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Fat Duck book for £100

06.03.08 Benedicte Page

Bloomsbury is targeting the luxury market with a lavish, cookbook-cum-coffee table volume from chef Heston Blumenthal, priced at £100. The 400-page The Big Fat Duck Cookbook, named after Blumenthal¹s celebrated Fat Duck restaurant in Bray, will mix autobiography with recipes. It will be published in October as a large-format hardback, complete with ribbons, a cloth binding and slipcase, and it will contain stylised colour photographs and illustrations, including an open gatefold illustration of Blumenthal's own brain.

Bloomsbury, which acquired the book for a "substantial" sum in 2005, has a five-figure print run in place for the title. It will also produce a special leather-bound limited edition with Bond Street jeweller Asprey, which will cost £1,000 and come with two silver gift items.

Editor Richard Atkinson described The Big Fat Duck Cookbook as "the most beautiful book ever produced", and said it would be likely to be found on wedding lists and stocked as a luxury item in shops such as Harvey Nichols.

A second, lower-priced edition for the general market will be published a year later in autumn 2009.

"The book reflects the restaurant," Atkinson said. "It's such an absolutely astounding place, there¹s nowhere like it, so we have to produce an extraordinary book. I think it¹s very good value‹the Fat Duck tasting menu costs more than the book."

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