The Berghoff Café Cookbook: Berghoff Family Recipes for Simple, Satisfying Food [Hardcover]

Carlyn Berghoff (Author), Nancy Ross Ryan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 18, 2009

Family is everything, and so is food when it comes to the Berghoff family. The Berghoff Cafe food and drink, originated by Herman Berghoff more than 110 years ago, is the foundation of Berghoff tradition carried on today by great-granddaughter Carlyn Berghoff. Cafe fare is simple and satisfying, nothing fancy, and not at all fussy. You can still enjoy this same kind of food today at Chicago's Berghoff Cafe, either downstairs on Adams Street or at O'Hare International Airport.

The cafe food is built upon three principles that work in the restaurant as well as at home: reuse, recycle, and reinvent. The Berghoffs reuse their basics and waste nothing, so potatoes become Mashed Potatoes, Lyonnaise Potatoes, hash browns, Potato Salad, oven-roasted potatoes, potato pancakes, Potato Soup, french fries, and Smoked Sausage and Potato Pizza. They also recycle perfectly wholesome cooked foods so Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast stars in the Turkey Reuben, but there's also enough left for the Turkey Okra and Rice Soup and more.

The eighty recipes plus variations in The Berghoff Cafe Cookbook represent the full range of Berghoff Cafe food. There are recipes from Great-grandfather Herman's cafe, updated for today's cook so they require less time and have fewer calories, alongside selections from today's cafe menu and customers' very favorite soups, salads, sandwiches, pizzas, and desserts. The recipes you'll find in this book are easy to prepare, look great on the plate, and are a pleasure to eat.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Visitors to the Windy City almost inevitably flock for lunch or dinner to the Chicago Loop’s century-old Berghoff Café. Its warm, bustling, clubby atmosphere evokes nostalgia for bygone days of hearty eating and noisy drinking in the best German-American tradition. The Berghoff’s menu has expanded over the decades, and it now serves some more sophisticated dishes. But the heart of its fare continues to be its popular soups, salads, and sandwiches. Cooks who want to reproduce their Berghoff favorites will find complete instructions here for doing so, even to baking their own pretzels or rye bread, part of whose secret turns out to be dill seed instead of more common caraway. Reinventions of classic fare include mustard-slathered sausage baked inside a crust, and popcorn-topped beer-cheese soup. Changing times have brought new dishes to the Berghoff, even pizza, here given a German accent with a topping of bratwurst and kraut. --Mark Knoblauch

About the Author

Carlyn Berghoff McClure, CEO of the Berghoff Catering and Restaurant Group, is the fourth generation to continue the Berghoff legacy of serving great food and entertaining guests. She is an author, a chef and restaurateur, a caterer, and a wife and mother. She is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and now operates out of Chicago's century-old Berghoff building, her base for off-premise catering. She also runs the restaurant, the bar, and the historic cafe, and she is the coauthor of The Berghoff Family Cookbook. She has been married for fifteen years to Jim McClure, and the couple has two daughters and a son.

Nancy Ross Ryan served as the writer for The Berghoff Family Cookbook. She is the founder of Fresh Food Writing in Chicago, Illinois, and specializes in food writing and recipe development.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing; First Edition edition (August 18, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0740785141
• ISBN-13: 978-0740785146
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #793,301 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Carlyn Berghoff, CEO of the Berghoff Catering & Restaurant Group, is the fourth generation to continue the Berghoff legacy of serving great food and entertaining guests. She is an author, a chef and restaurateur, a caterer, and a wife and mother.

She graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and now operates out of Chicago's century-old Berghoff building, her base for off-premise catering. She also runs the restaurant, bar, and the historic cafe. She lives in Chicago with her husband and three children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creative spins on comfort food classics, November 20, 2009

By 

Christopher B (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Berghoff Café Cookbook: Berghoff Family Recipes for Simple, Satisfying Food (Hardcover)

One of the first restaurants I went to once I settled here in Chicago was the historic Berghoff Restaurant. I had heard not only about their history(dating back to the late 1800s) but glowing reviews of their creamed spinach and own brand of root beer and beer.

I had purchased the first cookbook - The Berghoff Family Cookbook - which has fast become a go-to resource in my household and was elated to see that Carlyn Berghoff had released a second cookbook earlier this year. This one, the Berghoff Cafe Cookbook, is true to its title in that it offers "simple, satisfying food". Every recipe in this book reminds me of growing up and gets to the heart and soul of what makes a great meal. Chock full of easy-to-follow recipes for home cook, this book excels in that it offers tips on how to reuse and recycle ingredients into full meals that not only look delicious but are.

