Some of Our Favorite Cookbook Stores Around the World
Food is the universal language, so it makes sense that cookbook stores exist in just about every corner of the globe. We rounded up some of our favorite literary-gourmet hotspots and asked their owners about the most popular, beloved, and bestselling cookbooks in their stores.
Their answers were very different, except for one: almost every shop reported "any book by Yotam Ottolenghi" as their no. 1 seller last year. So maybe food is the universal language—with a standard accent shaped by the bold, textured, Middle East–inspired flavors created in a Notting Hill deli?
Take a look at some of the best cookbook stores all over the world.
Books for Cooks & Urban Walkabout1/12Books for Cooks (Melbourne, Australia)
Located in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy—and housed in a former 19th-century sly grog shop, or unlicensed liquor store—Books for Cooks sells volumes old and new. What book do all Australian home cooks have in the kitchen? "Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion is the best loved bible in the country," says owner Tim White. "It's bigger (and arguably better) than the Joy of Cooking, Fannie Farmer, or anything similar."
Books for Cooks & Urban Walkabout2/12Books for Cooks (continued)
The store's antiquarian collection has books dating from the 1780s. But its most unusual is "a lovely two-volume, limited-edition, beautifully handbound [copy] of Brillat-Savarin’s The Physiology of Taste, in Danish," says White.
3/12Gastro knjizara Fritula (Istria, Croatia)
Perched on the Adriatic coast, in the town of Rovinj, Gastro knjizara Fritula specializes in Croatian cookbooks—Zlatna knjiga kuharstva, or The Golden Book of Cooking, by Mira Vučetić is a classic, says owner Dijana Volkmer, who owns the store with her husband, Mak Krajina. But the long arm of the American celebrity chef reaches even to Istria. "Anthony Bourdain's TV show was and still is quite popular, especially since he visited our country two years ago. His books are translated in Croatian and are very popular," says Volkmer.
4/12Gastro knjizara Fritula (continued)
The shop sells books in German, Italian, and Croatian, as well as Hebrew, Swedish, and Slovenian. "The Best of Croatian Cooking by Liliana Pavicic and Gordana Parker Mosher is also very popular as well as books by Julia Child, Alice Waters—and Michael Pollan's Food Rules, translated into Croatian." says Volkmer.
Susan Fleming5/12Omnivore Books on Food (San Francisco)
The shop regularly hosts famous chefs and authors, but Omnivore's owner, Celia Sack, lauds the unsung cookbook heroes: "Professional cookbook writers," she says, who write "the cookbooks you know will work every time"—particularly baking books. "Those authors, like Emily Luchetti, Dorie Greenspan, Rose Levy Berenbaum, Alice Medrich, Flo Braker, and Shirley Corriher, are generally middle-aged or older women, and therefore are not promoted by the publishers in the same way that the hotshot boy chefs are. Not to go on a feminist screed, but it's true! And yet, if you want a cookbook that's going to get worn from constant use in your kitchen, you owe something to these ladies, and I wish they'd get more credit than they do."
6/12De Kookboekhandel (Amsterdam)
Favorite cookbook on Dutch cuisine? "De Banketbakker. It’s a book from one of the most favorite bakers of the Netherlands with only typical Dutch pastry recipes," says De Kookboekhandel's owner, Jonah Freud. The store's most unusual special order? "A Dutch woman who rented a camper in the United States. She was looking for the manual of the microwave that was in the camper."
© 2013 Rebecca Sullivan7/12The Book Larder (Seattle, WA)
Given The Book Larder's Pacific Northwest location, seafood cookbooks are popular. "I love Seattle author Becky Selengut’s Good Fish," says owner Lara Hamilton. "Becky focuses on sustainable seafood, and the book is a wealth of information on choosing fish, working with different types of fish, seasonality—really all you need to know in the kitchen. Her recipes are great for both new and experienced cooks and are delicious—the sardine chapter alone could turn the most ardent hater into a sardine lover."
© 2013 Rebecca Sullivan8/12The Book Larder (continued)
Cookbooks often go out of print, and Hamilton would love to see Deborah Madison’s The Savory Way back on shelves. "It’s a 24-year-old book that reads like it could be written today," she says. "She was baking with whole grains and making kale tasty long before it was cool."
9/12Librairie Gourmande (Paris)
Parisians are cookbook lovers, but their interest doesn't extend beyond French cuisine. "American chefs aren't very well known in France," says the owner of Librairie Gourmande, Déborah Dupont. But French chefs who live in America are popular. "French cooks appreciate Franco-Americans like Daniel Boulud or Eric Ripert," says Dupont.
10/12Amber Unicorn Books (Las Vegas)
You wouldn't necessarily expect to find a cookbook store in Las Vegas, and while it doesn't technically specialize in cookbooks, Amber Unicorn Books does have 16,000 to 20,000 cookbook titles, and an owner, Myrna Donata, passionate about vintage recipe books. Her most unusual special order request? "The cannibal cookbook—don't know if the customer was serious or not but I could never find a copy," she says. Most clients have more prosaic desires: Donata says The White House Cookbook is the most requested volume—"All editions of it."
11/12Barbara-Jo's Books to Cooks (Vancouver, B.C.)
Vancouver has a diverse food-loving population, but there's one ethnic cuisine that appeals to everyone: "Italian," says Books to Cooks owner Barbara-Jo Macintosh. "Roberta's Cookbook, Franny's Cookbook, Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking," are all perennial bestsellers. "We do well with pasta and pizza books, too. And because of the fact we did a very large event with Lidia Bastianich, her new book [Lidia's Commonsense Italian Cooking] was our top-selling book of 2013."
12/12Joanne Hendricks Cookbooks (New York City)
Joanne Hendricks Cookbooks specializes in antiquarian, out of print, and unusual volumes, which means owner Hendricks spends a lot of time searching for old books. "They do not grow on trees!" she says. "Sometimes I am very fortunate and receive a phone call to rescue books." For example: "Three years ago [I bought] a collection of Antonin Carême's books from a woman who was 100 years old. She was living on West End Avenue. The books were early 19th century and very special. She had gotten them about 30 years earlier from an antiquarian dealer in England, a dealer I admired greatly. So they were bought in England and brought here to New York. Just last year I sold them all to a confectioner from London, so they all returned back to England. But they remained as a set. For me, a story with a happy ending."
