You know a cookbook is going to be a good one when even a quick flip through has you reaching for markers so you can find your way back to a recipe that is just too irresistible to miss trying.

At least that's the way it works for me.

This hefty book - the love-child of multi-award-winning chef and restaurateur Lucio Galletto and respected author David Dale .. is immediately captivating. Lucio Galletto's eponymous Sydney restaurant, Lucio's, has been at the top of many diner's lists for decades. His love for and knowledge of Italian cuisine is as extensive as it is for art. Which of course is why the title of this book was chosen. 

After just a few minutes browsing The Art of Pasta I know I will have to make the silverbeet and ricotta gnocchi as well as the linguine with orange pesto and eggplant. The first is chosen because at last this seems a do-able method for me to succeed with gnocchi.

So why have I flagged the orange pesto recipe? Well, because it sounds quirky and I can't quite taste it in my head but, like many others who know Galletto's food and have eaten at Lucio's restaurant over the years, I trust his palate, and if he says "it is a most unusual but fantastic pesto" at the start of the recipe, then how can I resist?

The book spans the Italian peninsula and Sicily. There's a nod to Lucio's home region, Liguria, with the super-simple pancake-pasta testaroli, this time in a seafood guise, but other regions get a full treatment too. There's 'guitar' maccheroni from Abruzzo, plenty of dishes and ragùs from Sicily, orecchiette from the south, and so much more.

Better still, the chapters intuitively follow the thought processes we have when it comes to pasta. The book's content is divided into fresh pasta, dried pasta, filled pasta, baked pasta, and gnocchi along with a primer about the making of it, and a sampler of the most delicious of Italian sauces and soups.

The photography from Anson Smart and illustrations by Luke Sciberras add much to the elegance of this book that will soon have you salivating and (if you are like me, that is) reaching for more markers to flag enough dishes to keep you enjoying pasta in all its guises for months to come.

The Art of Pasta, Lucio Galletto & David Dale, Penguin, October 2011, hardcover, rrp $59.95, ISBN 978 19213 82284

- Sally Hammond