A New Napa Cuisine

"The debut cookbook from the head chef at the three-Michelin-starred Restaurant at Meadowood, featuring nearly 100 recipes and spotlighting the artisans, gardeners, and growers, as well as the hidden landscapes of Napa Valley, that have influenced and inspired Kostow's unparalleled cuisine. A philosophy major with no formal culinary training, Christopher Kostow is not your typical Napa Valley chef. While there are many popular restaurants in Napa and cookbooks about its chefs, restaurants, and cooking styles, there is no chef who is more deeply rooted in and affected by the place in which he works. Beyond the Vineyard will follow Kostow's evolution from a line cook in a seaside town to a three-Michelin-starred chef at Meadowood, a Napa Valley mainstay that the Wall Street Journal recently labeled a "world class culinary splurge" and "temple of modern American cuisine." Through artfully constructed recipes and stories--of discovering a bounty of wild ingredients in the woods near his St. Helena home, or spending afternoons firing pottery with local ceramists--Kostow introduces readers to a new Napa, one that's rich in local flavor and a strong sense of community"--

CHRISTOPHER KOSTOW is head chef at The Restaurant at Meadowood, which earned three Michelin stars and four stars in the San Francisco Chronicle under his leadership. He worked as sous chef under Daniel Humm at Campton Place in San Francisco before becoming executive chef at Chez TJ in Mountain View, California, where he earned two Michelin stars. Kostow was awarded the James Beard Award for Best Chef: West in 2013 and named one of Food & Wine's Best New Chefs 2009.