AN Altrincham chef is on a mission to revive the British public’s love of French home cooked food and has launched a £50,000 crowdfunding campaign to create a new cookbook.

Olivier Troalen hopes A Taste of Home will inspire people up and down the country to add French cooking to their weekly menus.

The book will celebrate the meals and dishes you would find on the dining room table of a typical French family and is the brainchild of renowned restaurateur Olivier Troalen.

It boasts more than 70 hand-selected recipes, catering to both meat and plant-based diets, drawing from French-born Olivier’s four decades of experience in the culinary world. This includes 20 years at the helm of the highly-rated La Boheme restaurant in Lymm.

Aware of his nation’s perceived reputation for producing overly complex recipes, the head chef, who now lives in Altrincham, has designed the book with simplicity in mind. His mission is for it to become the ultimate guide to French home-cooking, including professional ‘cheats’ to make the preparation process quicker and easier.

Although the crowdfunding is due to go live on March 5, the project has already attracted attention, with over 300 people registering their interest before the New Year.

In return for £100 crowdfunding donation, Olivier is offering supporters a range of special rewards, including a signed copy of A Taste of Home; their name displayed in the cookbook; a £50 La Boheme voucher; a branded La Boheme chef’s apron; and a VIP invitation to the book launch in September.

Speaking of his latest venture, he said: “My mission is to make Brits fall in love with French food again and A Taste of Home captures the essence of this, celebrating authentic home cooking and battling the ‘fancy’ stereotypes French dishes are often associated with.

“The cookbook is a really special opportunity for everyone involved and I look forward to inviting people to be a part of its journey through the crowdfunding campaign.”

He added: "The £50,000 will go towards the printing and production costs and it depends on the success of the crowdfunding as to how many books are produced, but we would like to do around 5,000 if possible."

You can follow the campaign at LaBohemeLymm on Twitter.