Coi: Stories and Recipes

At Coi (rhymes with foie) in San Francisco, Patterson articulated a highly personal cuisine that used the best California ingredients, a mix of traditional and modern technique, and a culinary frame of reference that extends from Japan to Russia to France to Mexico.

We’ve never seen a chef so painstaking and intriguing in his explanations of the sources of his inspiration for individual dishes, as well as their evolutions.

Beautiful photographs reproduce both the food and the local environments that inspire the chef, and aha! moments pop up every few pages. This is not food you have seen countless other chefs executing: Dungeness crab and beef tendon soup with Asian pear and finger lime; pink grapefruit salad with ginger, tarragon, cognac, and black pepper; carrots roasted in coffee beans with crème fraiche, oats, and cilantro.

Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.