7 essential cookbooks every food lover needs, according to LA’s top chefs

In an era when countless recipes are available at our fingertips, and endless culinary hacks crowd social media, cookbooks remain refreshingly relevant by offering authoritative voices, immersive storytelling, and rich cultural context that digital feeds cannot match.

They also make for functional yet fashionable decor at some of Los Angeles’s buzziest restaurants.

Eagle-eyed Angelenos may have noticed cookbooks displayed at many local spots arranged among knick-knacks, like at chef Eric Greenspan’s newly opened Mish Delicatessen on La Brea, or in open kitchens within easy reach, as at chef Dave Beran’s Michelin-starred Seline in Santa Monica. These dog-eared, oil-stained volumes not only enhance a space's visual appeal but often map a chef’s heritage, pedigree and community.

“It just brings this energy to a space; these are my icons, my idols, my people I've learned from, whether through books or in real life, and it's a big honor to be able to have them on the shelf,” says Tyler Wells, the restaurateur behind Betsy and Bar Betsy in Altadena. “I think it's more an ethos than a design decision.”

The cookbooks highlighted below have earned a place on the bookshelves of some of Los Angeles’s top chefs and restaurateurs — and are worthy of adding to your personal collection, whether you’re a dedicated home cook sharpening your skills or a casual food lover gleaning dinnertime inspiration. Listed in alphabetical order.

'A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes' by David Tanis

Recommended by: Luis Sierra of Picala in West Adams

Chef Luis Sierra keeps two dozen of his most prized cookbooks on a shelf above the pass at Picala, a Spanish restaurant in West Adams that opened in April. Raised in New Mexico on a steady diet of red and green chilies, the chef relied on cookbooks and food magazines like Lucky Peach to provide a window into cultures and cuisines unavailable locally.

Though a heavily tabbed copy of Colman Andrews's Catalan Cuisine ranks near the top of Sierra’s most-used cookbooks, he returns time and again to David Tanis’s seminal ode to simple and seasonal cooking in A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes; the chef worked under Tanis at Lulu at the Hammer Museum before opening Picala.

“It is quintessential California cuisine. It's that ethos that fine dining does and some of the best mom-and-pop places do. Find really good ingredients and don't mess it up. Just treat it fairly, don't try to make it something it's not,” Sierra said. “It took me years to figure out what [Tanis] was trying to say.”

'Death & Co: Modern Classic Cocktails' by Alex Day, David Kaplan, and Nick Fauchald

Recommended by: Avish Naran of Pijja Palace in Silver Lake

Pijja Palace's cookbooks include the influential cocktail guide from Death & Co.

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Courtesy Pijja Palace

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At Avish Naran’s boisterous Indian sports bar, Pijja Palace, in Silver Lake, a tightly curated stack of cookbooks is located near the kitchen pass. Titles like Kricket: An Indian-Inspired Cookbook by Will Bowlby and chef Atul Kochhar’s Benares serve as education and inspiration for the restaurant’s mostly non-Indian staff. A copy of Khushbu Shah’s Amrikan, left over from a cookbook launch hosted at the restaurant a few years back, shares a similar diasporic sensibility to Pijja Palace.

Anchoring the teetering titles are a pair of cocktail bibles from the acclaimed New York City bar Death & Co. — Modern Classic Cocktails and Welcome Home — that Naran considers indispensable guides.

“They teach you the fundamentals of making cocktails. They're not using hydrocolloids and centrifuges. It's about appreciating the bottle and the classics,” he said. “We use them from time to time for inspiration at our restaurant. They give you a blueprint of all the classic cocktails and even encourage you to swap shit out.”

'Ducksoup: The Wisdom of Simple Cooking' by Clare Lattin and Tom Hill

Recommended by: Heather Sperling of Botanica in Silver Lake

Cookbooks subtly add to the ambience at Botanica in Silver Lake

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Heather Sperling

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Courtesy Botanica

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Heather Sperling, the restaurateur behind Botanica and Bar Besito in Silver Lake, is a self-proclaimed bibliophile with a penchant for restaurant cookbooks. Stored above Botanica’s bar and service station is a curated collection of her favorites. These titles come from like-minded restaurants that share Botanica's dedication to simplicity and seasonality, including works from Prune in New York City, Lula Cafe in Chicago, and the Bay Area’s Zuni Cafe and Chez Panisse Cafe.

“I love having those around as a way to remind us of the places that we view as both peers and inspiration,” Sperling said. Additionally, Sperling uses the cookbooks to facilitate conversations around food and cooking with her chefs.

Of the hundreds of cookbooks that Sperling has come across, it’s the collection of recipes from the restaurant Ducksoup in London that’s made a lasting impression.

