Best Cooking & Food Books

A James Beard Award-winning baking book in which pastry chef Stella Parks reverse-engineers America's most iconic desserts — from homemade Oreos to fluffy supermarket-style layer cake — with obsessive precision and rich food history.

The definitive all-purpose American cookbook — more than 2,000 recipes and countless variations that teach home cooks the fundamentals of preparing almost any dish, from a fried egg to a holiday roast.

Anthony Bourdain's legendary memoir of twenty-five years in professional kitchens — the drug use, the violence, the camaraderie, and the obsessive craft of restaurant cooking.

Yotam Ottolenghi's most accessible cookbook — recipes designed to be simple without sacrificing the bold flavours and ingredient combinations that define his cooking.

The comprehensive American cooking bible — first published in 1931, continuously revised ever since, and still the most trusted and comprehensive home cooking reference ever produced.

The James Beard Award-winning cookbook from Philadelphia's celebrated Zahav restaurant, reinterpreting the vibrant, multicultural cuisine of Israel — from transcendent hummus to mezze and wood-fired grilling — for the home kitchen.

From the beloved Smitten Kitchen blog, a debut cookbook of unfussy, reliable, deeply tested recipes designed for real home cooks working in real (often tiny) kitchens.

The comprehensive reference guide to flavor pairings and culinary creativity — which ingredients work together and why, used by professional chefs worldwide.

London chefs Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi — one Jewish Israeli, one Palestinian Muslim — grew up on opposite sides of Jerusalem and share a profound love for the same city's food. Their cookbook is both a culinary journey and a remarkable act of cultural bridge-building.

The definitive guide to natural leavened country bread from the legendary San Francisco bakery — the book that ignited the sourdough revival and taught a generation to bake with wild yeast.

Ottolenghi's groundbreaking vegetable cookbook that transformed how the culinary world thinks about vegetables — not as sides or afterthoughts but as the full expression of a meal.

A James Beard Award-winning, vegetable-forward cookbook organised around the changing arc of the growing year, teaching home cooks to treat produce as the star and to cook with the seasons.

Tamar Adler's extraordinary collection of essays on cooking with economy, intelligence, and pleasure — a book about cooking philosophy as much as cooking technique.

New Yorker editor Bill Buford quits his job to apprentice in Mario Batali's chaotic Babbo kitchen, then traces Italian cooking to its source — apprenticing with a Tuscan butcher and a pasta master in Emilia-Romagna.

The definitive all-purpose vegetarian reference — more than 2,000 meatless recipes and variations that teach home cooks to prepare almost any vegetarian dish through Bittman's technique-first method.

Ina Garten's debut cookbook presents the beloved recipes from her Hamptons food shop — elegant, approachable food for people who want to cook well without being professional chefs.

Mark Bittman reinvents quick cooking with 2,000 time-saving recipes and a revolutionary method that integrates prep and cooking, teaching home cooks to make great food fast without sacrificing quality.

Mark Bittman's encyclopaedic guide to cooking over fire, from steaks and burgers to vegetables, fruit, bread, and dessert, teaching the techniques and variations that make a grill the most versatile tool in the kitchen.

Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook's follow-up to Zahav, going straight to the soul of Israeli street food and home cooking with accessible, essential, deeply delicious recipes.

The second Magnolia Table cookbook, with 145 new comforting, family-friendly recipes from Joanna Gaines's home and the Magnolia restaurants, built around the spirit of gathering.

The third Magnolia Table cookbook, featuring timeless, nostalgic family recipes reimagined for today's home cook, in Joanna Gaines's signature cozy, gathering-focused style.