The Umberto Menghi Cookbook

Toby Rupert was a librarian living in Toronto.

Menghi is the founder of Umberto’s Restaurant in Vancouver, and he now has five restaurants in the area. This collection of some 159 recipes, drawn from all of his menus, presents the full range from “antipasto” to “zabaglione.” There are lots of pasta recipes, seafood and fish concoctions, but very few desserts (only eight) and only three salads. Both imperial and metric measurements are given. The 16 colour photographs show elegant presentations, and the recipes include such interesting dishes as scallops with basil and white wine, oyster soup, or spaghettini with smoked salmon or bone marrow. The index is arranged, unfortunately, by course, which is very inconvenient since the table of contents is also arranged by course. The spiral binding allows the pages to lie flat when the book is open.