Cookbook Stores

There is nothing quite like a good cookbook store

A good cookbook store is an invitation into the world of cookbooks. There are no giant chains of cookbook stores; no big box retailers. By their nature, cookbook stores are a labour of love and devotion; their owners are cooks, readers, aficionados; they are experts. Increasingly, stores are destinations too - many put on cooking classes and special events. Visit them. Buy cookbooks.

The following is a list of every cookbook store in the world (I could find) with at least some information online. These are specialty cookbook stores only - no chains and no bookstores which happen to have good cookbook sections, but also sell other books.

Please contact me if you have any corrections or updates (I've listed stores I couldn't confirm as being in operation at the bottom of the page). If you own or work for one of these stores, or a store not listed here, drop us a line.

Last updated: June 21, 2011 - Thanks Katharina!

America

Australia

Austria

Belgium

Brazil

Canada

France

Germany

Hungary

Italy

Netherlands

New Zealand

Sweden

Switzerland

United Kingdom


Thanks

I'm indebted to the list posted online at Sally's Place for giving me some starting points, but it appears to be at least 10 years old, and there are some wonderful new stores (and some sad disappearances) not reflected in her list. Thanks also to Jason at the Food in the Library Blog for a handy map. Thanks to member Friederike who sent a useful list from Valentina's Kochbuch (German) as well as a list of several stores in Belgium and the Netherlands. Thanks to Celia at Omnivore Books in San Francisco, who let me know about Kitchen Witch and also about the vanishing of La Librairie des Gourmets from Paris. Thanks to Katharina at Valentina's Kochbuch (a fantastic German cookbook site, by the way) who has kept me up to date on German/European bookstores.

Gone, but not forgotten

There have been some classic cookbook stores which have been gone longer than my list of 'vanished' stores, but deserve to be remembered. I'm listing them as I hear of them. Many thanks to Susan Betz for getting me started on this.

United States
Cook's Library, Los Angeles, CA: closed in April, 2009, after 30 years in operation.
Corner Book Shop, Manhattan, NY: A few years after opening in 1940, Eleanor Lowenstein began to carry primarily books on food, cookery, and wine. Until late 1980, her shop was the one to go to in the US for culinary publications. She was also known for her two revised editions (1954 and 1972) of Waldo Lincoln's bibliography, American Cookery Books, both published by the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, MA.
Wine & Food Library, Ann Arbor, MI: After closing this bookstore, former proprietor Jan Longone has been the curator of the culinary collection (much of it donated by her) at the Clements Library on the University of Michigan campus for the last 10 years, and is retiring.

Germany
cri.cri Kochbuch, Frankfurt, Germany; closed in 2010.

Notes on vanished/left-out stores

The following stores were not included in my main list. They are either closed or I was unable to find confirmation that they were still operating, or they are not true specialty cookbook stores. Let me know if I'm in error about any of them:

Canada
Books for Cooks, London, ON, Canada: closed in 2009.
Bon Appetit Cook Books, Montreal, QC, Canada - now known as 'Appetite for Books'

United States
The Kitchen Shelf, Brookline, MA
Specialty Books Company, New York, NY
Cookbooks & Lavender, Pittsburgh, PA
Hoppin Johns, Charleston, SC
Hervey’s, Richardson, TX: wholesale only, if it's still in operation.
Cookbook Cottage, Seattle, WA

Europe
Thrill and Chill, Vienna, Austria: apparently has a good cookbook section, but is not primarily a cookbook store.
Menu Plaisir, Redu, Belgium: was an antiquarian bookstore in an old house; can't confirm it is still a cookbook specialist.
Kunst & Kokkentoj, Copenhagen, Denmark: has some cookbooks, but is mainly a kitchenware store
Kookpunt, Netherlands: has about 700 cookbook titles, but is mainly a kitchenware store
Food, Paris, France
Tour du Monde, Paris, France
La Librairie des Gourmets, Paris, France
Librairie Montaut, Bordeaux, France
Librairie Jeanne Laffitte, Marseilles, France: still there, but not primarily a seller of cookbooks.
Libraire les Mots Bleus, Trouville-sur-Mer, France: appears to still be there, but not primarily a seller of cookbooks.
Mataes Buchhandlung, Frankfurt, Germany
Buchhandlung Fuer Essen und Trinken: Munich, Germany
Literatur Moths, Munich, Germany: Not a specialty cookbook store, though an interesting store.
Goldhahn & Sampson, Berlin, Germany: More of a deli and specialty food store, with some cookbooks, than a cookbook store.
De Gustibus, Bologna, Italy
The Cook's Bookshop, Edinburgh, Scotland
Clarin Libros, Madrid, Spain
Bofinken, Oslo, Sweden
Food for Thought, Holt, UK

Elsewhere
Golgottia, New Delhi, India
Exclusive Books, South Africa: a chain of regular bookstores
The Antique Bookshop & Librería de Antaño, Buenos Aires, Argentina: not primarily cookbook stores.

*Image from Barbara Jo's Books to Cooks in Vancouver, BC. Photo used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user Roland