In Southwest Florida’s culinary landscape, where catching stone crabs at sunset pairs naturally with holiday gatherings, three celebrated chefs have distilled more than a century of expertise into volumes that transcend typical kitchen guides. Whether it’s your first time bringing a side dish to a family gathering, assembling an entire menu or looking for a gustatory gift for a culinary friend, these cookbooks from Fabrizio Aielli, Tony Ridgway and Jeanie Roland offer technical mastery shaped by decades of professional experience.
Fabrizio Aielli, chef and owner of iconic Naples restaurants Sea Salt, Barbatella, Dorona and Grappino, knows that a dish made from the heart cannot be duplicated. Food is personal and cooking is a fluid process. That’s why Fabrizio created Sea Salt as a roadmap rather than a rule book. “The cookbook is a good guide, good direction on how to create something, but you’ve got to have the flexibility to adjust your recipes,” the chef says. He compares cooking to getting dressed, both mandatory activities dependent on contingencies and guided by personal taste. The book’s roast chicken exemplifies his philosophy, with a recipe meant to be adjusted and expanded upon, preferably with a glass of wine in hand.
Courtesy Aielli Group
Tony Ridgway, co-owner of Ridgway Bar & Grill and Tony’s Off Third, is often hailed as a founding father of Naples’ restaurant scene. With his book Kitchen Privileges, he brings more than 50 years of culinary expertise into focus, with an emphasis on helping home cooks master fundamental techniques: the browning of a golden loaf of bread, the sizzle of hot oil, the salty-sweet fragrance of roasted garlic. “If you don’t understand the process of cooking, you are not a cook,” Tony says. His apple galette and tomato basil soup recipes demonstrate his emphasis on technique and simplicity, woven together with narratives from his life in the restaurant industry.
Courtesy Caroline Ridgway
Jeanie Roland’s The Perfect Caper Home Cooking, named after her Punta Gorda restaurant, distills four decades of the James Beard Foundation Award-nominated chef’s professional experience into accessible instruction. The book features scaled-down versions of signature dishes, including her herb-rolled goat cheese appetizer and tender lobster siu mai. Like her fellow Southwest Florida chefs, Jeanie advocates for flexibility in the kitchen, and she encourages home cooks to embrace the experience rather than strive for a perfect result. “A lot of people are just going through the motions, and if I did that, people would be able to taste it,” she says. “I want people to be able to relax.”
Courtesy chef Jeanie Roland