Family Table: Favorite Staff Meals from Our Restaurants to Your Home

An excellent array of easy recipes with easily had ingredients. Nothing exotic or fancy; just beautiful, flavorful, delicious recipes perfect for the home cook. Great photos and engaging stories about various staff members across this restaurant group.

This is a great cookbook for simple, inexpensive recipes (for the most part). The nature of family meals is that they'll serve a lot of people, and cheaply. It's great for that.If you like/know Danny Meyer's restaurants, you get all kinds of great stories about the kitchen, the staff, history, etc.Some of the recipes are slightly more complex than I would have hoped, but they've been delicious. One example is the lasagna. It took hours to prepare but yielded two massive lasagnas and lots of leftovers!If you like this cookbook, try Ferran Adria's The Family Meal. The recipes have quantities for 2, 6 or 25 people. I wish Michael Romano had done this too!

I added this cookbook to my many because it has interesting recipes that aren't too complicated and uses ingredients you'll likely have in your larder. Because it showcases what staff eats before or after service at the various restaurants, you see how the cooks can put together a staff meal by using what's at hand at the moment. The recipes reflect the diversity of the kitchen staff and some of my favorites? An addictive Soba salad with miso dressing, smoked fish and chopped egg salad, pushcart chicken, among many others. The book's photos give you a bird's eye tour of restaurant kitchens, staff at work, as well as finished dishes. I gifted the book to many of my cooking pals.

Not just a cookbook, this is a thoroughly enjoyable visit to and with the family at some of the best known restaurants in New York, including Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern and The Modern. We are introduced to various members of the family via anectdotal biographical sketches throughout the book, which are informative and amusing and offer a "behind the scenes" visit to Danny Meyer's restaurants, collectively known as Union Square Hospitality Group. The family is comprised of the staff and the family table refers to the shared meals they prepare twice each day. The dishes encompass a variety of cuisines, reflecting the diverse background of those preparing them. The book has numerous photographs throughout, both of the family members and of the foods they have prepared. Each dish is introduced and is followed by the recipe. The recipes range from soup to desserts, with a few non-alcoholic drinks. It is to be noted that the recipes are well written, easy to follow and use readily available ingredients. Some will be familiar to the reader as variations on foods from their own family experience. The average home cook should have no trouble preparing most of the dishes. I am anticipating trying many, if not most of the recipes. I can't wait to try Mama Romano's Lasagna! It is different from mine and the variations my Italian in-laws make. In the dessert chapter, two caught my eye: Beignets, which I used to make (mine was a New Orleans recipe) - it is nice to see them included, and Streusel-Swirl Coffee Cake, a variation on an old recipe so poorly copied by box mixes. Oh - did I mention the Lemon Bars? You just have to buy the book! I have enjoyed dining in several of the restaurants; it is nice to "meet" the family who have been my hosts. The book is a pleasure to read; I recommend it for those who enjoy cooking, those who enjoy eating and tose who enjoy reading about food! I would be remiss not to note the binding - the cover appears meant to be used in the kitchen - spills will wipe off; the book is well bound and the publisher does use quality paper. The book is published in the U.S. - many are not!

This is a wonderful cookbook. My husband and I kept checking it out from the library because we enjoyed it so much - I think it spent more time at our house than on the library shelf. I finally just bought it. These are family-style recipes served to staff at some great restaurants, so they are delicious but not incredibly expensive or fancy. We've made more meals out of this than any other cookbook we own, and still have several more that we look forward to trying.

It is only the very rare cookbook that I want to cook my way through, from start to finish, and this book earns that medal. It contains an amazing array of inventive dishes, but few of them are complicated or downright exotic; I'd compare most of the fare to updated, forward-thinking comfort food. Drawing on a pool of talent as broad as this collection of chefs, it is no surprise that the details and the thinking behind each recipe is top-grade. So far, I've made the Bacon & Egg Fried Rice, and the Asparagus Gratin. Both were flavorful, and more importantly, successful with my family. Now, on to the rest! One other note: the sidebars and one-page profiles of the relevant cooks and professionals really brings you into Union Square Hospitality Group's world and their approach to cooking. Highly recommended!

The recipes are easy to make and full of flavor. Many vegetable recipes either solely vegetarian or including a meat that supplements but does not dominate the dish. The profiles of the individual staff members at the restaurants are very well written, interesting, and informative; and makes for enjoyable armchair reading on their own.

A really good and informative book well written and with good photos. The Union Square Cafe is must on my first night in NY every time I go,as I live in the UK that is not often enough.

great purchase - as described and arrived early

I first uploaded an excerpt on my Ipad thru the Kindle storeI then was billed the full book for reasons that I still do not fully understandThere is no way to complain, so I decided to enjoy it but the experience was bitterI'd like someone from customer care to come back to me please