The 10 best cookbooks that double as luxurious interior accessories
These are cookbooks designed to be seen, as much as their meticulously crafted recipes are to be utilised
If you’re the kind of person who can spend hours in a boutique bookshop flipping through endless cookbooks for both design inspiration and culinary expertise, you’ve arrived in the right place. I, too, am often mere inches away from sitting cross legged on the floor of said shop, with my takeaway flat white forgotten and long-cold next to me.
Many of us have fond memories of flipping through our parents’ or grandparents’ veritable cookery grimoires – usually with something like a chocolate cake or angel bread in mind. We’d open them with grubby hands, and they’d thwack onto the countertop with a great big bang and a puff of flour in a manner quite akin to something out of Harry Potter.
Cookbooks have retained that mythical role today, as they remain filled to the brim with marvellous creative possibilities, the promise of alchemy, and gorgeously glossy, aspirational photographs of culinary creations that make our mouths water.
Yet the modern cookbook has also slightly slipped from its assigned role. It now operates with a broader brief, holding its own on a console table as confidently as it does on a kitchen counter. It’s no longer about culinary ambition alone, but about how food publishing has aligned itself with the visual language of interiors.
Weight, paper stock, typography and colour theory matter as much as ingredient lists. These are books designed to be seen. Covers favour typefaces that nod to fashion publishing, while spines are calibrated to read well from across a room. You can trace the influence of art monographs and design annuals, as if the cookbook has absorbed the codes of other household cultural objects.
This matters because interiors have become increasingly expressive. Shelves are curated with the same care once reserved for wardrobes. A cookbook that can sit alongside ceramics, framed prints and collected ephemera has to understand this economy of attention.
To treat these books as mere props, however, misses the point entirely. Their appeal lies in duality. You might cook from them, or you might not. Either way, they contribute to the atmosphere of a room.
Below, we’ve curated a selection of the 10 best cookbooks that double as luxury interior accessories.
Cooking With Vegetables by Jesse Jenkins
Jenkins’ debut cookbook features clean layouts and produce-forward photography (taken by the chef himself) that make it as satisfying to leaf through as it is to cook from, offering a case for vegetables as the centre of the table rather than a supporting act.
Nothing Fancy by Alison Roman
Nothing Fancy captures Alison Roman at her most relaxed and persuasive, writing for people who care about food but refuse ceremony. The imagery is direct and domestic, the kind that makes you want to get stuck-in immediately.
Atelier September by Frederik Bille Brahe
Part cookbook, part diary, Atelier September reflects the pared-back elegance of its Copenhagen café namesake. Recipes are interspersed with soft, natural photography that that lends the book a calm authority that works beautifully on an open shelf.
Shop Atelier September, Apartamento Publishing, at Amazon £44.99
Zaitoun by Yasmin Khan
Zaitoun is grounded in place, memory and politics, but never loses its warmth. Khan’s writing is precise and personal, while the photography carries a sense of lived experience, making this a book that rewards slow reading as much as careful cooking.
Bad B*tch in the Kitch by Cassie Yeung
Cassie Yeung’s debut is playful without being throwaway, pairing sharp humour with recipes that take flavour seriously. The visuals are bold and confident, reflecting a book that understands food as pleasure, identity and self-expression in equal measure.
Pranzo by Guy Mirabella
Pranzo reads like a long lunch that stretches into the afternoon. Mirabella’s Mediterranean cooking is framed by sun-drenched imagery and an unhurried pace, making this a book that brings warmth to a space even when it’s closed.
Mexico: The Cookbook by Margarita Carrillo Arronte, Fiamma Piacentini
This is a substantial, unapologetic volume that treats Mexican cuisine with depth and respect. Rich photography and extensive recipes give it the presence of a reference book, one that anchors a room as much as it educates the cook.
Assouline The Missoni Family Cookbook
As you might expect, colour and pattern do much of the talking here. The Missoni family’s recipes are woven together with visual cues drawn from their design legacy, resulting in a book that feels closer to a fashion monograph than a traditional cookbook.
Shop The Missoni Family Cookbook, Assouline, at Arighi Bianchi, £45
Sketch by Mourad Mazouz, Pierre Gagnaire
Sketch documents one of London’s most visually distinctive restaurants with a sense of theatricality. Recipes sit alongside expressive imagery and illustration, making this less a manual and more a record of a singular creative collaboration.
Table for Two by Bre Graham
Love is in the air thanks to Bre Graham’s delectable Table for Two – the author’s cookbook debut designed to help you cater for those you love, while also providing romantic, mouth-watering imagery that might just encourage you to re-think the way you lay the table for a casual Monday night.
Images: Courtesy of publishers
