Launched in the UK in 2012, The Gourmand is not your typical food magazine – rather it’s a stylised mash-up of food meets art meets culture. Where else would you see a photo essay of snails climbing up a bright red chilli, or iconic Italian architecture recreated in pasta? So when the team behind the bi-annual magazine brings out a book about the humble lemon, you know it’s never going to be a self-effacing study but rather it will venture beyond the fruit bowl into the realms of fabulousness and fantasy.

Part recipe book, part journal, expect to explore this tart star from unexpected angles. One minute your eye might be captured by the incredible still-life photography of a Sorbetto al Limone presented in, what else, a lemon, the next you’ll be reading about the fruit’s intricate genealogy, and the influence that lemons had on the art of Matisse and the literary works of authors such as Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe.

Eclectic and visually rich, the book delves into the Dutch masters, pauses at pop culture and takes a zesty veer into lemon-y accessories before travelling the world with some 60 recipes ranging from South Indian lemon rasam to Dover sole to Djej a Batata (Lebanese chicken).

Simon Hopkinson (hailed as the food writer’s food writer) and art critic Jennifer Higgie provide the foreword to this exquisitely artful book that is no doubt destined for the coffee table rather than the kitchen. Claire McCall