Notting Hill’s famous cookbook shop is a mecca for food lovers, but did you know they offer home cooked food at rock bottom prices?
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00:00Books for Cooks, sharper viewers may already have cottoned on to what this shop sells.
00:05It's found in the perfect part of Notting Hill, Blenheim Crescent,
00:08just above the hucksters of Lower Portobello Road,
00:11but below the butchers and rag shops of the upper reaches.
00:17Good afternoon, welcome to Books for Cooks, I'm Eric Treuillet, and welcome home.
00:22The story of the bookshop was created by a lovely, lovely lady who lives in Tuscany now, called Heidi.
00:29And she offered me a position as a Saturday Girl, and from there it snowballed until where I am today.
00:36By the door, a handwritten note reads, no food or drink please.
00:40Of course not, they have enough of that bound between the covers on the shelves.
00:44On that sweet awning it reads, the shop for all cooks.
00:48They're not crowing, is every currently published book on eating and drinking in here?
00:53Perhaps.
00:54The bookshop is just cookbooks.
00:58One side is country, the other side is subject.
01:02We only have books about anything to do with food, from where the food is, chef, non-chef.
01:10The kitchen was started in 1983, like the shop.
01:15Heidi let a wonderful, actually a food writer, create the kitchen.
01:21And since then the kitchen has evolved.
01:27And what we do now in the kitchen, we try different cookbooks.
01:31So in the morning we pick up a cookbook, we go shopping, and we cook the recipe from the book.
01:38The idea was neat, giving shoppers the very essence of try before you buy.
01:42This allows the owners to know the books to suggest, push, to trust in.
01:46It allows buyers to see what suits their taste.
01:49It also means the place is one of salivating smells.
01:52Services from midday, queues begin to collect around half eleven.
01:56We don't store food, it's not a restaurant, you don't choose what's going to be on the board,
02:01it's where you're going to eat.
02:03It's a fair price for us, I think.
02:07We're serving a nice meal in terms of it's hot, it's on a plate, you sit down, you enjoy it.
02:13You don't have to walk around with it.
02:15Food is offered four days a week, and always in three courses.
02:18Tuesdays are vegetarian, Fridays are for fish, and in between, anything is fair game.
02:23There are no bookings, no table substitutions, no bending to dietary requirements.
02:27Tables are shared.
02:29Forty people come, and everyone pays just £8.
02:32These are undoubtedly the best value meals in London.
02:35Conversation is part of the gig.
02:37They like to talk, to share, to break bread, as it were.
02:41They do books for cooks here, but they also do inspiration.