One thing first: This book is not for beginners.

At least not if you not only want to leaf through the more than 300 lavishly designed and illustrated pages, but also actually want to cook the 75 dishes described.

Because then things can get quite demanding, for example when Nils Henkel serves lamb's lettuce balls with lime meringue and cream cheese chips as an amuse gueule, dehydrated watermelon with almond kernels, cream cheese and lemon verbena as a hearty starter or black cherry with corn, porcelana chocolate and spruce needles as a dessert.

Such creations are likely to push even experienced amateur cooks to their limits.

But nobody should be put off because this great collection of recipes is much more than just a cookbook.

Peter Badenhop

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Basically, “Flora” published by Hampp-Verlag is something of a legacy.

The quintessence of what one of the best and most prominent chefs in the country has been up to over the past ten to twelve years, captivating and unusually vividly staged by the food photographer Wonge Bergmann.

Or better: half of it.

The other, "Fauna", formed the other part of this culinary universe and certainly offers more than enough material for another book of this kind.

Henkel once became known as the deputy and successor to three-star chef Dieter Müller in the Schlosshotel Lerbach in Bergisch Gladbach, where it offered its first vegetable menu more than a decade ago - at a time when the vegetarian boom in gourmet cuisine was still going strong was unthinkable. At Schwarzenstein Castle in the Rheingau, where he was also immediately awarded two stars by the Michelin Guide, he then developed this concept further and served his “Flora” and “Fauna” menus to the guests. The most important creations from all these years can now be found in the present work, and there are also some of them that are served at his new place of work, the non-star restaurant “Bootshaus” in the hotel “Papa Rhein” in Bingen .

A wonderful treasure trove for every interested and ambitious hobby cook is "Flora", which, unlike many other star cookbooks, does not have an annoying personality cult, especially because apart from the recipes with a large variety of combinations and preparation methods it is a remarkable source of inspiration can.

In addition, there is an impressive collection of over 70 pages of very understandably described basic recipes, which alone justifies the purchase of the book, which weighs more than two kilograms.

FLORA, Nils Henkel, Hampp-Verlag Stuttgart 2021, 320 pages, 95 euros