It's taken two years to prepare but Wellington food guru Martin Bosley is finally ready to serve up his latest culinary creation – a second cookbook eponymously named Martin Bosley. However, the tome – 300-plus pages of it – is more than just a collection of recipes. It's a culinary tale of two landmark Wellington dining establishments. With Martin Bosley's restaurant in its 10th year, the veteran chef wanted to celebrate the milestone but also tip his hat to the good old days and include recipes from another award-winning Bosley restaurant, Brasserie Flipp.

Back in the early 90s, not many Wellingtonians knew much about exceptionally fine dining until Flipp, with Bosley at the helm, opened its doors. "In many ways Flipp should have had its own cookbook. It was such an iconic institution," Bosley says. "It had a profound effect on dining in New Zealand.

Brassiere Flipp was among the small vanguard of fine dining establishments in New Zealand that spawned an upwelling of appreciation for gourmet cuisine. Almost 20 years on the Kiwi culinary outlook has transformed, thanks, in part, to Bosley.

"In those days you couldn't just wander into Moore Wilsons and pick up, for example, some buffalo mozzarella. I had to drive out to Island Bay and buy it off an old Italian woman who made it herself," he says. "That's all changed. So, too, has the culture around fine dining and eating out in general."

Kiwis no longer only go to an upmarket restaurant to celebrate an important occasion, such as a wedding or other anniversary. Now it seems any day of the week is good enough to give the taste buds a tingle. The two years it took Bosley to compile Martin Bosley turned out to be a nostalgic trip down memory lane, as well as a self-evaluation of how he's matured as a chef.

"My passion for food and the principles around locally sourced ingredients and seasonality are the same as they were back at Flipp. But I have become a more relaxed cook, and in turn my food is better."Another motivation to write the book was to further stamp New Zealand's growing profile on the global food scene.

"On a world stage we do some pretty amazing food down here but not many people outside of New Zealand know that. Hopefully this book will be noticed by cooks overseas. We also tend to lap up cookbooks from overseas, so here's one that Kiwis can better relate to." Bosley, who was one of 13 chefs cooking for the Leukaemia and Blood Foundation black tie fundraiser, Dining for a Difference, at Auckland's SkyCity on Saturday, has dedicated the book to his 13-year-old daughter, Isabella, who he says played a huge part in its realisation: "She's the one who has only seen my back while I worked away at it," he says.

"She's the one who prodded me when I lost heart and reminded me what it was all about. She's a great kid and my best mate."Martin Bosley by Martin Bosley, Photographs by Jane Ussher, Random House, hb, $90.