Dom Perignon's latest cookbook is packed with recipes by the best chefs in the UK, but it isn't the sort of thing you'll prop next to the hob and leaf through with greasy fingers.
Bound in the ultra-rare hide of a Japanese ray, and packed with recipes, reminiscences and portraits by the world's most bankable celebrities, Dom Perignon Vintage 1998 The Collection is a snip at £1000 a copy.
The company is billing it as the most expensive cookbook ever produced.
The limited edition – 30 copies – is covered in sea-green Galuchat leather, harvested from a rare Japanese ray, hand-polished and uniquely different on each of the books.
The recipes come from Britain's top chefs, including Angela Hartnett, Michael Caines, Tom Aikens, Jean-Christophe Novelli and Marco Pierre White. All are paired with the 1998 Dom Perignon.
The portraits were commissioned from three major artists: Sophie von Hellermann, 'collected by Charles Saatchi and portraitist of Mick Jagger,' a press release says, French illustrator Stephane Gamain, and Japanese photographer Yukata Yahamoto, who has produced 'exquisitely decorative yet minimalist still lives based on key ingredients from each of the recipes.'
And if that's not enough, journalist Lucia van der Post has interviewed Roger Moore ('his suave good looks have been indelibly connected with fine food'), Andrew Lloyd Webber ('a weaver of magical musicals'), Theo Fennell, Karl Lagerfeld and other celebrities who must be as diffcult to catch as the ray whose skin adorns the cover.
'Given its iconic status as a hallmark of glamour, it would be remiss of Dom Pérignon not also to pay homage to the worlds of fashion, music, business, literature and entertainment,' the company says.
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