Housewarming gifts are tricky. They are tricky by scale: larger than a host gift, smaller than a wedding gift. And they are tricky by kind: housewarming gifts should be practical and also personal both to the person giving the gift and to the household receiving it.

As I reach the home stretch of my 30s, I’ve noticed that some people develop their own trademark housewarming gifts. My mother — famous in the family for her salad dressings — inevitably gives a bottle of her favorite balsamic vinegar and a mini whisk. One good friend of mine always shows up at housewarmings with a top-of-the-line first aid kit — a gift that always seemed a bit grim before fires ravaged Los Angeles and it took on an air of good-neighbor poignancy. (The only housewarming gift we’ve been able to agree on as a society is, I believe, one of the worst gift choices there is. Why we feel so comfortable giving living plants as gifts confounds me. At that point, why not just gift a box of puppies, you maniac?)

That being said, a food-, beverage-, or kitchen-centered gift is a surefire way to warm a new home, whether a tried-and-true cookbook or a chic addition to a dinner party tablescape. Here’s a list of reliably excellent housewarming gifts; as a frequent entertainer and dinner-party-thrower, I’ve collected them over the years from memories of what I’ve both given to others (to great success) and received (to great delight). There’s something here for every price point and to suit all manner of giver and receiver, as long as they have taste as good as yours.

Everyone loves a timeless, well-written cookbook

There are certain books every home should have, many of which are food-focused. The best cookbooks to give as housewarming gifts may vary depending on the appetite of your recipient, but I’ll share a couple of my personal favorites. (For those in search of timely releases, Eater just dropped its guide to spring’s must-read cookbook releases.)

Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham and An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler are classics. Both are beautifully written and contain an impressive array of recipes for simple but deeply satisfying home cooking. More than that, both present philosophies around preparing food, feeding ourselves, and feeding each other that go to the heart of what makes a house a home. 

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And if the new homeowner is a cheese fan? They need a Cheese Primer by Steven Jenkins — the beloved cheese tome among cheesemongers for a reason.

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A full spice-rack restock

Nothing makes you feel quite as settled as knowing your spice cabinet is fully stocked with fresh, good-quality spices. My good friend still remembers the kindness of his sister who brought him a collection of quality spices after a bad breakup. They, more than anything, made his new bachelor pad a home.

There are excellent companies like Diaspora Co. and Burlap and Barrel that offer high-quality customizable spice bundles. I like to buy a masala tin and stock them with spices I know my friends would love. 

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No matter which spices you choose, be sure to include Divakar’s Tellicherry No. 4 whole black peppercorns from Reluctant Trading. This pepper—my god. I crunched down on an entire peppercorn once and could see other people’s thoughts.

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Extremely fancy fruit

Specialty fruit — hand-reared, intricately wrapped, painstakingly manicured, and quivering with sweet juices — is the housewarming or host gift of choice in many Asian countries. But fruit makes a great gift wherever you live, and I’d argue some of the best fruit has been from right here in America all along.

For stone fruit, I am forever loyal to Frog Hollow Farm in California, offering everything from perfect avocados to sweet, juicy mangoes.

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For something more exotic, Miami Fruit delivers boxes of rare and tropical fruit that will bring some sultry jungle sunshine into even the coldest winter kitchen. 

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And for the best pineapple of your life, order from the Maui Pineapple Store in Hawaii.

If you want to try the Japanese stuff, you can find almost everything at Ikigai Fruits. Do they have the famed Bijinhime extra-large strawberry, you ask? Or a $158 mixed luxury strawberry box? Of course they do! Maybe you and your roommate could go in on one. (See also: these $130 Korean muscat grapes on Goldbelly.) 

Meanwhile, Flamingo Estate’s fabulously curated Seasonal Subscription Box is offering a Mexico-inspired box this spring. The luxurious bundle is filled with pantry and skincare items that pay homage to what the Estate crowns “Mother Nature’s true luxuries”: vanilla, cacao, coffee, banana, and honey, all sourced from the Yucatán to Oaxaca and the tropical lowlands of Veracruz. Every item in the box is a treat, but the vanilla olive oil and refreshing, subtle banana body balm deserve particular praise.

