Season 18 of Top Chef , set in Portland, Oregon, has just wrapped so it feels like the perfect time to explore some of the many books that the contestants and judges have created over the years. Most are recipe-filled cookbooks (which we recommend you don't view on an empty stomache), and there are several food-focused memoirs in the mix. Whether you love to cook, love to eat, or just can't get enough of your Top Chef favorites, there's a book here that's sure to inspire.

Everyone's Table: Global Recipes for Modern Health by Gregory Gourdet

A popular and trendsetting Top Chef star shares 200 globally-inspired, superfood-focused, nutritionally-dense recipes that are free of gluten, dairy, soy and grains in the hopes of changing the way readers approach healthy eating while delighting and inspiring home cooks.

 

 

 

Kristen Kish Cooking: Recipes and Techniques by Kristen Kish with Meredith Erickson

From one of the most exciting young chefs in America today, a cookbook with more than 80 recipes that celebrate impeccable technique and bridge her Korean heritage, Michigan upbringing, Boston cooking years, and more.

 

 

 

Notes from a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi and Joshua David Stein

As a boy Onwuachi was sent from the Bronx to rural Nigeria by his mother to "learn respect." Through food, he broke out of a dangerous downward spiral and embarked on a new beginning at the bottom of the culinary food chain before going on to train in the kitchens of some of the most acclaimed restaurants in the country and appearing as a contestant on Top Chef.

 

 

 

Gather & Graze: 120 Favorite Recipes for Tasty Good Times by Stephanie Izard, with Rachel Holtzman

A cookbook with recipes that hit all of the right salty, savory, tangy, and sweet notes. Izard's craveable, knockout food pairings—the ones her fans have been clamoring for—will surprise and delight any home cook: Banh Mi Burgers, Duck Breast with Brown Butter Kimichi, Roasted Shishito Peppers with Sesame Miso and Parmesan, and Sticky Sweet Potato Cake with Blueberry-Tomatillo Jam.

 

Buttermilk Graffiti: A Chef's Journey to Discover America's New Melting Pot by Edward Lee

A natural-born storyteller, Lee, who is as much a writer as he is a  chef, hit the road and spent two years uncovering fascinating food narratives from every corner of the country from the people behind the food. Also included are forty recipes, created by Lee, that bring these new dishes from the people he met into our own kitchens.

 

 

Brown Sugar Kitchen: New-Style, Down-Home Recipes From Sweet West Oakland by Tonya Holland with Jan Newberry

Brown Sugar Kitchen is more than a restaurant. This soul-food outpost is a community gathering spot, a place to fill the belly, and the beating heart of West Oakland, a storied postindustrial neighborhood across the bay from San Francisco. Brown Sugar Kitchen, the cookbook, stars 86 recipes for re-creating the restaurant's favorites at home.

 

 

Harold Dieterle's Kitchen Notebook: Hundreds of Recipes, Tips, and Techniques For Cooking Like a Chef at Home by Harold Dieterle and Andrew Friedman 

Many chefs keep notebooks in their kitchens, filled with recipe ideas, new ways to use an ingredient, and records of what did or did not work. But how often do ordinary food lovers get to peek inside? Now Harold Dieterle pulls back the curtain to give home cooks a look inside his kitchen. While each dish comprises several elements, one standout ingredient or component will be identified in each and accompanied by Harold's notebook entry sharing why that ingredient is so special and offering a number of additional ways to use it.

Cook Real Hawai'i by Sheldon Simeon

On two seasons of Top Chef, Sheldon Simeon established himself as a leading young, creative chef. The role he is even more proud to fill, though, is as the storyteller of Hawaiian cuisine and the many cultures that have come together there to create it. Sheldon's story of Hawai'i focuses on the lives and cooking routines of the locals and the efforts to bring back traditional agriculture and foods. Sheldon's recipes are uncomplicated but full of flavor; he speaks with reverence but cooks with curiosity, and inspires readers to do the same.

 

Carla Hall's Soul Food: Everyday and Celebration by Carla Hall

Featuring 145 original recipes, 120 color photographs, and a whole lotta love, Carla Hall's Soul Food is a wonderful blend of the modern and the traditional, honoring soul food's heritage and personalizing it with Carla's signature fresh style. The result is an irresistible and open-hearted collection of recipes and stories that share love and joy, identity, and memory.

 

 

So Good: 100 Recipes From My Kitchen to Yours by Richard Blais

On television, Blais is famous for his daring cooking, making use of science (think liquid nitrogen) to dazzle and impress. But how does he cook at home when the cameras are off? That's what this book will answer, with elevated homestyle recipes and personal stories which invite you behind the scenes and into his own kitchen for the first time. 

 

 

Asian-American: Proudly Inauthentic Recipes from the Philippines to Brooklyn by Dale Talde

Born in Chicago to Filipino parents, Dale Talde grew up both steeped in his family's culinary heritage and infatuated with American fast food—burgers, chicken nuggets, and Hot Pockets. Today, his dual identity is etched on the menu at Talde, his always-packed Brooklyn restauran where he reimagines iconic Asian dishes, imbuing them with Americana while doubling down on the culinary fireworks that made them so popular in the first place. His food isn't Asian fusion; it's Asian-American.

