The Kitchen Lab Selection
Out of our three hundred-odd cookbooks we have picked 58 that we are especially fond of. They are the ones we reach for ourselves.
The selection spans different cuisines and different themes. Reference works we look things up in all the time, like Larousse Gastronomique and McGee. Fairly new restaurant books we have only just taken to, and a few we have had so long that it shows. Here Escoffier sits next to Kitchen Confidential, and Dalí’s mad dinner book next to the encyclopaedias of China and India. A ragged bunch, and we like it that way.
Almost every kitchen we care about is here. Italian with Pellegrino Artusi, Ada Boni and Silver Spoon. French with Julia Child, Joël Robuchon and Richard Olney. Japanese with Shizuo Tsuji, who wrote a book nobody has needed to redo in forty-five years. Fuchsia Dunlop on Sichuan, Diana Kennedy on Mexico, Madhur Jaffrey on India and Yotam Ottolenghi on the Middle East. And Nordic, of course, with Fäviken, The Nordic Cookbook and Noma.
Then there are the themes. Bread and sourdough with Tartine, Richard Hart and Juno the Bakery. Fermentation with Sandor Katz and the Noma guide. Fire and embers with Etxebarri. Vegetables with Jeremy Fox and Joshua McFadden. Whole fish with Josh Niland, the whole animal with Fergus Henderson. Cocktails with Death & Co and Dave Arnold, wine with Jancis Robinson and coffee with James Hoffmann. It makes for a fairly broad shelf.
If someone asks us which are the best cookbooks, this is roughly the list they get. But it is not an inventory of what has to be on a cookbook shelf, simply our own favourites. In all honesty we do not own every one of them either; a few we are still waiting for. If you only want one book and would like to cook better by tomorrow, we would say Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. If you would rather read about what a restaurant kitchen is like than cook, take Heat. Looking for an Italian one, it is Marcella Hazan, every time. And if it is food for the week you are after, there is more under Everyday Food.
On each book’s page there are a few lines about why we like that particular one, and the reasons vary. We hope our selection helps you find your way among all the books!
