COOKBOOK WATCH

Two very different cookbooks have just come out from two New York chefs. “Alfred Portale’s Gotham Bar and Grill Cookbook” (Doubleday, $45), with text by Andrew Friedman, has the feel--and price--of a Big City cookbook. Its pages show the vitality of modern American cuisine as it exists today. You get a good sense of what it’s like to be a chef through Portale’s story of the evolution of his career, and the recipe notes give some insight into the way Portale thinks about what he cooks.

“Matthew Kenney’s Mediterranean Cooking” (Chronicle Books, $24.95), written with Sam Gugino, focuses on the young chef’s obsession with the food of the Mediterranean, especially the less-hyped cooking of Morocco, Egypt and other non-Italian Mediterranean countries.

Where Portale’s is a book from a natural-born teacher, Kenney’s is a book from a dedicated student, and both books benefit from the strength of the chefs’ points of view.