“Ducksoup: The Wisdom of Simple Cooking is the one that I've given to every chef who has ever worked for me,” she said. “It is a simple and quietly excellent book of great cooking with some lovely simple stories and unbelievably good food that just captures a sensibility that I aspire to, which is just cooking lovely, thoughtful, compelling, unfussy food in a way that feels very full of heart and full of intention.”

'Josey Baker Bread' by Josey Baker

Recommended by: Tyler Wells of Bar Betsy in Altadena

Ever since the Eaton Fire wiped out restaurateur Tyler Wells’s cookbook collection, he’s been intentionally rebuilding it with mostly secondhand copies and displaying the titles on the shelves at his all-day restaurant Bar Betsy in Altadena. Wells described his growing collection as “quite aspirational,” consisting “mostly of restaurants that I adore and look up to” and written by experts with a singular perspective and style.

Among his most prized cookbooks is Josey Baker Bread by Josey Baker, the chef and owner of The Mill in San Francisco.

“I really adore baking, and it was something I never really had formal training in, so I'm largely self-taught. This book just takes you from nothing — here's how you make the simplest loaf pan loaf with yeast — all the way to free-form bread,” Wells said. “It's so down to Earth; it's not geared for a professional baker. I learned more from that book than probably any other cookbook I've read.”

'The French Laundry Cookbook' by Michael Ruhlman, Susie Heller, and Thomas Keller

Recommended by: Dave Beran of Seline in Santa Monica

Seline's salute to gastronomic literature includes over 100 cookbooks.

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Courtesy Seline

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When chef Dave Beran conceptualized his “book wall” — an expansive library with over 100 cookbooks prominently displayed in the open kitchen at Seline in Santa Monica — providing inspiration and education for him and his team, as well as creating a sense of home, comfort, and curiosity for diners, was at the forefront.

While Beran admits that The French Laundry Cookbook, a comprehensive collection of recipes and philosophies from chef Thomas Keller’s legendary restaurant in Yountville, California, feels dated in many ways, its impact can’t be understated.

“I remember reading it when I first started working in 2003. It was just such a clear defining point of this is why it's important to teach, and this is why it's important to pay attention and be a sponge in a kitchen,” Beran said. “I think if you're completely blind to fine dining in a sense of ‘Where's the value in this thing that I feel like I've had 100 times,’ that's the book to read.”

'Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables' by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg

Recommended by: Clémence de Lutz of Petitgrain Boulangerie in Santa Monica

Take a peek beneath the gleaming pastry case at Santa Monica's Petitgrain Boulangerie to spot a few of chef-owner Clémence de Lutz’s tallest cookbooks. Selected from her personal collection that numbers more than 400, these oversized titles pull double duty: they elegantly separate the bakery’s kitchen from the storefront while hiding unsightly coffee supplies. As a self-taught baker, de Lutz leaned heavily on cookbooks for foundational knowledge.

“I would buy used cookbooks from the Culinary Institute of America or some of the other more professional culinary schools, and I would tool around and give myself a curriculum,” she said.

These days, de Lutz favors cookbooks rooted in West Coast ingredients, especially Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg.

“I appreciated when I first saw the book that it said ‘six seasons’ because here in California, there's so much overlap between summer and fall. We shouldn't just think about winter, spring, summer, and fall,” she said. “I appreciate that it's not precious; it's good, succinct information. We should all be cooking more vegetables for their flavor at their peak.”

'Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking' by Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook

Recommended by: Eric Greenspan of Mish Delicatessen in Mid-City

At Mid-City’s Mish Delicatessen, chef-owner Eric Greenspan says the cookbooks tell “the story of the evolution — past, present, and future — of the Mish menu.”

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Courtesy Mish Delicatessen

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At Mid-City’s Mish Delicatessen, diners are welcome to linger in the second-floor lounge to peruse the restaurant’s many cookbooks featuring titles from classic New York City delis, more modern collections penned by contemporary culinarians like Jake Cohen and Adeena Sussman, and everything in between.

Each cookbook tells “the story of the evolution — past, present, and future — of the Mish menu,” said chef-owner Eric Greenspan. “It was really important for us to focus on the entirety of the Jewish culinary diaspora.”

Zahav, the cookbook from Michael Solomonoff's acclaimed restaurant in Philadelphia by the same name, deeply influenced Greenspan’s vision for Mish.

“Michael's such an inspirational chef, both in his take on modernizing and elevating classic Middle Eastern Jewish food, but also the fact that he pulls it off from a deep, personal relationship with the food,” Greenspan said. “And that's what inspired me to do the whole damn thing. I wanted to finally have a restaurant where I could cook something personal to me from a cultural and traditional sense.”