Get ready for a delicious journey through kitchens, restaurants, and stores all over the world via the pages of these food-themed books about travel, food, and cultures.
Last updated: February 14, 2025
Books for Aspiring Foodies and Avid Travelers
Oh, no… You’ve come the wrong way. It’s not a place to look for recipes of exquisite dishes from different cuisines all round the world. The books I’m going to tell you about do place food at the center of their narratives, but in an unorthodox way. Certainly not the approach a traditional recipe book would take.
What you’re reading right now is a small corner on the Internet where you can get inspired through a handful of food and travel related books to experiment, innovate, and simply perfect your favorite dishes in your own kitchen.
Who Are These Food and Travel Books for?
For all. Whether you are a professional chef or an amateur baker, you’ll find plenty of inspiration and some behind the culinary-scene secrets on the pages of these food and travel books.
Some of these are memoirs peppered with recipes their authors developed after years of traveling, improvising, and adapting classic dishes to their tastes. You can find a recipe for a perfect Italian bruschetta or Greek chickpea soup while exploring the world via these engrossing food and travel books.
For most part, though, these entertaining reads, yes entertaining – this is what these books really are – add a zest to your cooking journey and inspire you to experiment with a wide range of various dishes. You will be astounded to learn how one simple spice, even as common as cinnamon, can transform the entire recipe and maybe even take you back into the streets of Turkey.
Ready for an exciting and inspiring journey that revolves around food, cultures, and personal trials and experiments? Let’s submerge into the pages of these food and travel books, one at a time.
What These Books Are Not
I shall repeat one more time. The food and travel books listed here are not recipe books. Consider these fictional and real stories as your pathway to getting comfortable with exploring the world through food and spices.
FOOD-THEMED BOOKS: FROM WORLD TRAVELS TO ADVENTURES IN THE KITCHEN
1. Kitchen Confidential
A book about travel, food, and restaurant business by Anthony Bourdain
Kitchen Confidential… I haven’t read any other books about food, travel, and restaurant business that excited and disgusted me as much as Anthony Bourdain’s confession. It took me more than a year to finish the memoir of one of New York’s most acclaimed chefs.
Many other books, travel novels, financial and wellness guides, and a couple of recipe collections sneaked in between these months of marinating the stories from the first chapters of Kitchen Confidential.
I literally started reading the book, got so repulsed by the restaurant business that I swore to never step inside any food establishment again, and stuff this masterpiece away. A few months later I would pick it up, read a little bit, and hide it again.
It continued on until, as a part of my New Year’s resolution, I decided to finish reading this highly disturbing, but brutally honest book every traveler and frequent restaurant diner, or maybe a reader who dreams of opening her own restaurant, must read.
Once I got over the profanity (it’s Anthony Bourdain after all) and kitchen’s conditions the author worked in at the beginning of his career, reading went on as smooth as butter. Bourdain takes his audiences to different restaurants and kitchens across New York, opens the doors to Tokyo’s food scene, and makes you fall in love with food, travel, and world exploration.
2. The Blue Zones: Secrets for Living Longer
A food and travel book that unveils secrets of longevity by Dan Buettner
Dan Buettner took a different approach to discovering the world’s culinary secrets. The National Geographic contributor sets off on an adventure to track food traditions and living conditions of the healthiest and longest-living people on earth.
As a more holistic addition to his bestselling The Blue Zones series, Dan travels to six places across the globe to interview centenarians and their families, record their diets, and observe their lifestyles. Because, as the author insists, one does not go without the other.
As a bonus, The Blue Zones contains a few traditional recipes from each of these corners of the world that you can easily whip up at home.
3. Every Day in Tuscany
A travel and food book about seasonal lifestyle in Italy by Frances Mayes
Frances Mayes never hides her love affair with Tuscany, one of the most picturesque regions of Italy. It takes the author one visit to fall in love with this part of the country. Dreaming of her paradise on earth, Frances does something that an average foreigner is probably not supposed to do. The author buys an old, but lovely house in a rural area of Tuscany.
With her work and life in the U.S., the woman is able to visit her new home only for short amounts of time each year. This, however, never stops her from falling more and more in love with Tuscan food, scenic Italian landscapes, rich cultural traditions and customs, and friendly locals.
Every Day in Tuscany is Frances Mayes’s ode to Italy. The author describes her everyday life in the Italian countryside as a gift one can only wish for. Cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, meeting neighbors – there is no mundane routine in a place like Italy. And just like Dan Buettner does in The Blue Zones, Frances Mayers includes some of her favorite Italian recipes in this delightful travel and food book.
