Book review: Marcus Everyday

• Marcus Everyday by Marcus Wareing
• Harper Collins, £20

In Marcus Wareing’s eighth cookbook, Marcus Everyday, the chef shares the recipes he cooks regularly at home with his family. The book is inspired by Wareing’s move to East Sussex, where he has been tending a kitchen garden, orchard and beehives, and using the spoils in his home kitchen as well as sending the surplus to his three London restaurants: the Michelin-starred Marcus at the Berkeley in Knightsbridge, the Gilbert Scott at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel London, and Tredwells in Covent Garden.

The chef has been inspired by the experience and writes: “We sometimes forget to celebrate the humble vegetable, instead spending time sourcing and investing in a great joint of beef or other meat. I implore you to put the same effort into sourcing good-quality garden produce.”

While this is not by any means a plant-based cookbook, the vegetarian recipes featured are particularly thoughtfully considered, elevating, for example, a Jerusalem artichoke with prunes, lentils and sour cream; while a following chapter, ‘waste not, want not’, is devoted to recipes that use the entirety of the vegetable or can be used to preserve part of a successful harvest.

It would all seem almost achingly bang on, if it were not for Wareing’s obvious passion for horticulture and the fact that none of these recipes feel as though they have been rushed to page. There’s a simplicity to many of the dishes, showcasing a reverence for quality ingredients that are carefully prepared without needing the entirety of the kitchen cupboard.

The chef, who worked with co-author Chantelle Nicholson on the book, organises the recipes by the situations in which they would be eaten, such as weekday suppers, home alone, ‘in the fridge’, holiday eats or weekend dining. The result is a useable book; that can be grabbed from the shelf at the end of a long day to find a delicious, wholesome meal. It’s also been beautifully produced with photography by Susan Bell, which includes pictures of Wareing and his family enjoying the country life, all of which help to illustrate an inspiring journey from seed to plate.