LAURA GLADWIN trained at Leith’s School of Food and Wine before working as a freelance chef. She then spent five years at one of London's biggest party design companies, where she devised spectacular cocktail lists for more than 500 events. She now works as a writer and editor specialising in food and drink, writing for the Good Food Guide and editing high-profile cookery books for chefs including Ferran Adrià, René Redzepi and Heston Blumenthal. ZOE BARKER is an illustrator gifted with powers of visual trickery, using watercolour washes and intricately textured graphite to create portraits, still-lifes and character designs that convey impressive visual depth. She lives in London where her clients include Soho House, Ralph Lauren and Liberty of London.

''The most enchantingly beautiful encyclopeadia of food: so much to look at; so much to learn'-Nigella Lawson