Andy Lynes lifts the lid on the modern UK restaurant scene

Food, drink and travel writer Andy Lynes has published his first e-book, Kingdom of Cooks: Conversations with Britain's New Wave Chefs, a series of in-depth interviews with UK chefs including Simon Rogan, Mary-Ellen McTague, Neil Rankin and Gary Usher. The book details the harsh realities of being a chef, the astonishing hard work it takes to make it to the top, and reveals the secrets of creating delicious restaurant dishes.

Kingdom of Cooks is a must-read for foodies, professional chefs and anyone who has ever dined in a restaurant and wondered just what goes on behind the kitchen door. The interviews take the reader behind the scenes of some of the most famous kitchens in the country to show what it's really like paying your dues working for chefs such as Gordon Ramsay, Heston Blumenthal and Jamie Oliver.

Andy Lynes said: “I've been passionately interested in food and drink for more than 30 years and writing about it for a decade. In my experience, there has never been a more exciting time to eat out in this country,”

For the book Andy embarked on a journey of more than 2,000km and criss-crossed the UK in order to speak to 14 chefs in 13 restaurants, and consumed over 80 courses of restaurant food in the name of research.

He said: “Although London is the accepted capital of food in the UK, I've literally gone out of my way to prove there is something gastronomically exciting happening in every corner of the country.”

The chefs talk about their careers, their cooking styles and the techniques and ingredients that help set them apart from the crowd. Individual signature dishes, such as Chris Harrod of The Crown at Whitebrook's suckling pig with celeriac, pear and woodland sorrel, are discussed in detail, and you'll learn everything from how to make the perfect pork crackling to how to use every last scrap of a fish, literally down to the last scale.

Each chef has contributed a recipe – these include partridge, burnt heather, celeriac, watercress and chanterelles by Ben Radford of Timberyard in Edinburgh; Neil Rankin's Smokehouse short rib Bourguignon; and salt-baked beetroot, smoked eel, lettuce and chicken skin by Stephen Toman of OX in Belfast.

Kingdom of Cooks: Conversations with Britain's New Wave Chefs by Andy Lynes is now available from Amazon's Kindle store, priced £2.99.