The New Cafe Beaujolais Cookbook
Recipes from the Iconic Mendocino Restaurant
Featuring lush photography and innovative recipes, Chef Julian Lopez’s The New Cafe Beaujolais Cookbook captures the history and ambiance of a popular Northern California restaurant.
Highlighting the café’s fifty-year history, the cookbook includes dishes that showcase Lopez’s “elegant but approachable” style, as well as classic recipes contributed by Margaret Fox, who owned the café for twenty-three years. Recipes from the two chefs are sometimes paired together. For example, Fox’s rustic Black Bean Chili, which captivated Julia Child in the 1980s, is followed by Lopez’s updated version using cocoa powder and chipotle cream.
The book combines Asian, Mexican, and Middle Eastern influences with a California farm-to-table focus. Breakfast items include Shakshuka, an inventive North African egg dish, and baked goods including Buttermilk Cinnamon Coffee Cake. Lunch dishes focus on salads, including a tempting Vietnamese Shrimp Salad, and thin-crust pizzas, including a creative rendition with spinach-basil pesto, lemon zest, and snap peas. Dinner options include Chinese Five-Spice Duck Breast and Mexican-style Pork and Hominy Soup.
Most of the recipes are straightforward. The fantastic Mendocino Fish Stew, for instance, relies on common pantry items, while recipes for butternut squash soup, pumpkin muffins, and halibut in parchment are simple and flavorful. “Stretch” recipes for ambitious cooks include an exquisite Cioppino and the chef’s signature Black Cod with Agnolotti, Beets, Bok Choy, and Truffle-Madeira Sauce.
The book is packed with gorgeous photographs of the dishes, as well as of the café and its verdant gardens. Sidebars profile local farms that supply its eggs, heirloom produce, and other ingredients. Throughout, Lopez includes helpful tips, as for achieving an extraordinary Pasta Bolognese, based on his work at admired restaurants in Italy and San Francisco.
Loaded with imaginative recipes for entertaining or for everyday use, The New Café Beaujolais Cookbook has the makings of a modern classic.
Reviewed by
Kristen Rabe
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