What's old is new again thanks to Carlyn Berghoff's tangible approach and tips for cooking at home.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars YUMMIES FOR THE TUMMY, December 9, 2009

By 

Gail K. Powers "Abra" (Harbor Country, Mi,N. Naples, FL, Chicago area) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Berghoff Café Cookbook: Berghoff Family Recipes for Simple, Satisfying Food (Hardcover)

The demise of the original Berghoff Restaurant on Adams in downtown Chicago was a blow to families who had frequented it for generations. I remember standing for two hours on crutches after knee surgery to get into the Berghoff for my 'last supper' about a week before it closed after nearly a century in continuous operation. That said, the bright spot on the horizon was when Caryn Berghoff opened a smaller operation on the same site. While the core menu items are still on the menu, the emphasis seems to be on delicious yet modern presentations. This collection of recipes focuses primarily on the Berghoff Cafe format. The recipes are fairly easy, tasty, and satisfying to a modern palate. I particularly like that I can enjoy the Berghoff w/o having to take a train and fight the crowds. I incorporated a couple of the recipes into my Thanksgiving dinner and will def. be adding more to the repertoire for Christmas. The resounding success of the dishes served at Thanksgiving has prompted me to buy 3 additional cookbooks as Christmas gifts. This cookbook makes a wonderful companion to the Berghoff Family Cookbook.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comfort Food Here!, October 27, 2009

By 

Charles G. Thompson "Charles G. Thompson" (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Berghoff Café Cookbook: Berghoff Family Recipes for Simple, Satisfying Food (Hardcover)

Family food history. A slice of Americana. Useful cooking tips. The Berghoff Café Cookbook has it all -- and more. Chef, owner, and author Carlyn Berghoff had me at 'Deviled Eggs with Three Fillings' (page 3). The three fillings: Caper Deviled Eggs, Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs, and Horseradish Deviled Eggs. These are deviled eggs redux.

This cookbook is full of recipes for things we all know well; food we have eaten with our families as children and as adults. Dishes that bring comfort and are 'simple and satisfying' like the cover promises. Ms. Berghoff starts off telling the reader how her great-grandfather came over from Germany in the late 1800s eventually opening the Berghoff Café in Chicago in 1898; and how it ended up in her hands several decades later. As she wends her way through the family history she throws in interesting historical tid bits about food, eating and dining from the early days. Like the story of a 'shot and a wash,' a riff on a boilermaker. A stein of favorite Berghoff beer with a shot of their seven-year old Berghoff bourbon thrown in. It started in previous centuries when water was impure giving whiskey a bad taste. The solution? Drop a shot glass of whiskey into a mug of beer; when drinking it the drinker caught the shot glass with their teeth, the beer masking the taste of the whiskey. The drink is still on the menu albeit updated.

When I first picked up the book I was a little unsure; I guess I am more of a food snob than I want to admit. The design, and the food and recipes inside are more traditional, more down home than where my tastes usually run in cookbooks. I've recently seen too many flashy books by well-known chefs. However, after reading through it, and trying several recipes -- the Potato Soup being a favorite -- I changed my tune. This books embodies the Midwestern lifestyle. It evokes what a downtown, local Chicago restaurant can be. It is warm and homey. Ms. Carlyn's maxim of 'reuse, recycle and reinvent' that she applies in the restaurant works perfectly in the home kitchen.

The Berghoff Café Cookbook offers recipes across the food gamut from bar snacks to paninis and pizzas to yummy desserts. Dishes like Alsatian Onion Soup, Apple Pie Squares with Cheddar Crust, and Westpahlian Ham Panini with Granny Smith Apple and Applesauce are a few of the standouts. Ms. Carlyn has updated the restaurant menu since her great-grandfather's day while also keeping his spirit and food very much alive. She calls it 'tradition with a twist,' and I'd say that is quite apt.

I'd recommend this book to anyone looking for straightforward, comfort food pure and simple. It's all there. Nothing fancy; nothing pretentious. The next meal I want to prepare is from the Daily Specials section: Classic Salisbury Steak with Mushroom Jus Lié and Spaetzle. Salisbury steak is a dish my Nebraska born grandmother made often when I was growing up. Comfort food.