Lucio Galetto came to Australia from the Ligurian region of Italy in the mid 1970's. Coming from a family of restaurateurs, he opened Lucio's in Sydney nearly 30 years ago. His family held the principle that when plating food it was important to remember 'L'occhio vuole la sua parte', meaning 'The eye needs it's share', a principle beautifully applied to this book. As passionate about art as he is food, Lucio enlisted the help of Luke Sciberras, an artist whose work hangs in the restaurant to work with the photographer in the design of the book, whereupon the chef composed the dish and then Luke literally drew illustrations around the plate before it was photographed. The resulting photos are whimsical and beautiful where the drawings and plates sit perfectly together. The recipes too, are great. Having made about 5 different dishes and all of them being delicious, there is as much attention paid to the recipes as there is the design of this book. The book is divided into chapters based upon the type of pasta - soups & broth, filled pasta, fresh or dried, baked etc as well as including a whole chapter on different kinds of gnocchi. There are recipes for traditional dishes as well as more contemporary. Many recipes are simple and focus on one or two key ingredients, while others are more ambitious. This front section of the book is all about making fresh pasta, including flavoured doughs like porcini, saffron and beetroot. Instructions are giving for rolling pasta by hand as well as by machine, and then how to cut the correct widths for long pasta, or shape into farfalle and other shapes. While I do own a pasta machine, I have not yet attempted any of the fresh pasta recipes. The publishers have considerately, created an additional index of all the vegetarian dishes, of which there are about 70. I have always felt that good, dedicated pasta books have been under represented in the modern cookbook market which I have found puzzling, particularly here in Australia, where pasta is a very regularly consumed meal. Of what was available, very few gave information on making your own pasta and were not modern in their presentation at all. This book is what I had been waiting for. This book delivers on all levels and I really recommend it. It is user friendly, well written and the recipes delicious as well as the book being so aesthetically pleasing.