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Make their house smell like an expensive hotel lobby

A new house is, olfactorily speaking, a clean slate, and, as such, scented gifts can make great housewarming presents. Still, this year’s “hottest candle” will leave your abode smelling dated within a season. I much prefer gifting the trademark smells of fancy hotels. Hotel scents are timeless, luxe, and transportive by definition — and an entire industry has sprung up producing dupes for their lobby smells. Find out where your friends had their honeymoon and buy a room diffuser for that smell or buy one for the hotel that they’ve always wanted to visit and can’t afford.

I’ve been a Shangri-La man since an extended stay in Hong Kong (the diffuser below is directly inspired by its signature scent, with notes of lemon, ginger, vanilla, and jasmine), but now that spring is here I’m considering a switch to Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc.

… Or a favorite food memory

With this gift guide curated with food-lovers in mind, it’s worth noting the abundance of incredible food-inspired candles that have popped up in recent years. Two highly giftable examples: Flamingo Estate’s Prinsesstårta Candle, which is inspired by the princess cake at Sant Ambroeus in New York City (and comes in an elaborate gift box for an extra $12), and the Wood Cabin candle from Keap, which has swiftly become the candle du jour of the NYC restaurant scene, popping up at hot spots such as Smithereens, Cervo’s, and Schmuck, to name just a few.

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Electric candles are surprisingly chic

Romance isn’t dead — it’s just gone electric. While everyone has been watching the growth of AI, I’ve had my eye on the improving technology of electric candles, especially because tapered candles are back in a big way right now.

Now, candles are wonderful, but filling your house with candles can also be a fussy, expensive, and potentially dangerous proposition. Electric candles have long had a deserved reputation for tackiness, but the current crop of candles are of a different breed altogether. They exude a warm candlelike light, they flicker, and you truly forget that they are not the real deal. Also, switching on all your candles with a remote control exudes the perfect amount of cheeky sleaze.

Now my living room and dining room are crowded with candlesticks and candelabras and sconces. Even a Tuesday dinner for one now feels like a scene from Beauty and the Beast.

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Personality tongs

Tossing garden greens, serving pasta salad, doling out some crumble to masses (dinner party guests) — what don’t you need serving tongs for? Eater’s special projects director wrote an entire article about why serving utensils are the ideal host gift, and I’m in love with this chic, yet almost cartoonish (read: positive) set from Hawkins New York. It’s hard to tell from the product snapshot, but these sleek utensils are almost as big as a Subway Footlong.

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Olive oil that makes you feel worldly

I think it’s just excellent that we’ve aestheticized olive oil packaging to a degree that would make the ancient Romans proud. And as much as I love the stylistic drip from new, tasty brands such as Graza and Flamingo Estate, the just-as-delicious and far more old-school Nuñez de Prado (est. in 1795 in Baena, Spain) EVOO tugs my heart strings. Not only is the retro can a looker, but the taste is light, versatile, and a tad nutty. 

Decadence in a tiny tin

Yes, tinned seafood has been trendy for a while, but I would argue that it also makes a perfect housewarming gift. Tinned seafood is shelf-stable, requires no valuable fridge real estate, looks beautiful — the packaging these days, my god! — and is both affordable and luxuriant in equal measure.

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I recommend consulting this expertly researched guide (full disclosure: I wrote it), pick the cans you think your friend would most enjoy, and bundle them with a copy of Sol e Pesca, the cookbook from the eponymous canned seafood restaurant in Lisbon. Maybe throw in a few tins of chocolate sardines, too. Charming!

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Some special booze or non-alcoholic spritz

Yes, one of the most frequently gifted items at any housewarming party is a good old bottle of wine; it is a tried and true (read: boring) choice. 

If you know your new homeowner would especially appreciate a particular bottle of wine, go for something special. If your budget extends to it, a bottle of excellent Champagne is a safe bet. But I always try to think a bit further outside the box (but within the home bar), and find the bottle of booze that I know they would love but haven’t tried or would never buy for themselves.

These days that invariably means a bottle of Red Breast 12 Year Irish whiskey. This stuff is magic — everyone who tries it immediately falls in love with it. It sits in that perfect sweet spot between whiskey styles and even converted a lifelong bourbon drinker like me. At under $70, it’s relatively affordable within its category. 

