This Straight-From-the-Restaurant Master Recipe for Bookbinder’s Red Snapper Soup comes from The Cape Cod Room in The Drake Hotel, Chicago and was adapted by them from the original served at Old Original Bookbinder’s Seafood & Steakhouse in Philadelphia.

Photo by nichole

The Drake Hotel Bookbinder Red Snapper Soup

A Drake Hotel / Cape Cod Room / Old Original Bookbinder’s Seafood & Steakhouse Copycat Recipe

Bookbinder Soup was created by restaurateur Samuel Bookbinder in Philadelphia in 1893 at his oyster saloon – which was to become Old Original Bookbinder’s Seafood & Steakhouse.

Bookbinder Soup’s reputation spread around the world and is a staple at many high-end seafood restaurants even today. This recipe is from the Cape Cod Room in the Drake Hotel, Chicago while the lovely photo above is from The Edgewater Hotel in Madison, Wisconsin.

A Note About the Recipe

This is a Straight-From-the-Restaurant Recipe in the truest sense of the term – in other words, it needed quite a bit of interpretation and work to make it understandable for us home cooks.

Like many restaurant and chef recipes, it was more a collection of “Cliff Notes” for the sous chefs who would be making the soup daily and had been previously trained to make the recipe by the chef. We took those notes, and a stripped down, but more easily understandable, version of the recipe (found, in all places, on a soup paddle displayed in The Cape Cod Room – apparently a souvenir for sale sometime in the past) and combined them to make, what we hope is, an authentic, delicious and easily understood recipe for everyone.

Enjoy and let us know how we did.

Another Note About the Recipe

The original Cape Cod Room recipe lists two separate preparations – this is probably to allow the stock to be made in advance and held for the red snapper to be added when someone  orders the soup.

We kept this separation, because it is in the original recipe — but it also makes it easier for you, especially if you want to serve this for guests or a party. You can prepare the somewhat complicated stock in advance and finish the soup when serving. But, naturally, you can do both steps at the same time, if you like.

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Bookbinder's Red Snapper Soup Recipe - Preparation One

This Straight-From-the-Restaurant Master Recipe for Bookbinder's Red Snapper Soup comes from The Cape Cod Room in The Drake Hotel, Chicago and was adapted by them from the original served at Old Original Bookbinder's Seafood & Steakhouse in Philadelphia.

Prep Time1 hour hr

Active Time45 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr 45 minutes mins

Course: Appetizer, Soup

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Bookbinder's

Ingredients

• 1/2 ounce Clarified Butter
• 1/2 ounce Celery diced small
• 1/2 ounce Carrots diced small
• 1/8 cup Red Peppers diced small
• 1/8 cup Green Peppers diced small
• 1 ounce Onions diced small
• 1 clove Garlic minced
• 1 tablespoon Chicken Base
• 1 1/2 ounces Tomato Paste
• 1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
• 1/2 cup Dry White Wine (leave out, if desired)
• 2 quarts strong Vegetable or Fish Stock
• 1/2 Bay Leaf
• 8 White Crushed Peppercorns
• 1 pinch Thyme
• 4 ounces White Roux
• Salt and freshly ground Black Pepper to taste

Instructions

• In a large stock pot, heat butter over medium heat.
• When hot, add celery, carrots, red and green peppers, onions and garlic. Sauté until onions are tender.
• Add chicken base, tomato paste, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, wine, stock, bay leaf, peppercorns and thyme. Bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat and stir in the roux and simmer, over medium heat, for 20 minutes.
• Taste. Add salt and pepper, to taste.
• Strain.

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Bookbinder's Red Snapper Soup Recipe - Preparation Two

Prep Time20 minutes mins

Active Time20 minutes mins

Total Time40 minutes mins

Course: Appetizer, Soup

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Bookbinder's

Ingredients

• 1/2 ounce Clarified Butter
• 6 ounces Onions diced
• 1 1/2 ounces Celery diced
• 10 ounces Red Snapper diced
• 2 ounces Water
• 2 ounces Dry Sherry to serve

Instructions

• In a large stock pot, heat butter over medium heat.
• When hot, onions and celery. Sauté until onions are just starting to get tender.
• Add water.
• Place red snapper fillets, skin sides down, in skillet. Press on fish with a spatula for about 1 minute to prevent curling. Sauté, about 2 minutes. Flip, and cook until opaque throughout, about 2 minutes more.
• Remove mixture from skillet to a plate.
• Flake fish finely with a fork.
• Add to prepared hot stock.
• Serve with 2 ounces Sherry in a carafe, to add to soup just before eating, if desired. (See photo above).

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Photo of Bookbinder Soup at Edgewater Hotel – Admiralty. is by Nichole and is used by permission under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) License. Thank you, Nichole. Great Picture. Photos may be “representative” of the recipe and not the actual finished dish. All photo licenses listed were correct at the time of the posting of the page. Bookbinder’s Red Snapper Soup Recipe comes from The Cape Cod Room in The Drake Hotel, Chicago and was adapted by them from the original served at Old Original Bookbinder’s Seafood & Steakhouse in Philadelphia and shared to the Chicago Tribune when the Cape Cod Room closed in 2017. It was heavily rewritten by us. Additional Information Courtesy of Wikipedia and is used by permission.