The standards behind the world’s best cooking, made simple. The tools to reach the standard — and repeat it.
Get the guidePDF · instant download
With commissioned specialties by
- Elvin LandoFormer sous chef · Alchemist, CopenhagenTwo Michelin stars
- Davide PeliFormer sous chef · Eleven Madison Park, New YorkThree Michelin stars
- Paolo PiantadosiHead gardener · Mirazur, MentonThree Michelin stars
An independent publication. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the MICHELIN Guide.
The problem
Restaurant work has been built around brutality, gatekeeping, and the illusion that cooking at a high level has to be impossibly difficult.
It doesn’t.
Standardization and clear checkpoints are some of the simplest and most direct ways to achieve consistently high-level results. We have taken more than 10,000 hours of working in the world’s best kitchens, and we have condensed that knowledge into a practical guidebook, allowing you to spend less time fighting through unnecessary complexity and more time focusing on what truly matters: creativity, innovation, rediscovery.
The knowledge already exists. But it’s trapped inside an industry that glorifies disorganization and gatekeeps simple, fundamental checkpoints.
Until now.
What’s inside
Seven chapters. How a professional kitchen actually runs.
Essentials and mindset
Divided in two: how to work in a restaurant so you leave with the most you possibly can, and how to approach creativity.
Organization
Mise en place and professional organization — how a station is set up to handle anything that lands on it.
Vegetables, cold side
The cold side — techniques, tips, preparations and the fundamentals behind a great cold plate.
Vegetables, hot side
The most rudimentary chapter — every vegetable preparation that goes through heat.
Sauce
Ten of our mother sauces, and a creative foundation for the saucier.
Meat cooking
How protein is handled before it ever meets service heat, and the judgments that decide the result.
Advanced plating & creativity
How a finished plate is composed once every component is right.
Who wrote it
Two cooks who think cooking has been made harder than it is.
We imagined a better cuisine, and along the way became convinced of something simple: almost everyone makes cooking harder than it needs to be.
This guide is a summary of more than ten thousand hours of experience working in the kitchens of restaurants that have been highly rated, including having received stars from the Michelin Guide — the difficult part of cuisine condensed into something anyone who wants access can reach.
Reviews
What cooks say about it.
“A lot of the techniques simply make sense, and some of the ideas feel revolutionary — the fish cookery in particular. Well worth reading and learning from.”
Adrian GhalyPrivate chef · previously chef de tournant, Providence“The industry needs more young energy like this.”
Luis FilipeExecutive chef, Evvai · São Paulo“I’ve always believed that the best kitchens are places where cooks are encouraged to think, ask questions and learn — not simply execute. Reading Cuisine Étoilée, I recognized a lot of that same philosophy. It’s awesome to see those ideas carried forward by another generation of chefs.”
Wylie DufresneLegendary chef · wd~50, New YorkCuisine Étoilée
The guide
- Instant download
- Read on any device
Choose your edition
The guide is published in all three. Chef specialties are in English.
Add a commissioned specialty
Take all three and the full collection is €69.99 — €14.97 less than adding them separately.
★★★★★
“The guide I wish I had when I began my culinary journey. From how to set a station to how to run a kitchen, this is the guide that should be read by cooks and chefs alike.”
Brock MiddletonPreviously R&D sous chef, Eleven Madison ParkSecure checkout by Paddle. VAT calculated at your local rate.
The community
The Cuisine Étoilée Discord is free and open to anyone who cooks. The guide includes 90 days as Chef, which opens the advanced plating room — your plates judged the way they would be at the pass, technique and recipe questions answered in detail, and new specialties before they are published anywhere else. On its own, Chef is €9.99 a month.
Companion reading
Chef specialties.
The guide gives you the standards. Each of these is one chef, commissioned to write on the single subject they command better than anyone. Add any of them to your order above.
Molecular Cooking & Hydrocolloids — what each one actually does, when a gel, foam or thickener earns its place on a plate, and how to reason about them rather than follow ratios.
Kitchen Labor Organization — how a brigade divides its work, and the leadership that holds it together: respecting your team, earning their respect, and what it actually takes to lead a kitchen.
Growing for the Menu — how a kitchen garden sets the card instead of following it: what to plant against what you intend to cook, and how a harvest window decides the dish.
Stay close
Get the latest news.
When there is a discount, when a new chef specialty arrives, and when a pre-release opens. Nothing else.