THE COOKBOOK
PHOTOGRAPHS: KAREN BARNES
The Palomar Cookbook
(£25; Mitchell Beazley)
TESTED BY Susan Low
The Palomar Restaurant in London’s Soho opened in 2014 to a flurry of acclaim. The chefs and owners share an Israeli/Jewish diaspora background, and the restaurant mixes up the various Jewish cooking traditions, throwing in a few European and British influences for good measure. The food is creative, exciting and eclectic. It’s not, however, Kosher, as a flick-through of the book reveals ‘bad Jew kreplach’ (minced pork) and shellfish dishes. I ate at Palomar soon after it opened.
I loved the buzz and wanted to eat everything on the menu; it was a similar experience trying to choose a couple of recipes to road test. But it’s not just that they all sound tempting, it’s also that they have an annoying habit of cross-referencing other recipes, so a dish that looks relatively straightforward turns out to be complicated – you might first need to make garlic confit, cured lemon paste, harissa…