Books for Cooks Test Kitchen in Portobello Road

When I went to London last year, I wanted to try Books for Cooks. It sounded so interesting to me, I even blogged about it, before I was able to try it for myself. You can read about it here. 

So when Ady and I were planning our places to eat in London, I knew I wanted to try it, even with our eating calendar so full, so we just did our best to squeeze it in.

Books for Cooks is in the Notting Hill area,
very close to Portobello Market, so we decided to come
on a Saturday to hit two birds with one stone.

It was a bit of a challenge, tummy capacity-wise, since we had 3 course lunch reservations at Galvin La Chapelle for 1pm, so we Ady and I decided to squeeze in a small pre-lunch starter.

We dropped by the place earlier on and asked what time
they start serving lunch, and they said normally, 11:45am.

Then we just went around Portobello Market visiting my favorite antique jewelry sellers.

We came back around 11:45am and we were given a table while waiting for
the Macaroni and Cheese to come out.

I was really keen on trying this place because Books for Cooks is a bookshop
selling only cook books (or cooking related books) and they have a test kitchen
that serves lunch based on a recipe that they are testing for the day.

Books for cooks even has recipe compilations that they've tested in their kitchen. However, what we didn't realize is that every Saturday, they serve Macaroni and Cheese, a break from trying out a new recipe, but since we were already there, we decided to still try one order to share. Hahaha, medyo fail!

The test kitchen restaurant part looks like a bright and airy open kitchen.

They just have a doorway separating the test kitchen
from the book store.

But while you can't bring in the  books for sale here,
they also have a lot of books in this part you can browse through.

This is me with our shared mac and cheese.

For GBP6.50, you can't go wrong, in fact, even after we left, there was a line
of lurkers in the book store waiting for us to give up our table.

Books for Cooks is also known for their cakes and pastries, but we didn't really have the stomach space to try that. While the Macaroni and Cheese wasn't anything extraordinary, I like the idea of eating somewhere that's a bit of a secret, serving only one dish per day, so I think I will put this again on my London Must Try List, but this time, with a note to self: Do not double book for lunch, plan to go NOT on a Saturday, and leave space for dessert.  I can just dig up this post if I forget. just saying.

Books for Cooks

4 Blenheim Crescent, 

London W11 1NN, 

United Kingdom

Closed on closed on Sundays, Mondays, Bank Holidays, the last three weeks of August, and ten days over Christmas and New Year, including Christmas Eve

Start lurking at 11:45am if you're coming for lunch