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Friend isn’t a whiskey drinker? No problem — try a Sauternes. Dessert wines are coming back into fashion in recent years, and why shouldn’t they? They’re an indulgent but admittedly delicious way to conclude a dinner party (or any meal, really), and also pair wonderfully with cheeses and nuts for an anytime snack-and-sip session.  

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Ghia consistently delivers on herbaceous, complex non-alcoholic spritzes and beverages with main character energy. One of the newer additions to the lineup is the Le Fizz, a sparkling apéritif with hints of orange and strawberry and a nice dry, tangy finish. (Buy this 2-for-1 bundle, and keep one for yourself.)

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A little frying pan for when they crave an egg or two

One under-$100 gift that’s guaranteed to get some use is a petite frying pan, perfect for when you want to make a quick scramble or side dish without having to scrub a big piece of cookware. Eater’s own collaborative cookware line with Heritage Steel has a high-performance stainless steel lineup that’s built to last, and the 8.5-inch frying pan is a small but mighty kitchen workhorse. Made of 5-ply steel, it also has a slight lip for easier pouring and is oven-safe to 800 degrees Fahrenheit.

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A pickle crock

Fermenting is all the rage these days, but I’ve always found the boiled mason jars, two-way valves, masking tape and Sharpies too fussy. That changed when I discovered the old ways of the “forever pickle.” (Google tells me that I might have made up the term forever pickle…)

Keeping a crock of pickling liquid in the fridge where I can drop in produce as I garden or cook has changed the quality of my sandwiches, salads, and gut health immeasurably. For Western traditional fermentation, storage in Ohio Stoneware is the go-to. But I also love Asian pickling crocks, especially those out of China and Korea with their cool earthenware sides, round bellies, and ingenious water seals. You can also get glass ones on Amazon for very reasonable prices.

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A good old-fashioned radio

There is something so soothing, so kitchen-table cozy about listening to the radio in the morning. And in this current hellscape where the demands of staying sane and responsibly informed can be impossible to balance, I’ve found limiting my news to the radio while I make my coffee perfectly hits that sweet spot between totally disengaged and suicidal.

Aside from filling your home with music, gentle voices, and knowledge, radios are also beautiful objects. I keep this dapper, retro-cool fellow on my desk in my office but would love to receive something a bit more grand like this for the living room where I can listen to NPR while I do my crossword. Some models also offer Bluetooth integration for old-school appeal combined with modern practicality.

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Wine glasses that give ‘memorable dinner in London’

My go-to housewarming gift used to be a set of the wine glasses used and sold by St. John, the London-based and arguably perfect restaurant: solid, squat, restrained, and precisely designed for drinking more wine than you probably should. Sadly, they no longer sell them.

Still, there are great options for glasses that embody that St. John ethos: quietly decadent and reassuring in a way that doesn’t distract from the pleasure of what you’re trying to consume. Even though they have a totally different look, these tumble-style wine glasses somehow still exude St. John to me and would make a very practical gift.

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I also love, and use at home, these Moroccan-style glasses from West Elm.

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Get into crumb sweepers

We’re not ogres, folks. It’s time to sweep those pastry crumbs off the table with an elegant flick of the wrist, and a little help from the right tool for the job. Sure, crumb sweepers might strike you as too Downton Abbey to have much of a place in your giftee’s modern home, but consider this our plea to bring them back. They’re utterly charming and legitimately helpful.

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Flowers for days (or months)

Bringing fresh flowers are the next best thing to gifting sunshine itself. Unfortunately, flowers (like us all) die, making a bouquet a better host gift than housewarming gift. But, you can’t go wrong with a fresh flower delivery subscription.

If you’re in Los Angeles, I love the flower subscription from decadent lifestyle maven Flamingo Estate. Its weekly fresh-cut flowers are beautiful, seasonal, and ample — enough for an arrangement in every room or to make your studio apartment look like a very cheery funeral parlor. For non-Angelenos, UrbanStems, Farmgirl Flowers, and The Bouqs Co. all offer a wide variety of appealing options at various price points, the latter of which has  charming bouquets of dried flowers that offer spatial cheer for months or even years without replacing.

