My husband was inspired while watching Hell's Kitchen to learn how to cook, and so I bought him this recipe book as a birthday present. I thought it seemed a little risky, as he is BRAND NEW to cooking and he could have been intimidated by the seeming complexity of some of the recipes. But, nope! 20 days after getting the book he has cooked the macaroni and cheese, perfected the scrambled eggs, dabbled with several other recipes, and has plans for many more of them. He shows his book of to everyone and recommends recipes from it.
What Ramsay has done is taken 5 star recipes and made them accessible to even the most inexperienced of cooks. He teaches in a way that is easy to understand and get right. The one drawback, which has been brought up before, is that some of the ingredients are not the sort you find in a normal household. In fact, in our small town, some of them can't even be found in the nicest of grocery stores. But, with a little bit of thought, many of them can be successfully omitted or exchanged for more familiar ingredients.
A good buy for those who are willing to experiment a little and who really want to learn the art of upscale cooking.

Love Gordon Ramsay - Love his recipes. Easy to follow and delicious. They make me feel like I am a gourmet chef who cares about the quality of my food. I recommend this book to any level of cook/chef. Ramsay's simpleness is refreshing. A++

I love this book. The recipes are great. They are fast and easy. Cooking for my family can be frustrating they are very picky and trying new recipes can be difficult. My first recipe was the vegetable soup. I did substitute white beans for the lima beans. The taste was fantastic. My family loved it. Wow, they liked the vegetables.I highly recommend this book.

Gordon Ramsey has a variety of TV shows. One of the shows he is a most patient teacher to one lucky home cook for a special occasion. It is because of watching that show I wanted to get one of his cook books. On that show and in this book the message is the same - Good cooking does not have to be difficult or intimidating.

When I first glanced through the book it appeared to be a waste - ingredients that I don't like or never heard of or can't find at my store. Then I sat down to really take a good look at each one and see if there wasn't something in there.

I saw how I could substitute here & there and still end up with something pretty good. The flavors may not be exactly what Chef Ramsey intended, but it will still be good. The book even encourages some substitutions: snapper is suggested instead of mullet. I can also use the internet to find acceptable options - instead of crème fraîche (which I can't find locally), I can use Crema Mexicana (locally available).

Some of things that I normally would not eat, I'm going to try anyway - just to see if the way they are prepared makes a difference. All I have to loose is one lousy dinner. I may find some new favorites in the process. Already I have found out there is at least one way that I will eat eggplant - something I normally avoid. Now there are about 2/3 of the recipes that I have marked to try at least once.

I tried 3 of the recipes so far: a main, a side and dessert. All three had easy to follow directions and came out pretty much as showed in the pictures. All of the techniques are easy enough for someone new to the kitchen. Above all it was simple food with great flavors. I also liked the back section talking about what's in his kitchen. While my kitchen will never be on that level, I did find a few things that I will add to mine.

Other reviews say this is for the "novice". I guess they mean novice Chef. I'm sure most home cooks will enjoy this book - from the brand new beginner to a more seasoned home cook. As has been pointed out, if you are a Chef, these recipes are likely a refresher for you.

As an owner of several of Gordon Ramsay's other cookbooks this one is probably my least favorite of the lot I own. Though, I do like this cookbook. This cookbook is definitely the easiest of any of the Gordon Ramsay cookbooks and the recipes are all very fast. If you're not a cooking novice, you would very likely have your own versions of the included recipes. The recipes are very good even though they are simple.

The book is separated into sections of breakfast, dinner, appetizers, & drinks, etc. As in Gordon's other cookbooks there are several seafood and fish recipes, which might be a problem for some people. Though, there are several other meat recipes too. A bonus is an included DVD with Gordon cooking a few of the meals.

One thing I would've liked to have is a photo of each recipe, like in his other cookbooks. Most of the recipes here have several photo's but, a few did not.

Overall, a very simple cookbook yet, the meals taste exquisite. Definitely, for the novice cook.

I'm Italian, I love to cook.... I also love cook book, I have lots of them, but I usually don't find any recipe that attract me. Well, this is different.... First at all it will inspir you, you want to cook after looking at his book. I found a lot od recipe that I know I'll try from this book. So far I only tried the pizza. So easy to make, but never came as perfect as this one! Thanks Gordon....