Best Cookbooks of 2016

… and the winner is Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan – with a commanding lead.

This is our 8th year of compiling the Best of the Best. We search the globe to come up with the definitive list of the best books on food and drink of the year. Not just one reviewer’s opinion but an amalgamation of every list we could find.

In this year’s Best of the Best list we combined more than 300 Best Cookbooks of 2016 lists from TV, Radio, Newspapers, Magazines, Websites, Blogs and Booksellers across the world (there are links to all of them below).

For those of you interested in data:

From 315 lists there were 3,273 votes
930 different cookbooks made the list
497 cookbooks had only one vote

Check out the Best cookbooks of 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and 2009 lists.

1. Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan is a baker’s magical workshop encased in 500 pages with 170 unique and classic cookie recipes. The royal purple cover, pages that are speckled with cookie illustrations and full-page photographs with a retro feel, all make this book a must have for cookie bakers.

2. Small Victories: Recipes, Advice + Hundreds of Ideas for Home-Cooking Triumphs by Julia Turshen delivers more than 400 recipes with 160 plus mouth-watering photographs from acclaimed photographers Gentl + Hyers. The photographs provide beautiful instruction and inspiration and the recipes will satisfy both beginners and accomplished home cooks.

3. Land of Fish and Rice: Recipes from the Culinary Heart of China by Fuchsia Dunlop shares a journey throughout China painted with the gift of her words and photographs. Dunlop weaves magical stories into intriguing recipes that will surround you as you create the flavorful dishes that are shared in this title.

=4. Appetites: A Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain is the celebrity chef’s first cookbook in over a decade. This book shares a collection of recipes that encompass forty years of Bourdain’s cooking and traveling. These are personal favorites of the chef and are surprisingly approachable by the home cook.

=4. Cooking for Jeffrey by Ina Garten is her most personal cookbook yet and is filled with the recipes Jeffrey, her husband, and their friends request most often as well as charming stories from the couple’s many years together. Ina’s recipes always work and are typical of what everyday cooks make and enjoy.

6. Simple by Diana Henry, who has the ability to turn the ordinary into extraordinary, is a stellar collection of dishes that you can create with no fuss, but which will dazzle your guests with flavor. Diana takes ingredients we are most likely to find in pantries – or that we are able to pick up on the way home from work – and provides recipes that will be your go-tos for life.

7. Taste of Persia: A Cook’s Travels Through Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Kurdistan by Naomi Duguid is a “reason to celebrate” to quote The New York Times. Duguid has the soul of a writer managing to convey the culture and cuisine of a particular region eloquently with thoughtful words and photographs. Taste of Persia is a treasure delivering 125 dishes from this beautiful, yet troubled, area of the world.

8. Everything I Want to Eat: Sqirl and the New California Cooking by Jessica Koslow brings us a taste of California cooking renaissance in 100 recipes utilizing fresh ingredients. This book focuses on composed dishes that are easily accomplished at home with a fun layout and beautiful photographs of the food, people, and all that make up the farming landscape that keep our kitchens stocked and our bellies full, this book is enchanting.

9. The Red Rooster Cookbook by Marcus Samuelsson shares essays and interviews along with archival and contemporary photos that chronicle all that is Harlem. All these factors are reason enough to covet this book, but then we have the recipes that will have you excited to be in the kitchen.

10. Molly on the Range by Molly Yeh is packed with stories, illustrations and photographs along with recipes from the popular blogger that gives us a peek at her unlikely life on a farm. Unique recipes and fun narrative makes this a book to be devoured from cover to cover.

Runners Up

Taste & Technique: Recipes to Elevate Your Home Cooking by Naomi Pomeroy
Breaking Breads by Uri Scheft
Oh She Glows Every Day by Angela Liddon
Food52: A New Way to Dinner by Amanda Hesser & Merrill Stubbs
The Adventures of Fat Rice by Abe Conlon, Adrienne Lo & Hugh Amano

Top British/Irish Picks

1. Simple by Diana Henry
2. The Cardamom Trail by Chetna Makan
=3. Fresh India by Meera Sodha
=3. Salt is Essential by Shaun Hill
=3. Scandinavian Comfort Food by Trine Hahnemann
=6. Gather by Gill Meller
=6. Land of Fish and Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop
=8. Brindisa: The True Food of Spain by Monika Linton
=8. Classic Koffmann by Pierre Koffmann
=8. Jamie Oliver’s Christmas Cookbook

Top Australian/New Zealand Picks

1. Smith & Daughters by Shannon Martinez and Mo Wyse
2. Lamingtons & Lemon Tart by Darren Purchese
=3. Neighbourhood by Hetty McKinnon
=3. Street Food Asia by Luke Nguyen
5. Australian Fish & Seafood Cookbook by John Susman, Anthony Huckstep, Sarah Swan & Stephen Hodges
6. Basics to Brilliance by Donna Hay
=7. Best Kitchen Basics by Mark Best
=7. Land of Fish and Rice by Fuchsia Dunlop
=7.The Cook’s Table by Stephanie Alexander
10. Savour: Salads for All Seasons by Peter Gordon

Top Canadian Picks

1. Oh She Glows Every Day by Angela Liddon
=2. Appetites by Anthony Bourdain
=2. Food52: A New Way to Dinner by Amanda Hesser & Merrill Stubbs
=2. Taste of Persia by Naomi Duguid
=5. Araxi: Roots to Shoots by James Walt
=5. Bake with Anna Olson by Anna Olson
=5. Cooking for Jeffrey by Ina Garten

Top Drinks Books

1. Amaro by Brad Thomas Parsons
2. A Proper Drink by Robert Simonson
3. Regarding Cocktails by Sasha Petraske & Georgette Moger-Petraske
4. The 24-Hour Wine Expert by Jancis Robinson
5. Smuggler’s Cove by Martin & Rebecca Cate
6. American Rhône by Patrick J. Komisky
=7. A Spot at the Bar by Michael Madrusan & Zara Young
=7. Spritz by Talia Baiocchi & Leslie Pariseau
=7. The World Atlas of Beer by Tim Webb & Steven Beaumont