Pastry Savory and Sweet by Michel Roux (Whitecap, 2009), 295 pages. $24.95.

 On a cooking scene crowded with Food Network stars and molecular magicians, some of the best old-school chefs have been pushed to the fringes. Chances are you don’t know the name Michel Roux, but most foodies in England certainly would. Roux and his brother Albert are often described as living legends, credited as the two chefs who brought haute gastronomie to Britain. Their restaurants, Le Gavroche and The Waterside Inn, have held three Michelin stars for more than 20 years and are part of the elite Relais & Châteaux chain.

Their style wasn’t chop house or gastro pub, but classic French. And not only did their two restaurants become England’s most sought-after foodie destinations at a time when there were very few, but the Roux brothers trained most of the next generation of star chefs in England.

What’s interesting about these two brothers is that one, Albert, is a savoury chef and the other, Michel, is a pastry chef. They have written books together and apart, and as the latest focuses on pastry, Michel is the man behind the stoves, or better yet, the dough.

Divided into 11 chapters with nine featuring specific reference to doughs like puff pastry, short pastry, brioche, choux pastry and, for the less experienced, phyllo pastry, this book also includes instructive pictures focused on technique. Wondering how to make sweet pastry (pâte sucrée)? You’ll learn the correct step-by-step method on the first page, followed by recipes that range from easy (butter cookies) to more difficult (the deep-dish lemon tart).

Along the way, Roux offers recipes for most everything within the French pastry repertoire including pithiviers, feuilletées, tarts, tartlets, choux, palmiers, sablés, croissants and pain au chocolats. And it’s not all sweets, either. Roux includes savoury dishes like meat pies, pâté en croûte, cheese straws, pissaladières and salmon coulibiac. This isn’t a book focused on international baked goods – save for streusels, calzones and pizzas – but there are enough modern recipes included to keep this work relevant to today’s tastes.

The production quality of Pastry Savory and Sweet is first-rate, and the compact size is a breath of fresh air next to so many cooking tomes. The photographs are not only inspiring, but offer cooks a true guide of the look, shape and size of pastry they should be aiming for. Instructions are clear, ingredients are accessible, and the food itself is incredibly elegant. This is the kind of French food we all want to eat. Even the pizza looks posh.

The buzz: I cannot deny I am a huge Roux fan, having baked my way through several of his books with much happiness and success. It’s nice to see a book devoted solely to dough, as tarts and pies put most fluffy cakes to shame. Roux is a true master, one of the world’s great chefs, and one of the first to publish his recipes. What’s especially welcome here is that he offers some difficult recipes for advanced bakers, but the majority can be made by any ambitious cook.

The test: All of the doughs tested worked very well, and kudos to Roux for supplying metric gram measures. With the sweet dough, I made the superb orange cheesecake, tangy and so much lighter than expected. The chocolate raspberry tart is rich and decadent (and will taste even better at the height of raspberry season), the gâteau St-Honoré is a real showstopper, and much easier than the classic made with a complicated chiboust cream that you’ll find in Roux’s earlier books. The pepper, goat’s cheese and spinach phyllo tart is sure to grace my dinner table often this summer.

Who is this book for?: Anyone who loves to bake in the French style (as in light on the whipped cream, graham-cracker crusts and fudge fillings) should own this book. Experienced pastry hounds will fare best, but there’s plenty here for burgeoning bakers as well.