4. At Home in France
Tales of an American and her house abroad by Ann Barry
An American visits France and leaves her heart in a small town of Carennac. Without thinking twice, she returns and buys a little cottage that she can’t wait to escape to every year. This is her safe haven, a place where everything brings joy, happiness, and a much needed break from her American lifestyle.
From house improvement to French neighbors, adventures in back-road inns, and quiet moments in local churches and restaurants, the author shares with her readers what makes her come back to rural France again and again. She feels At Home in France.
Does it sound familiar? Ann Barry with her French house is almost a soul sister of Frances Mayes who finds her refuge in an old cottage in Tuscany. These authors have never met each other, but their connection and similarity are undeniable.
5. A Thousand Days in Tuscany
A book that takes you on a bittersweet adventure across Italy and Italian food arena by Marlena De Blasi
American food and travel authors may walk different paths, but they definitely have a great taste in choosing their homes abroad. Similar to Frances Mayers and Ann Berry, Marlena De Blasi finds her new abode in one of the culinary darlings of the world, Italy.
The difference between these three authors is that the latter doesn’t just experience the country during short visits. She moves here. After meeting and marrying a Venetian banker, Marlena De Blasi leaves Venice for the countryside of Tuscany where she continues to travel, rediscover Italian food, and record her everyday life in her future book, A Thousand Days in Tuscany.
6. The Pasha of Cuisine
A fascinating book about travel, food, and love by Saygin Ersin
The most delicious novel, the book The Pasha of Cuisine takes its readers to the rich culinary world of Turkey. Once in a lifetime, a person is born who possesses an exceptional mastery in cooking. No product is ordinary to him. No spice is unknown. He takes a few simple ingredients, adds a dash of common spices, and a masterpiece that can change trajectories of people’s lives comes out of his kitchen. He is the Pasha of cuisine.
In his most flavorful book, Ersin intertwines culinary traditions with mystery, tragedy, and love. And this, my readers, is the best recipe for a deliciously captivating story. The only side effect of this fictional travel and food book is that it will certainly inspire you to experiment with new spices in your own cooking. You may even want to learn a new Turkish dish or travel to Turkey in pursuit of culinary pleasure.
7. The Wisdom of Tea
A travel and food book filled with lessons from the Japanese tea ceremony by Noriko Morishita
After hearty Turkish dinners with the right amount of spices, would you travel with me to Japan, a country of sakura and exceptional tea ceremonies? Our guide on this delicious journey of aesthetic and sensory pleasure rooted in Japanese traditions is none other than Noriko Morishita and her bestselling book The Wisdom of Tea.
Let’s dive into the world of ancient calligraphy, detailed tea set-ups, seasonal observations, and tea, lots of tea. Black tea, matcha tea, ceremonial tea, or just a cup of strong, flavorful beverage that defines the life of the author and brings her back “home” to a world full of authenticity and unparalleled culinary traditions.
8. The Sweetness of Doing Nothing
A travel and food book about dolce far niente by Sophie Minchilli
Food – and it means a lot in Italy – farmer’s markets, leisurely strolls, family and friends… This is all Sophie Minchilli misses while studying abroad. She never takes for granted her right and privilege to live in one of the most beautiful and culturally rich countries in the world after she packs her suitcase and returns back home to Italy after her studies are over.
The author pours out her love for her home country, dolce far niente lifestyle, and of course, Italian food in her book The Sweetness of Doing Nothing. The author takes you on a ride to her grandmother’s house where she experiences her first real immersion into Italian cuisine. Later she takes you food shopping and leads you through streets, markets, cafes, and restaurants of her hometown, Rome.
Grab this small, abundantly pictured book and travel to Italy to learn about Italian food and lifestyle from a local guide.
9. The Kamogawa Food Detectives
A Japanese mystery travel and food book by Hisashi Kashiwai
Once a police officer, Nagare Kamogawa is always a police officer. Yet now after retiring from the official duties, he is not just a detective, but a food detective. Together with his daughter, Koishi, Kamogawa runs a special restaurant in Kyoto where on the menu are not only delectable dishes, but also flavors and memories long forgotten.
A bestselling book in Japan, The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a beautiful gift for every travel and food junkie.
10. Be Ready When the Luck Happens
A memoir by the one and only Ina Garten
The cherry on top of this travel and food book tour is the thoroughly marinated, properly spiced, and deliciously cooked book Be Ready When the Luck Happens by the Barefoot Contessa herself, Ina Garten.
I won’t lie if I say that the idea of compiling the list of books for inspiring travelers and aspiring foodies materialized after perusing this memoir. Short (or long if you will) and sweet, the book tells the story of the beloved chef from her childhood to bleak workdays as a state employee in Washington, D.C., to the owner of the Barefoot Contessa store and later the author of bestselling cookbooks and one of nation’s favorite cooking show hosts.