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A lazy susan for your fridge

Condiments are something of a problem for me. My addiction reached its peak during the pandemic when I actually ordered a separate mini fridge to handle the overflow of sauces, dips, and condiments. Instead of enabling such madness, may I recommend the three-word magical solution that changed my life: the refrigerator lazy susan.

Now I gleefully spin my condiments like a DJ with no errant chile paste or miso tub going forgotten in the back, to mold over unseen. This simple but life-changing fridge upgrade makes a great gift. Trust me on this.

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The game-changing everything pot: a donabe

Oh, donabe, what can’t you do? Donabes, the beautiful, versatile clay cook pots from Japan, come in different shapes and sizes, each perfected for a different purpose like steaming, serving soups and stews, or making rice.

Donabes aren’t just versatile and timeless; they’re  gorgeous. Mine remains forever in pride of place out on my stove. I highly recommend the donabes from Bernal Cutlery, a beautiful cookware, knife, and homeware store in San Francisco. Gift yours with a copy of Donabe: Classic and Modern Japanese Clay Pot Cooking by Naoko Takei Moore and Kyle Connaughton.

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Something practical, like an entire leg of really good ham

Probably the best gift I’ve ever received was an entire leg of peanut-fed Surryano Ham from Edwards Virginia Smokehouse along with a ham stand and special jamón knife. Edwards makes the best ham on Earth, and I’ll happily fight any European who thinks different. Sadly their smokehouse burned down in 2016, and since then, whole legs have been difficult to come by.

Instead, I’d spring for a leg of the classic Spanish stuff: black-hooved bellota negra if you have a truly serious pile of money to burn and are really looking to impress, but even the standard serranos are excellent.

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Having a whole ham leg at home changes you. You cook everything in ham fat; parties take on a deranged, frenzied tenor; your house starts to smell of a rustic country inn; your hands crisscross with tiny cuts from the razor-sharp ham knife. It’s a wonderful way to live!

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Ice cream on tap

I always say that if you love someone, you should empower them to eat ice cream every day. The Ninja CREAMi promises just that: professional quality ice cream made easily and on your very own countertop. Honestly I was dubious of the entire endeavor, and TikTok’s breathless fawning seemed overly confident. But I was so wrong. The Ninja CREAMi is a wonder and fully delivers on its promise. I’ve turned the lemons in my garden into flawless lemon lavender sorbet, and the leftover protein shakes in my fridge into creamy indulgent peanut butter chocolate ice cream (gains!). The CREAMi has helped me realize my dream of a daily ice cream sundae enjoyed in the bath. Perfect for the entertainer and the homebody — name a better housewarming gift! 

The latest CREAMi model is called the Swirl, and offers 13 frozen-dessert settings including a covetable soft-serve mode. At $350, it has a price tag beyond what most of us might spend on a casual housewarming gift, but it’s certainly worth mentioning as a status counter appliance that creates the decadent possibility of homemade soft-serve every day. (Read Eater’s full review of the Swirl here.)

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There you have it — an eclectic (if not a touch eccentric) guide to the perfect housewarming gift. 

If money is tight, don’t worry. The best housewarming gift I’ve received wasn’t really a gift at all, but a card from my father — an architect known for his good taste and spatial awareness — promising to spend a day helping me move furniture and hang pictures. It was a kindness I will never forget. But a pickle crock does the trick, too. 

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Roman cuisine is a reflection of the city itself — layered, deeply rooted in tradition, and full of contrasts. After years of eating my way through Rome, I’ve found the best meals are shaped as much by history as the hands that prepare them. Family-run trattorias have served the city’s defining dishes for generations: cacio e pepe, carbonara, roasted lamb, and offal-based specialties, many of which trace their origins to Rome’s historic slaughterhouse economy. While these places remain essential, a wave of neo-trattorias constantly reinterprets the classics, and the broader dining scene continues to shift too. The influence of Rome’s immigrant communities and cuisines, from Ethiopian to Venezuelan, is stronger than ever.

Rome in February and March can feel like a damp intermission which pivots quickly toward spring. One day you’re ducking into bars to escape the downpour and the next you’re scanning patios for a table in the sun. If recent years are any indication, high season now revs up well before Holy Week, and by late March the city is already moving at full tilt. This is the narrow stretch to lean into artichokes simmered with the first peas, favas, and lettuce into vignarola, Rome’s definitive spring stew. Blink and you’ll miss it.

