Since 90s, the number of culinary theme titles has been “leavened” to use the same culinary language. The main characters of these stories are chef, gastronomic critics, authors of cookbooks, confectioners or simply lovers of cooking, ovens and cookers and then glasses of good wine, as fixed extras.

And just about books and food we asked Stefano Bondi, soul of Zà Zà restaurant, to tell us what for him was the most significant one:

“The first word I spoke when I was a child was “pappa” (way of saying that means “food”) no one, among my parents or friends could have ever thought that that word would have marked so indelibly my body and my soul since that time because i spent my whole life with cookers and wood and coal embers. This journey began with the recipes of my grandmother Ines, my aunt Giuliana and my mother Mara, and thanks to them today Zà Zà restaurant, that i manage from more than forty years, has become one of the most appreciated typical places in the world.

In my forty-three years of work, I traveled a lot, to understand what was happening outside my city and my country, stealing ideas, colors, atmospheres and more, looking for markets and dusty stands full of old books at the search for the magic volume, the volume that could make me say: “here it is”. But the more I bought, the more I read; the more I compared and the more I convinced myself that mine was the right path, the one that respected the kitchen of the grandmothers and of mothers.

Often in leafing through old ones, but also new cookbooks, I realized, with pleasure and displeasure at the same time, that many, but many of them were mere traces of previous publications, and even worse, sometimes, even badly copied, thought a bit.

Now, when happens  that I’m on a break from work, I love to rummage through the shelves of my studio in countless numbers of covers and titles, trying to remember the place and the time when I bought this volume.

Just one of these mornings i found one of those books, published by Sansoni in ’93 entitled “A Table with History”, written by Maria Luisa Minarelli and printed by Lito, of my dear friend Roberto Terrazzi and i walked, with this story, inside a splendid journey, fragrant and fascinating, of the evolution of taste over the years.”

Finally, the beautiful book of Stefano Bondi, which is not just a cookbook, it is a book of love and memories. The Central Market Square, the opening of Trattoria Zà Zà, the recipes of his mother and his aunt, the meetings with celebrities, the comments about dishes, the ways of speaking. And then, of course, the recipes: from appetizers to desserts, up to homemade liqueurs and syrups.

The cookbook, with some of the best dishes of the Zà Zà restaurant, is illustrated and full of 187 original recipes in 235 color pages, with hardcover and relief print. For sale on the Zà Zà online shop, click here.