4 Blenheim Crescent
Notting Hill
London, W11 1NN
Nearest Transport: Ladbroke Grove
020-7221-1992
Books for Cooks is Notting Hill’s famous cookbook shop, crammed with thousands of tasty titles and equipped with a squashy sofa for cookbook junkies in need of a long read. In the shop they really do cook the books – cookbooks are put to the test in the café at the back of the shop, while cookery classes take place in the demonstration kitchen upstairs.
I've been gagging to visit Books for Cooks for ages. I stumbled across a reference to London's premiere cooking book shop in Olive magazine around 6 months ago and have been looking for a window of opportunity to investigate...
It's just off Portobello Road, surrounded by cool cofee shops, market stalls, spice emporiums, lingerie shops and the Electric Cinema. You will seriously struggle not to find what you are looking for. I was gobsmacked by the range of cook books they had and could have bought pretty much half the shop! I held myself back and walked away with a list of books to buy on Amazon and a paperback copy of Anthony Bourdain's "Nasty Bits" for the tube ride home.
The books I'm keen to get my hands on are AA Gill's Table Talk, Herve This's Kitchen Mysteries and a book on game by Clarissa Dickinson Wright. The assistants couldn't have been more helpful. They were experts and sussed out what I'd be interested in within a minute. Whilst Amazon's "other customers liked" style recommendation is good, it's not a patch on the service you get in Books for Cooks.
But it's not just an amazing bookshop. It's also a cafe and cooking workshop. There was a queue through the store to the cafe at the back where they were serving delicious looking mushroom soup and pumpkin tarts.
I've looked through the list of workshops and am pretty keen on this one:
"Recipes from Moro with Sam and Samantha Clark
We are delighted to welcome back the chef-patrons of award-wining Moorish restaurant Moro! Do come and experience their passion for the food of Spain and the Muslim Mediterranean at first hand and take home a collection of their always exquisite and inspirational recipes."
I've just bought Moro East so it would be a perfect way to get the most out of it.
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