Eating and drinking well in Rome isn’t just about knowing where to go; it’s about knowing how to navigate the city’s idiosyncratic dining culture. Travelers often book tables months in advance, making last-minute reservations tough. While online booking is becoming more common, many places still rely on the phone, and it’s best to call at the very start or very end of service, when the staff actually has time to pick up. Plan ahead — but leave some room for spontaneity too.

We update this list regularly to make sure it reflects the ever-changing dining scene in Rome. Our write-ups include insider tips from our experienced writers and editors, as well as a rough range of pricing for each destination — ranging from $ for quick, inexpensive meals with dishes largely under $10 (or the equivalent in euros), to $$$$ for places where entrees exceed $30.

New to the map in March 2026: Mostro, a cool cafe by day and low-key bar by night; pizza tonda and stellar supplì at L’Elementare; and modern classic Trattoria Pennestri, a local’s favorite with a great and accessible wine list.

Katie Parla is a Rome-based food and beverage journalist, culinary guide, and New York Times best-selling cookbook author. Her latest cookbook, Rome, is available now.

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A version of this post originally appeared in Stephanie Wu’s newsletter, “From the Editor,” which features an early peek at Eater’s biggest projects and a roundup of the biggest stories in food and dining. Subscribe now.

Big news: The Eater app just got a lot better, with a completely new look and experience. And yes, it’s free to download now on the iOS store.

Eater maps have always been the trusted way to find great restaurants. Our editors have eaten at thousands of restaurants so you never have a bad meal. But we’re going beyond “Where should we eat?” Now, you can actually be part of the Eater community. Build your profile, follow editors and chefs, create and share lists, see where editors and chefs are eating, and book your next great meal, all in one place. 

If you’ve been here for some time, you may remember that we first launched our app in October 2024, to make sure you could access all of Eater’s recommendations at any time, from anywhere. It was no small undertaking to bring a brand new product into the world, particularly one that our readers had been requesting for many, many years.

As we continued to dream up and build new features, it became clear that our ambitions for the app outgrew its technological foundation, and we needed to start over, from scratch. Product manager Anique Halliday and her team of engineers and UX designers, working with our editors dining in their cities every day, rethought every element to make it much easier to find a great restaurant recommendation every single time. 

You may have seen some of this new work across our sites, too. Last fall we began publishing Dining Reports, which track all the wonderful places our editors are dining at in a mobile-friendly format; these now surface in the app so that you can easily see our must-order dishes and insider tips.  

Last year, we also introduced custom lists to the app, where everyone can save restaurants that have caught their eye. Our latest iteration takes it further, with the ability to personalize your feed by following Eater cities, editors, and even some well-known friends of Eater, like chefs Eric Ripert, Mei Lin, José Andrés, Aaron Franklin, and more. From there, you can save restaurants, share lists, and make reservations. 

I’m saving the best for last — a brand new search experience. Now, if you know where you’re dining but want to read Eater’s take, you can easily look up the restaurant and find our thoughts. And our new conversational search allows you to ask for anything from “happy hour near Madison Square Park” to “date night with a great wine list in Portland,” and surfaces our editors’ expert tips and recommendations. I’ve used this search many times in the past months and it comes in clutch, particularly when I’m traveling to a different city. 

I hope you’ll give it a test run: Download our iOS app, supported by Grubhub, and check out my lists featuring the ultimate NYC bakery crawl and kid-friendly places you’ll actually want to dine at, and start planning your next great meal. 

We built this app for our most dedicated readers, and we want to hear your thoughts on how we can make it even better. Email me at fromtheeditor@eater.com with any feedback, or send me any lists you make. To my fellow Android users, I see you. We don’t have an Android version just yet, but I promise you’ll be the first to know as soon as we do. 

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Buttermilk pancakes were a “day-one” item when Luella’s Southern Kitchen first opened in Chicago in 2015, explains owner Darnell Reed; nevertheless, they eventually came off the menu as the restaurant focused on dinner service. But when Reed re-opened Luella’s in a new location last year with an exclusive focus on brunch, he put pancakes back on the menu — albeit with a slight revamp. 

