The Zuni Café Cookbook
A Compendium of Recipes and Cooking Lessons from San Francisco's Beloved Restaurant
7 January 2003
Description
A James Beard Foundation 2022 Cookbook Hall of Fame Inductee
One of Food & Wine's 35 Best Cookbooks of All Time, According to Chefs
For twenty-four years, in an odd and intimate warren of rooms, San Franciscans of every variety have come to the Zuni Café with high expectations and have rarely left disappointed.
In The Zuni Café Cookbook, a book customers have been anticipating for years, chef and owner Judy Rodgers provides recipes for Zuni's most well-known dishes, ranging from the Zuni Roast Chicken to the Espresso Granita. But Zuni's appeal goes beyond recipes. Harold McGee concludes, "What makes The Zuni Café Cookbook a real treasure is the voice of Zuni's Judy Rodgers," whose book "repeatedly sheds a fresh and revealing light on ingredients and dishes, and even on the nature of cooking itself." Deborah Madison (Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone) says the introduction alone "should be required reading for every person who might cook something someday."
Reviews
"Bursting with wisdom from every page…Even if it only contained her influential manifesto on salting meats, The Zuni Cafe Cookbook would still be name-checked by countless working cooks as the one book they’d save from a burning kitchen." — Kevin Pang, AV Club
"This year's best cookbook—the one people are still likely to be talking about, and cooking from, 20 years down the line.... Just opening this book up is like plunking down the needle on one of those old LP's that tells you, on first listen, that you've made a friend you're going to keep for the rest of your life." — New York Times
"Authenticity, roots, craft; recipes deft as short stories. If you're buying only one, this is it." — Newsweek, "Year's Ten Best in Food"
"This marriage of seasoned European sensibility and California café culture is the best of both worlds, and it's the reason why you should rush out and buy this book." — Christopher Kimball, Cook's Illustrated
"Perhaps more valuable than anything else in Judy Rodgers' impressive The Zuni Café Cookbook is the wisdom of her detailed writings, present in recipes from a simple crostini to an elaborate multi-step braise. Rodgers' understated sensibilities, borne of many years of cooking, illuminate the book's creative composition and leave the reader with not just a great set of recipes, but with an education, too." — Fine Cooking
"Better than the cuisine, though, is the writing—and how many restaurant cookbooks can you say that about? Even the recipes are a joy to read." — Russ Parsons, Los Angeles Times
"The Zuni Café Cookbook was the best reviewed cookbook in 2002. The critics love Rodgers's writing, some claiming that the introductory section alone should be required reading for anyone who ever wants to cook....Rodgers has helped define California cuisine, and this cookbook captures it well." — Bookmarks, five star review
Awards
Winner — International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook Award, 2003
Winner — James Beard Foundation Book Award, 2003
