Kate Lamont is a Western Australian icon in the food and wine industry and when we dropped in to her newest venture, Lamont’s Wine Store, in Cottesloe on our most recent visit, we immediately say why. It is the wine store-bar-restaurant we all would like to have within walking distance of our homes. How she finds the time to do all she does, we will never know. The day we called, she was a blur. ‘I have a cooking class in Bunbury,’ she explained before zooming off.

The theme of this book is so blindingly simple you wonder why it has not been done before – or indeed why it is not the way to arrange cookery books? It is certainly for all those who order their wine first in a restaurant then settle down to choose their meal according to what will go with that wine.

‘It’s all about weight or intensity of flavour in the food, and how that combines with the flavour of the wine’ explains Lamont. So the book is arranged like a wine list: Champagne, lighter whites, robust whites, lighter reds …. and so on, with recipes to suit each category.

It couldn’t be easier, and then there is the selling point that the recipes all reflect Kate’s deft touch, and there are lovely pictures and clear instructions – plus the influence of her amazing palate – making this an absolute winner.

Wine & Food, by Kate Lamont, UWA Publishing, 2009, hardcover, rrp A$55.