15 Cookbooks by Atlanta Chefs You Need in Your Kitchen

Looking for gift ideas or to simply add to a growing cookbook library at home? From Atlanta chefs Anne Quatrano, Steven Satterfield, and Hugh Acheson, to Asha Gomez, Todd Richards, and Kevin Gillespie, add these cookbooks to the collection and explore the vast culinary diversity found in Atlanta and throughout the South at home.

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My Two Souths: Blending the Flavors of India Into a Southern Kitchen

Asha Gomez’s first cookbook is beautifully written, with a wide range of recipes that show off her particular brand of cooking. With a focus on the parallels between the American South and Southern India, Gomez highlights ingredients, culinary techniques, and food traditions from across both places she calls home. Try the country captain, Kerala fried chicken, or vivid tomato and cheese pie, and don’t miss her recipe for three-spice carrot cake. The chef’s second book, I Cook in Color, is also available for purchase now.
BUY: Bookshop | Amazon

The Broad Fork: Recipe for the Wide World of Vegetables and Fruits

This second cookbook from Georgia chef Hugh Acheson is broken down by season and ingredient, making it the perfect book for browsing. Not sure what to do with the extra sweet potatoes or head of cabbage in your CSA box? Pick up this book and flip through for plenty of inspiration, plus the fun, sharp insights Georgians — and anyone who’s seen Acheson on Top Chef or follows him on Twitter — have become accustom to from the chef. For the same smart writing, with bonus doodles from Acheson, grab his first book, A New Turn in the South. It’s Acheson’s ode to his style of Southern cooking, more global, less stuffy, and full of flavor. Or check out his pickle, slow cooker, or sous vide cookbooks.
BUY: Bookshop | Amazon | Hugh Acheson’s website

Root to Leaf: A Southern Chef Cooks Through the Seasons

Steven Satterfield’s menus at Miller Union have always been known for “celebrating vegetables,” even when the rest of the city was hooked on infusing cocktails with bacon fat and hyping up off-menu burgers. Satterfield’s cookbook offers the same approach: vegetable-forward cooking for vegetarians and omnivores alike, emphasizing flavor, technique, and seasonal ingredients. Buy the book for Satterfield signatures, like the farm egg in celery cream, but read on because it will make you a better and more thoughtful on-the-fly cook.
BUY: Bookshop | Amazon

Summerland: Recipes for Celebrating With Southern Hospitality

Veteran restaurateur chef Anne Quatrano runs some of the city’s best known restaurants — from fine dining Bacchanalia to sandwich staple and market Star Provisions — and she runs the farm Summerland, which provides produce and more for her restaurants. In Summerland, the cookbook, Quatrano brings her decades of cooking and entertaining experience to the front; the book is divided into sections, each focused on a different seasonal celebration. It serves just as much as aspirational or escapist reading about Quatrano’s idyllic life on the farm as it does a compendium of cook-at-home recipes.
BUY: Amazon | Pick up at Star Provisions

The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks

Co-authored by the legendary Southern chef Edna Lewis and former Watershed chef Scott Peacock, this classic channels the pair’s friendship and kitchen expertise into the pages of a cookbook. The book showcases the vast styles of cooking found throughout the South in its recipes, including dishes inspired by Native American, African, and Caribbean cooking. This is a must-have for any Southern cookbook collector from two James Beard Award-winning chefs.
BUY: Bookshop | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Turnip Greens & Tortillas: A Mexican Chef Spices Up the Southern Kitchen

Lines often form out the door at chef Eddie Hernandez’s restaurant Taqueria Del Sol, especially at peak meal hours. Thankfully, Hernandez also wrote a cookbook, which includes many of the recipes diners know and love from his restaurants. Look for fried chicken or Nashville hot tacos, chunky guacamole, green chile stew, enchilada casserole, and more.
BUY: Bookshop | Amazon

Soul: A Chef’s Culinary Evolution in 150 Recipes

Rooted in soul food, Todd Richards’s cookbook explores Southern recipes through many lenses. Weaved through with stories about foodways, African-American history, and the chef’s own life, the book’s wide range of recipes features dishes like smoked catfish dip, collard green pesto and collard green ramen, curried broccoli salad, fried chicken gizzards, and blueberry fried pies.
BUY: Bookshop | Amazon

