Books forCooks

Heidi Lascelles opened Books for Cooks in 1983 on the premise that cookbooks deserved a shop of their own; Eric Treuille and Rosie Kindersley took it on in 2001 and added the feature that makes it unique in London: a test kitchen at the back that cooks lunch, Tuesday to Friday, from recipes in the books on sale — the stock, road-tested daily, in front of witnesses. The shelves run from antiquarian French classics to the newest single-subject monograph, the smell of the day's recipe does the marketing, and the hygiene inspectors rate the kitchen like any other, most recently in September 2024. A bookshop that stands behind its inventory to the point of feeding you from it.