The tastiest books

“Of­fi­cial“ chefs

The star chefs of Cuines, the TV show on TV3, Marc Ribas, Ges­samí Caramés and Arnau París, have just pub­lished Cuines (Ara Lli­bres), the first of­fi­cial book of the TV3 pro­gramme. The book in­cludes recipes, but also es­sen­tial tricks and tips for every­thing you need in the kitchen and at the mar­ket. The book be­gins with the pur­chase of the prod­ucts, gives tips for going to the mar­ket and buy­ing the best fresh pro­duce and or­gan­is­ing a good pantry, and even a playlist of the right songs for the kitchen... and ends with tips for a good di­ges­tion.

Let’s not for­get Carme Rus­calleda, the woman chef who has the most Miche­lin stars in the world, and who, put Sant Pol de Mar in the spot­light of all the gourmets in the world with Sant Pau (three Miche­lin stars, which she opened with her hus­band, Toni Balam). In her lat­est book, La paella pel mànec (Ara Lli­bres), Rus­calleda puts into prac­tice the tech­niques and es­sen­tial knowl­edge to cook well at home. Through the sur­pris­ing, in­no­v­a­tive and var­ied recipes for every oc­ca­sion, she doesn’t for­get the veg­e­tar­ian op­tions, starters, ac­com­pa­ni­ments and desserts. “Mod­ern nu­tri­tion­ists keep telling us that cook­ing at home is tak­ing care of your health, and that health is di­rectly re­lated to how we feel, how we move and how we eat. Let’s have fun in the kitchen and enjoy it with the ones you love the most!” says the chef, who cur­rently sec­onds her son Raül Balam in the Mo­ments restau­rant of the Man­darin Ori­en­tal hotel, with two Miche­lin stars.

An­other of the greats of Cata­lan cui­sine is Barcelona’s Car­les Gaig, born in the Horta neigh­bour­hood and who is be­hind the stove at Petit Comitè, a restau­rant on Pas­sage de la Con­cepció in Barcelona. He has just pub­lished The best recipes of Car­les Gaig (Columna), a recipe book of his best dishes, among which are the Gaig caneló with truf­fle cream, the car­di­nal mac­a­roni and the fricandó, which are al­ready clas­sics of Cata­lan cui­sine.

Ada Par­el­lada, the chef and owner of Sem­pro­ni­ana, and one of the most di­dac­tic cooks preach­ing about not wast­ing food, has also pro­duced a new book: Con­cil­iar i cuina, (Ed­i­to­r­ial Efadós), in which she rec­om­mends tak­ing your time to cook a few good meals then freeze them in order to al­ways have healthy meals at hand, stay and away from processed and un­healthy foods.

Ro­main For­nells, dis­ci­ple of Alain Ducasse, pro­poses Salsa (Plan­eta Gas­tro), an in­dis­pens­able book of sauces of all kinds by this French chef who has lived in Barcelona for many years (since 1996, when he ar­rived in the city to be sec­ond chef at the La Mai­son du Langue­doc Rous­sil­lon restau­rant). Cur­rently, he owns sev­eral restau­rants in the Cata­lan cap­i­tal, in­clud­ing Caelis, and is the gas­tro­nomic di­rec­tor of Hostal de la Gav­ina in S’Agaró.

Don’t miss Grandes éxitos de Ra­fuel (Plan­eta), the last book by Ra­fuel (Rafael Antolín), a chef who doesn’t have a restau­rant but who has be­come a real in­flu­encer after re­tire­ment, with more than half a mil­lion fol­low­ers on so­cial media. His lat­est book of­fers sim­ple recipes for those who don’t have much time to cook but want to eat well.

The Basque chef Martín Be­rasategui is also a much-loved chef in Cat­alo­nia, owner of Lasarte, the three-star Miche­lin restau­rant on C/ Mal­lorca next to Pas­seig de Gràcia, and Oria, on Pas­seig de Gràcia, which has a Miche­lin star. He has writ­ten Cocina para dis­fru­tones (Gri­jalbo), with eighty recipes “to lick your fin­gers”, as he says.

Lluc Crusel­las, the best choco­latier in the world, has pub­lished Reserva’t para a les postres (Ara Lli­bres), a man­i­festo in favour of the healthy sweet. This book teaches us to rec­og­nize good raw ma­te­r­ial, to value what we eat as well as some of his suc­cess­ful recipes. Win­ner of the World Choco­late Mas­ters award in 2022, Crusel­las tells us every­thing about choco­late and how to work with it at home.

An­other pas­try chef, Oriol Bal­a­guer, con­sid­ered one of the best mas­ter pas­try chefs in Eu­rope, fa­mous for his spec­tac­u­lar and avant-garde Easter cakes, has pub­lished Oh la la choco­lat (Plan­eta Gas­tro), ded­i­cated, as the title says, to choco­late.