Instead of the traditional diner-style stack, they’re now extra-tall golden-brown cakes, two to an order, and slightly rounded on the edges. “Our recipe has not changed,” Reed says. What has changed is the process: “We bake them in cast-iron skillets versus on the griddle.”

At trendy restaurants across the country, big stacks of pancakes have given way to single (or double at most) super-thick, showstopper pancakes, formed to a pan, and often accompanied by creative add-ons and toppings. See the masa pancakes at New York City’s Hellbender; the malted “big pancake” at Philadelphia’s Middle Child Clubhouse, topped with butter formed into a smiley face; and the thick ricotta pancakes at Washington, D.C.’s Osteria Morini, which can be topped with lemon curd and blueberries, or pancetta and a poached egg to evoke pasta carbonara. 

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Tank and Libby’s, a breakfast restaurant in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, is garnering attention for its domed “souffle”-style pancakes, though they’re not to be confused with the jiggly Japanese souffle pancakes of the late 2010s. The big-pancake moment is a global fascination right now — at breakfast spots in Toronto; Pueblo, Mexico; Manila, Philippines; and Tokyo. The popular recipe developer Paris Starn recently even created a “big-pan pancake series.” 

Though it didn’t invent this style of pancake, NYC’s Golden Diner, which opened in 2019, certainly popularized it in recent years. Thanks to massive success on social media, the restaurant has recently become synonymous with its honey-butter pancakes. They’re cartoonishly pudgy, evenly bronzed, and glossed with honey-maple butter, and people wait hours for them.

To make these pancakes, cooks at Golden Diner pour batter leavened with yeast into nonstick pans that are preheated on a griddle. With the batter constrained to a small pan, as opposed to flowing freeform on the griddle itself, the cake has nowhere to go but up, giving the pancakes fluffiness, height, and that signature flying-saucer shape. After the edges brown, the pancake is transferred to the salamander, which radiates heat evenly to cook the pancake’s other side without it having to be flipped manually. Once it’s fully cooked, the pancake is turned onto a plate, thick and domed.

“We liked the aesthetic of it,” says Golden Diner chef and owner Sam Yoo, who previously cooked pancakes in this style at other restaurants. Not only does this process maximize height, but it also results in a more even color, since cooking directly on a griddle subjects pancakes to hotspots, he explains. Unlike Japanese souffle pancakes, Yoo wanted a pancake that was light and fluffy, but still had body. Souffle pancakes, which are raised with egg whites, felt “too much like a meringue” to him. His pancake, he says, “eats more like a pancake.” 

Still, if the success of the Japanese souffle pancake taught us any lessons, it’s that diners love a visually compelling pancake, both in a crowded dining room and on social media. This was why Reed of Luella’s decided to change his approach. “I saw myself that [this style] was going viral,” he says, referencing Golden Diner. “When I saw that people were doing that, honestly, I felt like I didn’t want anybody to have the upper hand on us.” He knew people already liked his pancakes, but he wanted to make them fit the moment. “It was kind of a competitive thing,” Reed says. 

For restaurants, this style of making pancakes can offer some operational benefits. Given the small size of Golden Diner’s kitchen — plus its large menu, with burgers and quesadillas requiring plancha time, too — the pan approach allows for a “cleaner” process, Yoo explains. “Our line is extremely tight,” he says. 

In uptown Manhattan, at Cocina Consuelo, the thick, fruit-topped masa pancake, which is served as a single piece, has made the diminutive restaurant a destination. Unlike Golden Diner’s pancake, it’s cooked entirely on the stove. “All we have is a 36-inch griddle,” says chef and co-owner Karina Garcia. “That was the only choice that I had: to make it big and just one, because I wouldn’t have space to do anything else on the flat-top.” It was developed out of space constraints: Confining the pancake to a pan allows other dishes to take priority when needed.

One recent acolyte of Golden Diner is London’s Bara Cafe, a new bakery that emphasizes Welsh produce. After seeing an article about the restaurant’s pancakes, “I thought maybe we’ll do our own take,” says co-owner Cissy Dalladay. In keeping with Bara’s ethos, it features Welsh honey. The Golden Diner-inspired approach was the only way Dalladay considered making pancakes at Bara. “I’ve cooked a lot of pancakes in my life, and these are the best ones,” she says. Not only do they turn out more consistent, but also, “this way of doing them is much more streamlined,” allowing cooks to multitask while the pancakes finish cooking in the oven.

