Customer Reviews

Francesco's Kitchen: An Intimate Guide to the Authentic Flavours of Venice

5 star:		(2)
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3 star:		(1)
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This is a wonderful new book by Francesco da Mosto and certainly up to the standard of his previous publications. But this is not just a book of traditional Venetian recipes and pretty pictures. There are pages on life in the 18th. century Palazzi of Venice and four pages devoted to the humble fork. The origins of ingredients used in Venetian cooking are discussed in detail together with the variety of seafood found in the lagoon. I am sure you will be transported to the Grand Canal whenever you open this book, but that is not to say that the dining experiences on that fabled waterway are anywhere near as wonderful as Francesco shows they could be!

I discovered this super TV Host on BBC while on a trip to Europe and now we can enjoy him in America. His travel series is wonderful and this cookbook is one of my gifts for the holiday.

I recommend all of his books & also the TV Series which was on the Travel Channel recently-all of them go together & carry me to Italy. His personality is so charming & he takes you via the sportscar, the boat & now the kitchen to another world. What fun!

Wonder if his ancestral Venetian home is open for tours??

I loved all of his TV series which I bought from the Amazon UK site and continue to watch on my computer. But this book - it has pluses and minuses. Most of the dishes are indeed quite different from the rest of Italy. The featurettes written about various topics are great. Sadly there is only one fish soup, which may be the purist's favorite and uniquely Venetian, but my experience in Venice is that there are indeed many fish soups there and it is really a highlight of Venetian food so I was disappointed that there was only one recipe and it's not one I can really try since the fish included are so unique to the region. (I live in the SF Bay Area). But the most disappointing thing is the photographs or the printing. One expects to be inspired by the photos of the food and this is alas not the case with this book. I am thinking of returning it.