Roti: 40 Classic Indian Breads and Sides

In this cookbook, Atlanta chef and cookbook author Nandita Godbole explores the variety and regionality of breads found throughout Indian, while also discussing the significance of these breads to Indian cuisine and culture. The cookbook contains 40 recipes, including for making chutneys, raitas, relishes, and desserts. Click here to check out Godbole’s other cookbooks.
BUY: Amazon | Curry Cravings

Our Fermented Lives: A History of How Fermented Foods Have Shaped Cultures and Communities

Atlanta-based food historian and fermentation expert Julia Skinner does a deep dive into the process of making everything from beer and sourdough bread to cheese, pickles, and tepache in her new book “Our Fermented Lives”. Skinner takes a look at the evolution of fermentation, food preserving techniques, and necessary ingredients, while also offering 42 recipes based on her own experiments as well as historic sources.
BUY: Bookshop | Amazon | Workman Publishing

Everyday Korean

Co-written by Kim Sunée and Atlanta chef Seung Hee (Korean Fusion on Instagram), this cookbook blends traditional Korean flavors and cooking techniques with ingredients easily found at the local neighborhood market, grocery store, or online. The book include tips for building up Korean pantry items, beer, wine, and soju pairings, and recipes for making everything from bulgogi and japchae (sweet potato noodles), to kimchi-bacon mac and cheese.
BUY: Bookshop | Amazon | Seung Hee’s “Korean Fusion” website

The Twisted Soul Cookbook: Modern Soul Food with Global Flavors

Deborah VanTrece brings together her Kansas City roots, world travels, and soul food in her premiere cookbook named for the chef’s critically acclaimed Blandtown Atlanta restaurant, Twisted Soul Cookhouse and Pours. With fresh takes on classic soul food dishes coupled with her own creations using both seasonal and a global pantry of ingredients, VanTrece showcases through 100 recipes the breadth and depth of soul food. Look for recipes in this cookbook on how to make everything from relishes and buttermilk dressing to salmon croquettes with spring peas, harissa lamb ribs with tomato-cucumber relish, and her family’s 7-Up poundcake.
BUY: Bookshop | Amazon

Tex-Mex: Traditions, Innovations, and Comfort Foods from Both Sides of the Border

Texas-born serial restaurateur Ford Fry has a whole host of restaurants in the Atlanta area serving everything from seafood to Italian fare. But Tex-Mex is where his heart is, and it’s the subject of his first cookbook. A cheerful, colorful reference book, Tex-Mex features approachable recipes for everything from chilaquiles and puffy tacos to breakfast salsa and horchata.
BUY: Bookshop | Amazon

Modern Greek Cooking: 100 Recipes for Meze, Entrees, and Desserts

Atlanta native and Kyma chef and owner Pano I. Karatassos wrote his first cookbook in 2018, and it’s filled with recipes inspired by his upbringing and Greek background. The cookbook combines recipes from his grandmother (“Yiayia“), who lived with the family and taught Karatassos what he calls the “fundamentals of Greek cuisine.” Expect traditional meze dishes like tabbouleh, tzatziki, and hummus, along with larger, family-style dishes in the book. The chef’s cousin Sofia Pepera (a wine expert from Athens, Greece) provides pairings or grape recommendations for each recipe, too.
BUY: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Chef Karatassos’s website

Fire in My Belly

A Top Chef fan favorite, Atlanta chef and restaurateur Kevin Gillespie has written a cookbook which taps into his wit and Southern charm. The book features 120 recipes that attempt to make cooking like a chef accessible and fun for the home cook and includes cheeky chapters like “Junk Food — The Best Worst Food You’ve Ever Had”, “Some Like it Hot”, and “Foods You Thought You Hated”.
BUY: Bookshop | Amazon | Red Beard Restaurants website

American Cake

Written by former Atlanta Journal-Constitution dining editor and food writer Anne Byrn, this cookbook centers around cakes through the centuries in America, with over 125 recipes. Think gingerbread, pound cakes, and sponge cakes, to regional cakes like the Appalachian stack cake, pineapple upside-down cake, and hummingbird cake.
BUY: Bookshop | Amazon