Today's Special

All you need to know about Today’s Special

Get to know 100 of the most exciting rising-star chefs from around the world — as selected by 20 culinary masters

Are you ready to take up a seat again at a table in one of the world’s great, exciting, forward-thinking restaurants? OK, OK, you might not be able to do that quite just yet, but Today’s Special does offer you a taste of something like it.

The book profiles 100 of the best emerging chefs from around the world. Each is chosen by a panel of 20 leading names from the world of international gastronomy, including José Andrés, Yotam Ottolenghi and Daniela Soto-Innes.

 

Jordan Kahn, Vespertine, Culver City, Los Angeles, CA, USA.  Live Scallop, Balsam Fir, Smoked Bone Marrow
Jordan Kahn, Vespertine, Culver City, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Live Scallop, Balsam Fir, Smoked Bone Marrow

The featured chefs include a few figures that serious followers of gastronomy may already be familiar with, such as Pía León, the wife and business partner of the Peruvian chef Virgilio Martinez; Paul Carmichael, of Momofuku Seiōbo, in Sydney, Australia; and Jeremiah Stone & Fabián von Hauske Valtierra, of Contra and Wildair in New York City.

Others are notable, but pretty obscure, such as a fiery hot dream team, Carla Perez-Gallardo and Hannah Black, of Lil’ Deb’s Oasis in Hudson, New York State; they met in 2014 while working at a Vietnamese food truck in the Catskills.

 

Carla Perez-Gallardo and Hannah Black, Lil' Deb's Oasis, Hudson, NY, USA
Carla Perez-Gallardo and Hannah Black, Lil' Deb's Oasis, Hudson, NY, USA

Each profile features an authoritative overview, and a menu of recipes, for readers to marvel over, or perhaps recreate at home. Some, such as Chicago chef Diana Dávila’s recipe for guacamole, are pretty easy to follow and execute; other inclusions, such as Californian chef Jordan Kahn’s recipe for a savoury cookie with roasted yeast, blackcurrant and hyacinth, are a bit more difficult to prepare.

 

Eldad Shmueli, Elchanan Bread Culture, Parkes Hanna-Karkur, Israel. Butcher Block Breakfast
Eldad Shmueli, Elchanan Bread Culture, Parkes Hanna-Karkur, Israel. Butcher Block Breakfast

There are selections, such as Eldad Shmueli’s butcher block breakfast, which are the kind of things we could all see ourselves indulging in at home; others, such as Pía Leóns’ Squash And Crustaceans—Loche, River Prawn, Bitter Orange, make us long for a table at a great contemporary restaurant with a skilled chef in the kitchen.

Rather than Googling for good tips or picking out newspaper reviews, you could even use Today’s Special to plan a future big dinner date, when things get a little easier. You see, when it comes to picking culinary winners, Phaidon has form. Today’s Special draws inspiration from the best-selling 2009 book, Coco, which featured then little-known chefs such as Skye Gyngell, Alex Atala and David Chang.

 

Today's Special
Today's Special

Keen followers of today’s star chefs will take delight in surveying this selection of bright new prospects; home cooks will enjoy recreating a menu drawn up from these new talents; those who might feel as if their kitchen routine has grown a little stale over the past few months will welcome the fresh influx of ideas and inspiration Today’s Special provides; and, of course, restaurant goers missing the buzz of a fresh menu or new opening will find the next best thing in this book. To find out more and order your copy take a look at Today's Special in our store.