The Best Audiobooks for Foodies
I’ve found that great chefs are often great writers. There is a shared art between executing a vision on a plate and executing a vision on a page. Both take mastery of structure, suspense, and constrained creativity.
And, more so than written word, audiobooks succeed at conveying a chef’s excitement and worldview — it’s like plating your dish at the table. So here are my favorite audiobooks for foodies.
Frankly, I’ve listened to far more audiobooks from chefs and other food-writers than is reasonable. Not all were great, but the ones that were really stuck with me. They’ve changed how I think about food and hospitality.
In this post, I’ll share my favorite audiobooks for home cooks, aspirational chefs considering culinary school, or anyone that wants to dive deeper into the world of food. I’ve personally listened to each of these and can vouch for the narration. And while only some of them are written by Michelin star chefs, all of them will leave you as curious as a Michelin star chef when you’re done.
1. The Third Plate
Dan Barber is the mastermind chef behind Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a high-end restaurant and farm in New York that takes farm-to-table to its utmost extremes. At Blue Hill, they not only serve you the freshest, purest example of produce that can be grown in the area but also cultivate new and rare breeds that you can’t buy anywhere else. There’s a method to Blue Hill’s madness, and Dan Barber lays it out entirely in this informational and inspiring book.
Before listening to this audiobook (which is read by Barber himself), I thought “heritage breeds” and “organic wheat” were all hype. Now, I have a new appreciation for the history of food in America and a better idea of how to harness its potential. I’m a more thoughtful cook.
2. Eat a Peach
Dave Chang is the chef behind Momofuku and Netflix’s Ugly Delicious. By elevating casual food to the pedestal it deserves, Chang might have had a bigger impact on food in America than any other chef in the 2010s — and it all started with a humble and inauthentic ramen shop. Eat A Peach explores the risks that Chang took and the struggles (from alcoholism to mental health) that nearly derailed his journey.
Dave Chang narrates and is self-deprecating, honest, and deeply insightful. If you’re a fan of the Dave Chang Podcast, you’ll love that this book has more structure and better developed ideas than those off-the-cuff episodes.
3. Life On The Line
Thankfully, there is no other chef memoir as real, devastating, and inspiring as this book. Because no chef deserves to go through what Grant Achatz did to carry his restaurant to greatness.
Grant Achatz is the head chef of Alinea — a three Michelin star restaurant in Chicago known as one of the most innovative in the world. While the book explores Achatz childhood and his development at the French Laundry, the pages turn faster than ever when Achatz is cruelly and ironically diagnosed with a tongue cancer that prevents him from tasting his own food. It’s incredible look at perseverance.
On the lighter side, some chapters are also written by Achatz’ investor and business partner, providing the listener with a unique look at what it takes to build a Michelin star restaurant from the ground up.
4. Kitchen Confidential
Look, any list of audiobooks for foodies without this book would be incomplete. It’s as simple as that, and you need to read it.
Anthony Bourdain wrote Kitchen Confidential before he was famous. He was a struggling chef, and writing a culinary-tell-all was his last shot. It paid off, and in the years after publication, Bourdain became the de facto savior of line cooks, and this book became the culinary bible.
Never before had a culinary memoir detailed the gritty, raw world of the back-of-the-house. It’s real and raunchy, and it provides perhaps the best and least tarnished glimpse at the mind of the late Anthony Bourdain. Narrated by the author.
5. Heat
Heat is not by a famous chef, and that’s what makes it so great. Instead, it’s by Bill Buford, a New Yorker writer who threw himself into a high-pressure kitchen in New York City (and then to various restaurants in Italy) and wrote about the experience masterfully.
Buford writes with incredible humor and wit while documenting not only all he learned but also all he messed up. Having completed a similar (much shorter) stint at a restaurant after spending my career in the corporate world, I felt this book captured the joys and the terrors perfectly. Think of it as your chance to learn from a three Michelin star kitchen without being added to a “do not serve” list when your shift is over.
Buford doesn’t narrate this book, but he does narrate the sequel (which I also recommend).
6. Coming to My Senses
Today, it’s pretty simple to buy great organic produce — just go to the farmers market! But in the peak of the consumerism of the 1960s, everything was mass-produced, and it was easier to buy the full Betty Crocker catalog than it was to buy a shallot. We owe much of this transition to Alice Waters, the mother of California cooking and the leader of a movement.
Coming to My Senses details not only Alice Waters’ journey to build the iconic Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California but also the political and cultural battles she faced as a young female activist in the 60s and 70s. The book weaves her personal growth with the growth of the restaurant, helping the listener to trace the threads of inspiration.
Waters narrates this book, but she does talk on the slower side. I listened at 1.3x speed.
7. Setting The Table
I wish they assigned this book in business school. Undoubtedly, if they did, customer retention across industries would skyrocket.
Danny Meyer is the genius behind some of the most iconic restaurants in the United States — from Union Square Cafe to Shake Shack. He was never a cook, and none of the chefs from his restaurants ever really became household names. Meyer’s success, instead, was the result of an impeccable and considerate dining experience. Meyer developed a theory for hospitality that was unrivaled in restaurants. And he extended that hospitality to his neighbors, investing in the communities that his restaurants called home.
Setting the Table is relevant for all industries. If you want to make a customer feel like a lifelong friend, you learn from Danny.
8. Notes From A Young Black Chef
After acting up in school, Kwame Onwuachi was sent away from his Bronx home to live in Nigeria. The experience did not help. When he returned to the US, he found himself involved with gangs, drugs, and failing grades.
But Onwuachi turned it around. He built his own catering business, competed in Top Chef, and worked for some of the best restaurants in the US. The story only gets more inspirational from there, so I’ll leave it to you to finish this one out.
Onwuachi narrates this book, which is also slated to become a movie in the future.
