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Shortlist 2025
The Shortlisted food books for 2025 are:
- How the World Eats: Where Our Food Comes From and Why It Matters by Julian Baggini. Explores how we grow, make, buy and eat food around the world. Examining the global food system and the challenges it faces, Baggini crosses continents to ask how we might build a food system fit for the 21st century.
- Kapusta: Vegetable-Forward Recipes from Eastern Europe by Alissa Timoshkina. Celebrates the vegetables at the heart of Eastern European cooking. Featuring seasonal, veg-forward recipes for cabbage, beetroot, potato, carrot and mushrooms, with chapters on dumplings and ferments, the book brings together flavour-packed dishes and explores the region's rich culinary histories.
- La Mesa Mexicana: The Food of Mexico by Rosa Cienfuegos. Is a deeply personal exploration of Mexican cuisine. Drawing on memories of family tables and markets, Cienfuegos journeys across eight regions, celebrating indigenous recipes, regional traditions and the rich food cultures that have shaped one of the world's oldest cuisines.
- Lugma: Abundant Dishes & Stories from My Middle East by Noor Murad is a personal celebration of Middle Eastern food culture. Drawing on her upbringing in Bahrain, Murad weaves together flavours from the Gulf, Iran, India and the Levant, sharing over 100 generous recipes rooted in memory, warmth and tradition.
- Richard Hart Bread: Intuitive Sourdough Baking by Richard Hart is a practical guide to breadmaking from the founder of Copenhagen's Hart Bageri and former head baker at Tartine. With over 60 recipes, it teaches intuitive techniques for sourdough, flatbreads and everyday loaves.
- The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss and Kitchen Objects by Bee Wilson explores the emotional meanings we attach to everyday things. Beginning with a fallen cake tin at the end of her marriage, Wilson weaves personal and global stories to examine grief, memory, identity and why objects come to hold such power.
- The Science of Fermentation by Robin Sherriff explores the hidden microbiology behind fermented food and drink. From kimchi and kraut to beer and sourdough, the book explains the processes that shape flavour and preserve food, offering practical techniques and step-by-step guidance to ferment confidently at home.
The Shortlisted drink books for 2025 are:
- Filthy Queens: A History of Beer in Ireland by Dr Christina Wade explores Ireland's brewing history through 1,500 years of social, cultural and political change. Drawing on extensive research, the book teases fact from fiction, revealing how beer has shaped identity, power and community from medieval monks to modern brewers.
- Rooted in Change: The Stories Behind Sustainable Wine by Jane Masters MW and Andrew Neather examines how climate change and sustainability are reshaping the global wine industry.Tracing wine's journey from grape to glass, the book explores environmental and social impacts while highlighting producers working to reduce their footprint and build resilience.
- Tequila, Mezcal & More by Anna Bruce is a definitive guide to agave spirits, from tequila and mezcal to bacanora, raicilla and sotol. Combining reportage, photography and illustration, the book explores how agave spirits are made, how to taste them, and how to enjoy them neat, in cocktails or curated flights.
- Wines of Lebanon: The Journey Continues by Michael Karam, with photography by Norbert Schiller, traces more than 7,000 years of Lebanese winemaking. A follow-up to the award-winning Wines of Lebanon, it combines wine guide and cultural history, exploring an industry shaped by resilience, conflict and tradition, and the people who sustain it today.
Our 2025 Assessors
Food Assessor Rowley Leigh
Rowley was a chef for 40 years, working for the Roux brothers and then one of the founding partners of the ground-breaking Kensington Place and subsequently at Le Café Anglais in Bayswater. He has written two cookery books, No Place Like Home and A Long and Messy Business.
Drink Assessor Alice Lascelles
Alice is a contributing editor at the Financial Times and writes the drinks column for the FT's HTSI magazine. She is the author of three books including the best-selling The Martini: The Ultimate Guide to a Cocktail Icon which was named 2024 BBC Food Programme Drinks Book of the Year and was shortlisted for the 2024 André Simon Awards.
Food Assessor Rowley Leigh
Rowley was a chef for 40 years, working for the Roux brothers and then one of the founding partners of the ground-breaking Kensington Place and subsequently at Le Café Anglais in Bayswater. He has written two cookery books, No Place Like Home and A Long and Messy Business.
Drink Assessor Alice Lascelles
Alice is a contributing editor at the Financial Times and writes the drinks column for the FT's HTSI magazine. She is the author of three books including the best-selling The Martini: The Ultimate Guide to a Cocktail Icon which was named 2024 BBC Food Programme Drinks Book of the Year and was shortlisted for the 2024 André Simon Awards.