Few experiences are as personal as food. More than a ritual, it is, for many, the one moment each day when family and friends gather to recount their stories and share the flavors they love. It is fitting that Manuela Wirth, co-founder of Hauser & Wirth, chose food to tell the story with her partner in work and in life, Iwan Wirth. Compiled in secret as a gift for his 50th birthday, A Cookbook for Iwan gathers recipes inspired by the couple’s global travel, during which they have always managed to pair work with the very best dining.
“Food and art have been bedfellows ever since prehistoric man first daubed charcoal on the walls of his cave, his belly sated with mammoth rump, the fire crackling in the gloom,” writes British food writer Tom Parker Bowles in the book’s foreword.
Fittingly for a book born of a global art powerhouse, the 372-page volume is meant to be experienced as an art object as much as a cookbook, with recipes appearing alongside original artworks, handwritten notes, photography, and poetry across more than 400 illustrations. Argentine artist Guillermo Kuitca, who painted the walls of the Clunie Dining Room at The Fife Arms, shares a recipe for choripán. Rashid Johnson, whose marble mosaic covers the floor at Mount St. Restaurant, offers his Greek spinach rice, while contemporary artist Richard Jackson contributes a playful drawing of cheese.
The book also ties to projects that guests can experience beyond its pages, with select cocktails now served across Artfarm restaurants, including Anj Smith’s Negroni at Mount St. Restaurant, Luis Laplace’s French Twisted Spritz Saint-Germain at Manuela in New York and “Iwan’s Twinkle” at both Fish Shop locations.
“A healthy appetite may not be essential in creating great art,” Parker Bowles notes. “But it sure helps making the senses sing.”
