PM & Vänner: Forest, Lake, Meadow

Fans of Fool may wonder what might happen if that magazine’s creative talent were brought to bear on a book about a single restaurant*. That happened with PM & Vänner, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Sweden, and this book is the result.

Showcasing the enthralling photography of Per-Anders Jörgensen, who shot the finished food, the surrounding countryside and landscape, and the many people involved in supplying the restaurant and preparing its fare, PM & Vänner engages the reader as much as the visual browser.

Eschewing the sometimes impenetrable verbiage with which some restaurant books salute their own creativity, PM & Vänner is crisply readable and accessible, whether addressing the apple varieties grown for cider, how the restaurant found its potato supplier, or the difficulties and rewards communicating with a forager who works on the edge of cell phone reception.

There are no recipes in the book, and honestly, unless you’re sourcing your roe deer or elk calf from southern Sweden, it’s unlikely you’d put any recipes to effective use anyway. So consider PM & Vänner an immersion into a remarkable way of thinking about food and you can be confident that you will take away from it a fresh perspective on whatever it is you are making.

The book is bound in bright white full cloth, with blind embossed covers and spines. It’s dramatic but hard to photograph well for full impact. so we apologize if the cover image is underwhelming.

Hardcover. Color and black-and-white photographs throughout. In English.

* They did something very similar with Konstantin Filippou.