The Harry's Bar Cookbook: Recipes and Reminiscences from the World-Famous Venice Bar and Restaurant

by Harry Cipriani

Book Overview

A delectable collection of nearly 200 recipes from the legendary restaurant Harry's Bar

There is only one Harry's Bar. Located on Venice's Calle Vallaresso, near the Piazza San Marco, this restaurant has been the meeting place for artists, writers, royalty, maestros, divas, celebrities, the very rich, and lots of ordinary--but very wise--Americans and Europeans for over five decades. In The Harry's Bar Cookbook, Arrigo Cipriani...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553070304
• ISBN13: 9780553070309
• Release Date: October 1991
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 2.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 8.3" x 10.4"

Customer Reviews

Absolutely incredible Italian cookbook

I have been a serious student of cooking for the past 25 years. I have focused on Italian cooking for 10 of the last 25 years after my first trip to Italy. Harry's Bar in Venice is one of those places that everyone wants to visit at least once. The restaurant does not disappoint and neither does the cookbook. If I had to pair down my Italian cookbook collection (which is now well over 50 cookbooks) this book would be in my top 5. Each recipe in the book that I have tried has been perfect. Even if you normally tinker with recipes, as I usually do, try these just as they are written at least once. I don't think that you will be disappointed. I appreciate the fact that the book is authentic, as opposed to the Italian-American books that are normally available in America. This book is packed full of fabulous recipes, each one better than the last. The pictures of the recipes are beautiful as the photos of Venice. This book will be a wonderful addition to anyone's cookbook collection. This would also make a fabulous gift for a lover of either Italy or cooking.

A Classic

This is a great book. Not only does it capture the spirit of the famous Venetian bar at a fraction of the cost of an actual visit, the recipes are surprisingly easy and, for the most part, quite manageable by the home cook. There are very few hard to find ingredients, the methods are mostly straight forward, and the results most pleasing. Arrigo Cipriani stresses the Harry's is indeed a bar, and not primarily a fine dining restaurant. This does not mean that the food is not fine, rather it means that the food is very fresh, typical, simple Italian fare. The sort of food that has made the many cuisines of Italy so popular all over the world. The recipes give readers the opportunity to reproduce this type of food wherever they live. If you wish to be vicariously transported to Venice, with some minimal cooking and cocktail mixing competence you can be in Harry's at least in your mind's eye.

The next best thing to being at Harry's Bar.

As a cook and literary buff, I always thought of Harry's Bar in Venice as a monument that has provided me with great inspiration. Tucked away on a corner not far from St Mark's Square, it is quite small with low ceilings but with an incredible view of the Grand Canal from its first floor. The decor is very relaxing with small comfortable chairs and tables in pleasant shades of apricot and cream. Upon opening the doors, you immediately drink in the atmosphere that is intimate, worldly, historically rich and alive.I remember the first time I visited Harry's bar twenty-five years ago. I went to this legendary bar, made famous by Ernest Hemingway, after having promised myself that I would only have a drink. I knew the prices would be outrageous for someone on a student budget since Harry's Bar had enjoyed an international reputation since 1931. But the moment that last sip of wine was out of my glass, I had to ask for a table. I do not remember what I had for lunch that day at Harry's Bar. I do remember though, how impressed I was by the quality of the house wine, the simple presentation of the food that tasted wonderful and the professional and friendly service with which the Harry's Bar staff made sure that this was going to be a memorable experience for me. So, Harry's Bar became part of my growing up and thus gained a significant importance in my life.Ernest Hemingway used to have his own table in one corner of Harry's Bar. At the end of World War II, Hemingway dedicated to the bar a page of his famous novel "Across the River and into the Trees." The list of famous people who frequented Harry's Bar is long and impressive. Arturo Toscanini, Guglielmo Marconi, Charlie Chaplin, Truman Capote, Orson Welles, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, Princess Aspasia of Greece, Aristotle Onassis, Barbara Hutton, Peggy Guggenheim and Woody Allen, just to mention a few. Harry's Bar opened in 1931 when Giuseppe Cipriani, an enterprising bartender at the Hotel Europa in Venice, was rewarded for his earlier generosity to a rich, young American from Boston named Harry Pickering. Pickering had been a customer at the Hotel Europa for some time, then suddenly stopped frequenting the hotel bar. One day, the elder Cipriani asked Pickering why he no longer patronized the bar. Pickering was broke, he explained to the bartender -- his family cut him off when it was discovered he had not curtailed his recklessness and fondness for drinking. So, Cipriani loaned his patron $5,000 U.S. so that Mr. Pickering could pay his hotel and bar bill as well as his cost of transportation home and ... have one last martini. Two years later, Pickering walked back into the Hotel Europa, ordered a drink at the bar, thanked Cipriani for the loan and handed him enough money to repay the loan and enable Cipriani to open his own bar.In 1991, Giuseppe's son, Arrigo Cipriani, assembled a book of recipes: "The Harry's Bar Cookbook" (Bantam Books). The book contains more than 200 original recipes, more

Ciao, Bella!

My parents loved Harry's in the 1950s. I never knew why until I visited the bar in Venice myself in the 1980s. I cook a fair amount, so I often use someone's recipe just as a taking off point. I frequently think I can outcook most authors. Not so with Harry. Like Paul Bocuse, this is one of a few cookbooks where you should try to follow the recipe precisely. The world's best osso bucco, the best scampi fritto which anyone can cook and stun your friends, tuna fish mousse to startle you, the best sauteed mushrooms, and the world's best club sandwich. What else can you ask? If he says cut the tomato sideways in three even slices, try it. He does not waste words, and he does know how to cook.March 23 I try to go there and celebrate my father's birthday. Mr. Cipriani celebrates his fatther too. I've never met him, but maybe that's another thing we have in common.

The best Italian Cookbook ever

This book provides the best recipes for regional Italian cooking I have ever used. They are simple to follow, reasonable in the produce suggested, and they invariably taste fantastic.My wife and I went to Harry's in New York, we can't wait to get back to Venice to try out the original.