The Little Bookroom | Terroir Guides

Described as “definitive guide books and works of love” by British Vogue, The Little Bookroom’s travel guides are intimate, thorough, and utterly unique. We explore the small, the local, the authentic, the one-of-a-kind. Our new series, The Terroir Guides, focuses on all these things as they are expressed in the culinary traditions of a city or region. Each of these discerning guides, written by a well-known food writer with a profound knowledge of the locale, explores primary food and wine destinations in depth and focuses on the way in which local influences singularly impact a region’s food and wine.

Each volume is a highly selective guide-of-reference to restaurants, wineries, food artisans, gourmet shops, bakeries, and more. Many are little more than hole-in-the-wall places, but each one has something special. It's the quality of the food, of course, but beyond that, it's the imprint of the owner, climate, history, and tradition of the place. For the most part, these aren’t selections you’ll find in other guidebooks, but each one contributes to the uniqueness of the city or region it calls home. These are the places that make Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, or Burgundy Burgundy.

In our affluent part of the world, material goods are abundant. What remains elusive and irreplaceable is an unforgettable experience. That’s what The Terroir Guides offer.

“Connoisseurship is the latest quest for the true sophisticate,” announced a recent headline in the Financial Times. “Ever since the Harvard Business Review coined the term “experience economy,” the article continued, “think-tanks have predicted that people are increasingly opting to spend money on acquiring knowledge in a kind of quest for connoisseurship, amassing memories and understanding rather than things.” That’s something The Little Bookroom knows about. Many of the places included in The Terroir Guides are ones that we don’t really think of as tourist destinations; whether it's a local trattoria, a shop, an outdoor market, or a neighborhood, each one offers a unique and meaningful way to experience a sense of place. The guides encourage people to meander a bit, to wander away from the well-known landmarks… but it allows them to do so with a plan and an itinerary.

David Downie, author of three of our Terroir Guides, adds this important perspective: “Most importantly, the aim of the the Terroir Guides is not simply to aid readers in the pursuit of hedonistic pleasure, but rather to encourage their appreciation of a slower, more thoughtful lifestyle based on a respect for the soil, the seasons, and the deeply rooted cultures capable of producing not only great food and wine, but also a saner and more tolerant world view and way of life.”

	Food Wine Budapest Budapest is a city reborn and now experiencing a culinary renaissance in the hands of a new generation of talented chefs and winemakers. Food Wine Budapest is the first culinary guide to the capital and includes dozens of restaurant reviews; descriptions of Hungarian dishes and wines; and all the vocabulary you’ll need (including a glossary of Hungarian food) to insure memorable eating and drinking experiences. >> Read more about Food Wine Budapest

	Food Wine The Italian Riviera & Genoa The Italian Riviera, home to Genoa, the Cinque Terre, and more than 200 miles of winding coastline, is among the most distinctly local regions of Italy, with its own tastes, smells, and traditions.This a renown food writer’s highly selective guide-of-reference to Liguria’s restaurants, culinary traditions, wine, wineries, food artisans, and gourmet shops—those with an unmistakable local or regional stamp. >> Read more about Food Wine The Italian Riviera & Genoa

	Food Wine Rome The Eternal City is home to a cuisine that is also, for the most part, unchanging. Romans—sophisticated and discriminating—have not been tempted away from a culinary tradition rooted in antiquity and refined over the course of centuries, but practice it to perfection on a daily basis in family-run trattorias, osterias, and artisanal food shops. Author David Downie has spent much of the last thirty years exploring Rome’s daunting labyrinth of ancient alleyways and medieval market squares and has uncovered the best and most authentic destinations. >> Read more about Food Wine Rome

	Food Wine Burgundy Vast, varied and scenic, Burgundy—la Bourgogne in French—covers much of eastern-central France. This is what Frenchmen affectionately call la France profonde—deep, rural France. It is also a region where culinary traditions reign supreme, where the region’s role in shaping French food and wine from the Middle ages through the present day make this a primary destination for anyone interested in the spirit of terroir. >> Read more about Food Wine Burgundy

	Food Sake Tokyo In Food Sake Tokyo, author Yukari Sakamoto—a chef, sommelier, journalist, and restaurant consultant—guides the reader through the gourmet delights of this fascinating city, from the world’s largest fish market to the Kappabashi kitchenware district. Sakamoto is a Japanese American whose insider’s view of Japanese cuisine started when she took a unique position in the world-reknowned depachika (food hall) at the Takashimaya department store in Tokyo. She is the the first non-Japanese to pass the rigorous exam in Japanese to be a “shochu advisor” (similar to a sommelier of wine specializing in the distilled spirit shochu). >> Read more about Food Sake Tokyo