The approach has its challenges though, especially at scale. Mainly, it takes more time. At Luella’s, the pancake goes in the oven for between 13 and 15 minutes, which can be trickier when coordinating multiple dishes for one table; it’s faster to put out shrimp and grits than a pancake.

“We do get bottlenecks because we obviously weren’t planning to become a viral restaurant known for its pancakes,” Yoo says, noting that the pancake was one of the last dishes he developed for Golden Diner’s opening. “It definitely slows us down because we can only produce so much,” he adds. At busy times, the restaurant has to limit takeout pancake orders to make sure that the restaurant itself can stay on top of the pancakes. “Basically, the cook who is making pancakes is making pancakes non-stop during the shift,” he says.

The big pancake trend extends to savory options, too. In Philadelphia, Cambodian seafood restaurant Sao has become known for its honey-butter hoe cake, which is topped with smoked trout salad and trout roe; about 80 percent of tables order it, typically to share. Cooks at Sao pour pancake batter made with cornmeal and dashi into a pan on the stovetop, then finish it in the oven. Though the hoe cake is inspired by the johnnycake at Boston’s Neptune Oyster, chef Phila Lorn wanted a thicker texture in order to steep it with honey butter. “It’s almost the mindset of tres leches,” he says.

The rise of this pancake style may also be a way of adapting to changing ordering behaviors —  particularly, that in the shared-plates era, diners are more keen to pass around a big thick pancake for a few bites each rather than to order a stack of pancakes for themselves. Osteria Morini built the pancake section of its brunch menu with the idea that three- and four-tops would get them to share. Similarly, the retro-style izakaya Dancerobot in Philadelphia describes the thick-but-airy sourdough pancake on its recently launched brunch menu as a “table pancake.” 

Pancake stacks have shrunk even at restaurants that don’t take the ultra-thick approach. While creative director Lily Rosenthal Royal was inspired by the Golden Diner pancake during early development for Los Angeles’s new diner Max & Helen’s, chef Nancy Silverton wanted “the complete opposite,” Rosenthal Royal recalls: not a big, fluffy white-flour pancake, but a thinner pancake that was “intricate with spelt and different types of flour.”

Silverton’s preference won, and that pancake is available either single or as a stack of two. Single is the more-ordered option, either for the table or as part of the Larchmont Slam plate, which includes eggs as well as bacon or sausage. “I’m finding that most people are not really ordering pancakes as their main,” she says, noting the strong cultural focus on protein. “It’s less people ordering them as the full breakfast, and more like, ‘Let’s get a pancake to taste it.’” 

At Luella’s, some diners don’t know what to expect from the pancakes when they order them. But when people see the size of them, Reed says, “It turns into a shared thing.”

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It’s almost the best time of year: the season to lay out a picnic blanket and read outside in the sunshine. The season’s new food-related releases are ready to deliver on this experience. This spring sees the launch of a few exciting memoirs: There are compelling stories of women finding their way through food, including a moody reflection about pushing through hardship to taste sweetness; an engaging narrative about life after being a “girl-king” and what it means to rewrite long-held appetites; an endearing story about embodying the spirit of “extra sauce”; and an unexpected entree into culinary school, with all its challenges and rewards. Plus, there’s a gossipy look into a formative era of French cuisine and a thought-provoking analysis of food and power. Happy reading.

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Tell Me How You Eat: Food, Power, and the Will to Live
Amber Husain

Washington Square Press, out now

In a world fixated on eating — how to do it “correctly,” what our groceries say about us, and so on — Amber Husain, author of Meat Love: An Ideology of the Flesh, found herself in a “standoff” with food in 2020. In Tell Me How You Eat, Husain writes about food in the context of political radicals, from the breakfast projects of the Black Panthers to food bloggers in modern-day Gaza, angling each chapter around a reason to eat. The book’s intense focus on anorexia and its dense, historical approach might not make it the right choice for every reader. But for those willing to engage difficult topics and interested in delving deeper into the political nature of food, Tell Me How You Eat will challenge you to think about food less as something insular and more as a meaningful resource that can shape the world at large.