Home: Recipes to Cook with Family and Friends by Bryan Voltaggio

Bryan Voltaggio brings an authentic love for seasonal, farm-to-table cooking and a playful and distinctive approach to classic dishes in his first solo cookbook. Many of the recipes celebrate his Middle-Atlantic roots in inventive ways and include tips and strategies that will save time and result in unforgettable dishes, Voltaggio proves that the best meals are the ones cooked at home.

 

Dumplings All Day Wong: A Cookbook of Asian Delights From a Top Chef by Lee Anne Wong

Each recipe in Dumplings All Day Wong will have you creating one-of-a-kind dumplings that wow your family and friends. Folds such as Potstickers, Gyozas, Shumai, Har Gow, Wontons and more, along with countless fillings and different cooking methods such as steaming, pan-frying, baking or deep-frying, allow you to create awe-inspiring dumplings in innumerable ways. 

 

Fire In My Belly: Real Cooking by Kevin Gillespie with David Joachim

Fire In My Belly celebrates good ingredients with more than 120 hip, accessible recipes presented in a cutting-edge design. Gillsepie’s southern charm, passion, and funny stories guide readers through one-of-a-kind chapters, like "Foods You Thought You Hated," "When I Want to Eat Healthy," "My Version of Southern Food," "World Classics Revisited," and "Junk Food." 

 

 

100% Real: 100 Insanely Good Recipes for Clean Food Made Fresh by Sam Talbot with Susanna Margolis

Celebrated chef and healthy-living expert Sam Talbot shows us how to make wildly delicious, nourishing food using healthy, wholesome ingredients. Bursting with 100 whole-food recipes and down-to-earth advice about clean eating, this cookbook proves that eating 100% real food is an enjoyable choice you can make every day. 

 

 

Chasing the Gator: Isaac Toups and the New Cajun Cooking by Isaac Toups and Jennifer V. Cole

Cajun country is the last bastion of true American regional cooking, and no one knows it better than Isaac Toups.  Full of salty stories, a few tall tales, and more than 100 recipes that double down on flavor, Chasing the Gator shows how—and what it means—to cook Cajun food today.

 

 

Fabio's 30-Minute Italian: Over 100 Fabulous, Quick and Easy Recipes by Fabio Viviani

In half an hour or less you can cook up an Italian meal at home like a professional chef. Top Chef star Fabio Viviani shows home chefs how to cook “Grandma Style” (that is, like an intuitive Italian), and even those on a tight schedule will soon be whipping up great dinners. Along the way, Fabio shares stories from his early life in Florence where he apprenticed at age five to his wheel-chair-bound and wooden-spoon-wielding great-grandmother to his American life cooking dinner for his wife and infant son in Chicago.

 

The Good Stuff Cookbook by Spike Mendelsohn

Mendelsohn serves up fast, fun, and fresh recipes for classic fare, as well as menu suggestions for all types of events, from big parties to casual family dinners. You'll find old favorites with a twist: unique and tasty sauces and mayonnaises like Good Stuff Sauce and Curry Mayonnaise; fan-favorite sides like Baked Sweet Potato Fries and Bacon-Wrapped Asparagus; the famous Toasted Marshmallow Milkshake, malts, and floats; and, of course, Chef Spike's crowd-pleasing burgers made with beef, turkey, chicken, pork, and even lamb.

 

And don't forget the judges!

Love, Loss and What We Ate: A Memoir by Padma Lakshmi

Long before Padma ever stepped onto a television set, she learned that how we eat is an extension of how we love, how we comfort, how we forge a sense of home and how we taste the world as we navigate our way through it. Shuttling between continents as a child, she lived a life of dislocation that would become habit as an adult, never quite at home in the world. And yet, through all her travels, her favorite food remained the simple rice she first ate sitting on the cool floor of her grandmother's kitchen in South India. Poignant and surprising, Love, Loss, and What We Ate is Lakshmi's extraordinary account of her journey from that humble kitchen, ruled by ferocious and unforgettable women, to the judges' table ofTop Chef and beyond.

 

Think Like a Chef by Tom Colicchio with Catherine Young, Lori Silverbush, and Sean Fri; photographs by Bill Bettencourt

With Think Like a Chef, Tom Colicchio has created a new kind of cookbook. Rather than list a series of restaurant recipes, he uses simple steps to deconstruct a chef's creative process, making it easily available to any home cook. Written in Tom's warm and friendly voice and illustrated with glorious photographs of finished dishes, it  will bring out the master chef in all of us.

 

 

Bringing It Home by Gail Simmons

In Bringing It Home, Simmons shares her best recipes and food experiences. From her travels, exploring global flavors and keeping detailed diaries, to her Top Chef culinary adventures with the world's most notable chefs, she is always asking: "How can I bring this dish home to my own kitchen?" Her goal is to make fabulous recipes using accessible ingredients and smart, simple cooking techniques for successful family meals and easy entertaining.

 

 

 

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Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.