K Anis Ahmed’s new novel Carnivore is set in the cutthroat world of New York’s high-end restaurant scene. Who better to give us their favourite books about food and restaurants?
The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester
Lanchester’s devilish debut sneaks in dressed as a food memoir but reveals itself as something far more twisted. Under all the soufflé and savoir faire, something’s rotting.
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
This didn’t just lift the lid on the restaurant world – it blew it clean off. Bourdain, equal parts pirate and poet, didn’t write a memoir so much as fire off a grenade laced with butter and cocaine.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Pollan, equal parts philosopher, detective, and concerned eater, followed four meals from farm to plate and found a tangled mess of corn, conscience and capitalism. He made food feel like a thriller.
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
A gut-punch of a book: part memoir, part meat reckoning, sparked by new fatherhood and a nagging sense of moral unease. Foer dives into the dark depths of factory farming not as an activist but as a conflicted human.
A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G Summers
A fierce, filthy, fun-sized feast – a novel that’s 100% unhinged. Its anti-heroine, Dorothy Daniels, is a stylish food critic with a taste for the finer things – especially if they scream.
