The best food books of 2025

These are the top culinary reads of the year, from a celebration of Middle Eastern food to an immersive tour of Paris’s 20 arrondissements.

How I Cook by Ben Lippett

Ben Lippett – the author of this superbly practical cookbook – “reminds me of the early Nigel Slater”, said Rose Prince in The Spectator. His recipes sound simple – sausage and sage pappardelle, chocolate mousse – but they’re always clever and well explained. A food influencer, Lippett has a “blokeish gen-Z prose style”, said Bee Wilson in The Guardian.