'A good restaurant lives and grows and so do its recipes' Ruth Rogers

At London's River Cafe, you can tell the seasons by the range of vegetables atop the restaurant bar: bushels of artichokes, bunches of puntarelle, crowns of romanesco and so much more. It is these ingredients that are at the heart of this new book; an ambitious, comprehensive celebration of fruits and vegetables from the Italian table that is destined to be an instant classic.

Stunning, still-life photographs by Matthew Donaldson elevate the finest produce to works of art. Each ingredient receives its own peak-season portrait, followed by 1-2 iconic recipes that capture the ingredient at its finest.

Vegetable-centric dishes bring the produce to splendour with perfect flavour pairings, which capture the essence of Italian cooking - where you walk into a restaurant in Rome in the spring, and see a table with sautéed peas, spinach, and artichokes. It says, this is our season and this is our world.

This ground-breaking work redefines what a cookbook can be by combining bold visuals with eminently cookable recipes.