria and Vetri don't have in common. There's one very lucky thing they do. Both are helmed by Marc Vetri, whose enormous talents have brought him a widespread, fervent regard." --Frank Bruni, New York Times

"Mario Batali loves the place, and so does just about everyone else who's lucky enough to snag one of the 35 seats in this casual but rarefied room." --Gourmet (naming Vetri one of the top 50 restaurants in the country)

"everyone loves Marc's food, hospitality and philosophy: It's all about the cooks and the cooking. No pretension, just genius food." --Dana Corwin, Food & Wine

"Vetri takes Italian food to a new level in the United States." --Michael Bauer, San Francisco Chronicle 

"More than a cookbook, this debut from acclaimed Philadelphia chef/restaurateur Vetri is a guide through the particular Italian cuisine and culture on which he has based his career...Amateur chefs may have only dreamed of having a culinary journey like Vetri's, but with this book he has given them a reliable key to turning dream into reality."—Publisher's Weekly *Starred Review* 

Customer Reviews

great pictures
i started to really get into this book, as i spent more time going through it i noticed the book contains 23 pages of what i see as wasted, pics of marc drinking coffee, talking to someone, a fish purveyor holding a big fish, all these pics take up a full page. at my first glance of this book, skimming pages, recipes, and pics, it all looked good. then i noticed a lot of micro-green garnishes and lame pics that don't serve much of a purpose. annoying and confusing. i enjoy reading this book for short periods at a time.

Story behind Vetri
Beautiful pictures along with the story and recipees from the restaraunt and in Italy where Mark Vetri got his training..
Can't wait to try them all...

Sincerely prepared, nice to read
The name of the book attracted me first. I thought that it should be a fine book to have not just about the recipes but for also to get inspired by. It have not dissapointed me. Sincereley written with nice photos to be shared. All the dishes are prepared complately to be eaten... Thanks!