A Seasoned Chef: Recipes and Remembrances from the Chef and Former Co-owner of New York’s Famous Le Cirque Restaurant.

VERGNES, Jean.

$225.00

Item Number: 146515

New York: Donald I. Fine, Inc, 1987.

First edition of the autobiography of legendary chef Jean Vergnes, the author’s personal copy. Octavo, original boards, illustrated. From the library of Jean Vergnes and thence by descent. Jean Vergnes was a classically trained and highly acclaimed French chef, best-known as the co-founder and original co-owner along with Sirio Maccion of the famed Manhattan eatery Le Cirque, which opened in 1974. Vergnes had a major influence on American restaurant culture for more than four decades. He began his career working as a chef at various top restaurants in Paris during World War II, with a brief stop in Bermuda before moving to the United States in 1950. Classically trained in the French tradition, he was soon working in the kitchen of the Waldorf-Astoria, then as the youngest executive chef of the legendary Colony Restaurant, and finally as co-founder of Le Cirque, one of the most dazzling culinary jewels of New York since its opening in 1974. From 1986 to 1992, Daniel Boulud was executive chef of Le Cirque and in 1995, it was awarded the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Restaurant. Very good in a very good dust jacket. Jacket design by Bob Aulicino.

A Seasoned Chef not only offers a rare glimpse at the painstaking process by which one becomes a master chef, but also presents a sterling collection of superb recipes from a brilliant culinary artist. "Only a first rate professional like Jean Vergnes is capable of writing a cookbook with such simplicity and clarity" (Edward Giobbi, author of Italian family cookbook).