Tmilwaukee cookbook It features over 90 online recipes collectively published by over 60 local Milwaukee chefs. Unlike a traditional restaurant cookbook, the recipes come from the chefs’ personal experiences, rather than from the restaurants where they cook.
The photographer and artist behind the project is Kevin J. Miyazaki, whose goal is to create a cookbook that’s easily accessible to Milwaukee residents and puts it in the homes of local chefs, indirectly showcasing the city’s culinary scene.
“[The cookbook] “This is a true cross-section of restaurants, chefs and cuisines that are trending in Milwaukee right now,” Miyazaki said. “This isn’t a list of the best restaurants. It’s a list of very diverse places, from small establishments to big, flashy, well-known restaurants.”
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The cookbook project began in June 2022 when Miyazaki decided to embark on a project showcasing Milwaukee chefs and their recipes. Miyazaki’s work on the cookbook has taken him to Hawaii, New York and even Italy, but for a change of pace, he decided to focus on Milwaukee’s local food and beverage scene.
cooperation Milwaukee Magazine Miyazaki’s Visit Milwaukee food editors Ann Christenson, Claire Koenig and Catherine LaVey set out to track down the most special dishes being made in the homes of Milwaukee’s chefs, a collective that includes people of different backgrounds, races, genders and ethnicities, producing a diverse range of recipes.
“We really wanted to diversify the mix of chefs,” Christenson says. “We wanted to have a diverse mix of men, women, gender non-binary people, people of color, just a diverse mix.”
After the chefs were selected, Miyazaki took photos of them and their dishes, and Christenson interviewed the chefs about the stories behind their dishes. Christenson asked the chefs about their backgrounds and culinary interests to delve deeper into why their dishes resonate so deeply.
Miyazaki was invited into the chefs’ restaurants and homes to see first-hand how the dishes were prepared.
“These are pretty personal recipes,” Miyazaki says, “so I got to visit people’s home kitchens and it was really fun to see their lives outside of work.”
This cookbook is packed with recipes for appetizers, main courses, desserts and drinks, and chefs were given the opportunity to contribute one or two unique recipes to the book.
After two years of recipe development, interviews and photography, the online cookbook is now available for free on the Visit Milwaukee website. The digital version will be available on Tuesday, with recipes being released on an ongoing basis. Physical copies of the cookbook will be available for sale in the fall, although release plans have not yet been finalized.
