Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

This companion volume to the PBS-TV series of the same name is a paean to French cookery and culture. Despite the puffery and snobbishness, gourmets and Francophiles should enjoy food critic Millau's chatty, anecdotal gastronomic tour, as well as the culinary creationsi.e., fillet of venison with red wine and raspberries; truffle ravioli with wild mushroom cream sauce; sea urchins with artichokes. More than 150 sumptuous color photographs illustrate the volume, and works of art like striped bass in pastry and chocolate mousse squares rival the Art Nouveau interior of Maxim's of Paris, also depicted. Unfortunately, instructions for the complicated recipes are adequate but terse, and readers may have trouble duplicating the dramatic effects. Restaurant addresses and telephone numbers, a guide to selecting wines for specific dishes, and an overview of recent Bordeaux and Burgundy vintages are included. 60,000 first printing; BOMC premium selection; author tour. (July 1) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Christian Millau was born Christian Dubois-Millot on December 28, 1928 in Paris, France. After taking courses at Sciences Po, a university for political science, he decided on a career in journalism. He worked at Opéra, a literary journal, and as a deputy editor of Paris-Presse, an afternoon newspaper. He and Henri Gault wrote a Paris guidebook entitled Guide Julliard de Paris. This lead to a series of guidebooks. In 1969, they started Le Nouveau Guide Gault-Millau, a monthly magazine filled with restaurant reviews. In 1972, the guide was also published in book form. They sold the guide to the magazine Le Point in 1983.

Millau wrote several books including Paris Told Me: The Fifties, End of an Era; Greetings from the Gulag: Secrets of a Family; A Lover's Gastronomic Dictionary; and Rude Journal: 2011-1928. Galloping with the Hussars: In the Literary Whirlwind of the Fifties received the French Academy's grand prize for biography in 1999. He died on August 5, 2017 at the age of 88.

(Bowker Author Biography)