It's a fascinating, easy read about the origins of dishes that have become part of the culinary vernacular... It's a celebration of dishes that define cultures, eras and peoples."— The Globe & Mail Part recipe book, part travel guide and part encyclopaedia, this hefty tome attempts to identify the 200 key dishes that have shaped modern gastronomy. We start with the arrival of ice cream for the masses, with the opening of Le Procope café in Paris in 1686, and progress via Auguste Escoffier's peach melba at the Savoy hotel in the 1890s and Heston Blumenthal's snail porridge to end with Tomos Parry's whole grilled turbot at Brat in London. The ultimate foodie's I-Spy book."— Tony Turnbull, The Times Our new book Signature Dishes That Matteris a global celebration of the iconic restaurant creations that defined the course of culinary history over the past 300 years. However, not every inclusion in the book is entirely new.

A history of gastronomy, told through the most iconic restaurant dishes from the past three centuries... It is both a landmark cookbook and a fascinating cultural history of dining out."― Yes Chef magazine Read on to discover how his culinary and artistic skills landed him work with the world’s premier global publisher of the creative arts, which dishes he experimented with to get his style right, and which ones proved the hardest to reproduce. Imagine a food world without avocado toast, gelato, the cronut or popular classics like the Margherita pizza, the Cesar salad or nachos ... Each iconic dish is illustrated in hand-painted watercolours by renowned artist and trained chef Adriano Rampazzo with text giving the historical context of each dish. Take a look at the gallery below: a reference book can double as a coffee-table book [that] consists of dozens of vignettes, each offering a chronicle of 'the iconic restaurant dishes that defined the course of culinary history'."― Eater

Publishers Text

Here’s how this casual, Australian breakfast dish became a symbol of the 21st century wellness movement The gastronomic equivalent of an author finding their voice, a signature dish can often be, according to writer Mr Mitchell Davis, shorthand for a chef's particular style... Spanning different eras, geographies and genres, it paints an effective portrait of food culture through the ages."― Mr Porter Yet, as our book argues, the dish also spread beyond the confines of Bill’s own cafes, thanks to his homeland’s peripatetic population. Granger made this dish a global phenomenon when the twenty-two-year-old cook with no formal restaurant experience put it on the menu of his tiny café in 1993,” explains our book, Signature Dishes That Matter. “Though Granger might sometimes be blamed for the plight of millennials who are deferring their student loans to support their attachment to all things avocado, things might have been very different if it hadn’t been for an unfortunate landlord in need of a tenant. Part cookbook, part travel guide, part historical record this fascinating book charts the most iconic dishes from the past three centuries... Each dish is printed alongside a hand-drawn illustration, making it a stylish coffee table book, too."— BBC Good Food

A handsome, heavyweight volume with marbled endpapers and gilt lettering, Signature Dishes That Matter falls somewhere between a cookbook and an encyclopaedia... Illustrated in understated watercolour - a quaint analogue antidote to the proliferation of #foodporn on social media."― The Telegraph With 237 plates by 207 chefs in 26 countries over the span of three centuries, Signature Dishes That Matter reveals food to be more than sustenance and more than art - it tells the story of what it means to be human."― National Post Cronut®, Dominique Ansel, Dominique Ansel Bakery, United States, 2013 INTERVIEW: Adriano Rampazzo on drawing Signature Dishes His limited staff and kitchen made simple dishes that any cook could replicate a necessity. And because Sydney is essentially a beach town where people are conscious about looking good in a bathing suit, the food had to be healthy. So, Granger arranged avocado quarters on toasted slices of sourdough bread and added lime juice, olive oil, chili flakes, and cilantro (coriander). The dish—and his restaurant—soon became so popular that he opened other locations in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as London, Tokyo, Seoul, and Hawaii.” Nor can we deny the negative impact such elevated status might convey,” Davis goes on. “In Bangkok, Jay Fai’s remarkable Crab Omelet was a sought-after signature long before Michelin anointed her stall with one of their coveted stars. Though the attention was welcome recognition of a lifetime’s hard work, the impact has been a lot to bear. Likewise, at Jiro Ono’s legendary sushi restaurant in Tokyo, the demand for tables is so great that they have had to suspend reservations altogether for the foreseeable future.”There’s something distinctly Australian about Bill Granger and his avocado toast. While other US and European chefs slave away at their ovens and stoves to cook up something truly spectacular, this young, handsome Aussie just threw together a couple of healthy, tasty kitchen ingredients to meet a simple demand for healthy breakfasts among the body-conscious diners of Sydney – and help pay the rent. Such details are the point of Signature Dishes, which Mitchell Davis, in the introduction, calls a “history lesson, travel guide, and cookbook.” Another contributor, journalist Diego Salazar, explains that he identified signature dishes by a handful of criteria. Not only does the dish need to have thrived outside its restaurant and country of origin, he writes, but “the dish has to have influenced other cooks: either to make their own version of it” or as inspiration for their own cooking process. Pierre Hermé’s Ispahan macarons launched a luxury-food empire. A fascinating read... An invaluable resource for chefs who want to learn more about the history of the world of cuisine and is perfect for dipping into."― The Caterer Nor was the dish especially hard to make or serve. "Placed under the broiler (grill), the sugars caramelize into an amber shell while insulating the fish from overcooking,” the book explains. “The cod’s simplicity and spare presentation — placed simply on a banana leaf with miso dots and ginger — meant that as the restaurant spread across the world, a cook in Dubai could make it taste exactly as another in London or Kuala Lumpur.”