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The Secret History of French Cooking: The Outlaw Chefs Who Made Food Modern
Luke Barr

Dutton, March 17 

After writing about juggernauts like M.F.K. Fisher (the author’s great-aunt) and Auguste Escoffier, Luke Barr shifts his focus to other imposing presences in the culinary world. His newest book is a lush, gossipy history of 1960s and 1970s France during the rise of nouvelle cuisine. At the time, chefs like Paul Bocuse, Michel Guérard, and Pierre Troisgros “upended” the culinary establishment’s “ossified” haute cuisine, Barr writes. But these men have cast long enough shadows; Barr also writes about the women chefs outside the macho establishment, and a curmudgeonly food critic who hated — among many things — travel, modern hotels, and Americanization. It’s a history book with the page-turning qualities of a good novel.

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On Eating: The Making and Unmaking of My Appetites
Alicia Kennedy

Balance, April 14 

Alicia Kennedy’s follow-up to 2023’s No Meat Required shows the prolific culture writer at the top of her game. While Kennedy’s debut was an overarching history of plant-based eating in the United States, On Eating turns the author’s lens inward as it traces her trajectory from a little girl who loved to eat lamb in Long Island to a vegetarian living in Puerto Rico who sees no less joy in food. “As a girl, I ate like a king,” she writes. Kennedy proves she’s honed her craft, with an extremely engaging and appetizing analysis of her love of food, as well as the forces that have reshaped her own desires. Even in the face of loss, grief, and changing personal ethics, Kennedy makes the case for finding new forms of excitement, abundance, and pleasure in food.

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Extra Sauce: The Good, the Bad, and the Onions
Zahra Tangorra

The Dial Press, April 14

For more than five years, Zahra Tangorra ran the beloved and “irreverent” Brooklyn restaurant Brucie. Later, during the pandemic, she gained a similarly devoted following with her Italian American comfort-food pop-up Zaza Lasagna. What brought her there, she writes in the first paragraphs of Extra Sauce, was a bus crash — one that sent her hurtling toward “a completely different story, a blessed second chance.” Tangorra’s prose is fizzy, conversational, and perceptive, and Extra Sauce is an endearing tale of food, family, and finding your own place in the world. Of course, there’s some good restaurant behind-the-scenes stuff, too, even if the thought of Brucie now makes Tangorra cringe. As she writes, “We need a certain amount of feral gaucheness at points in our lives to find our way to grace.” Extra Sauce follows that path and it’s a pleasure to read.

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Salt, Sweat & Steam: The Fiery Education of an Accidental Chef
Brigid Washington

St. Martin’s Press, April 28 

Billed as “The Devil Wears Prada for the ‘yes, chef’ generation,” Brigid Washington’s memoir follows the author in the grueling days of culinary school at The Culinary Institute of America — where she reluctantly chose to enroll after a breakup pushes her to get out of New York City. There are injuries, flirtations, squabbles, name-drops, and dishes gone awry. Washington reconstructs vivid scenes and recalls characters from her school years with a sense of ease. Her fast-moving coming-of-age memoir will appeal to anyone who’s been curious about culinary school but hasn’t made the commitment themself. You might even learn a few things.

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Eat Bitter: A Story About Guts, and Food
Lydia Pang

HarperOne, May 19 

The season’s moodiest new memoir comes from Lydia Pang, the “misfit” creative director and self-described “aging goth” behind the studio Mørning. Eat Bitter, which is an extension of Pang’s 2020 zine of the same name, owes its name to a Chinese idiom that means to “endure hardship before tasting sweetness.” Anchored by dishes like “radiator char siu” and “scruffy sacred salad,” Pang traces her upbringing in Wales, where she was raised by a Hakka father and a Welsh mother, and into her adulthood in the United States, where she risked burnout for the sake of corporate success before “rewilding” in Portland, Oregon, and returning to Wales. There’s a sulky, snarling swagger to Pang’s writing: She encourages readers to “embrac[e] our shadows” in order to create “ideas that are so substantive and potent, so full of guts that they scream even after we’ve exited the room.” There’s bitterness in Pang’s story, but sweetness, too.

from Eater https://ift.tt/S0Vhmsk