Best Restaurant Books: 24 Picks Recommended by CEOs

Damian Mogavero, whose software company pairs chefs with programmers, shows restaurateurs using data to decide recipes, wine and beer lists, plating and server training, and brings readers along on his invitation-only tour for top chefs. Daniel Boulud credits those insights with helping him run his restaurants better.

In Anthony Bourdain’s telling, top restaurant kitchens are hot, dangerous places full of misfits; he also explains where restaurants make their money and which orders diners should avoid. Nicole Baldinu calls it a raw window into the culinary world and into what real work ethic looks like.

Eric Schlosser investigates the fast food business, from its California pioneers such as the McDonald brothers and Carl Karcher to the minimum-wage crews behind the counter, then follows its supply chain into flavor labs, cattle ranches and meatpacking. Richard Branson puts it on his lifetime reading list.

Danny Meyer, who opened Union Square Cafe at twenty-seven, explains enlightened hospitality, which puts employees first, then guests, community, suppliers and investors, and holds that hospitality is something done for a guest rather than to one. Ramit Sethi and Noah Kagan both recommend it.

Jon Taffer, who has rescued many failing bars and restaurants, lays out Reaction Management, the method he uses to rebuild a venue around the reactions it creates in its guests. Carlson Restaurants chief Nick Shepherd calls it a practical guide to what makes a bar great.

Customer service writer Micah Solomon interviewed owners, general managers and chefs at leading hotels and restaurants, from Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton to Union Square Hospitality Group, to show how they build guest experiences for every generation. Seth Godin argues that sooner or later every business is in hospitality.

Stacy Perman follows the Snyder family’s burger stand from a tiny postwar shack to a California chain that refuses to franchise or sell, putting quality, customers and staff ahead of fast growth, and covers the family feud and lawsuit that nearly broke it. Richard Branson lists it.

Danny Meyer starts with the shame of closing Tabla and explains how he carried his hospitality culture from eleven restaurants and one Shake Shack kiosk to hundreds of businesses. Adam Grant calls it a warm, wise guide to building cultures where people do their best.

Alice Waters traces her path from a repressive suburban childhood to 1960s Berkeley and to 1971, when at twenty-seven she opened the small French restaurant that became Chez Panisse, shaped by a bohemian circle’s ideas about food, politics and design. Catalina Penciu recommends it.

Gordon Ramsay moves from a violent childhood and a football career ended by injury to his training in London and Paris, how a restaurant kitchen really runs and the growth of his Michelin-starred restaurants. Gary Bury took from it the idea of raising profit by one extra pound per customer.

The Culinary Institute of America treats consistent service as the way a restaurant stands out, covering hiring and training staff, greeting guests at the door, modern table service, handling money and recovering when things go wrong. Chuck Rogers tries to get every one of his employees to read it.

Joe Bastianich tells how he went from his parents’ neighborhood eatery in Queens to a restaurant empire built with chef partners, his mother Lidia among them. Kai Yeo took from it the rule that being consistently good for decades beats a trendy opening that fizzles out in months.

Douglas Robert Brown supplies a training program for every restaurant job: how to build staff training and train the trainers, job descriptions and skills for each role, and checklists, forms and tests. Chuck Rogers pairs it with the handbook but warns that not every routine suits every restaurant.

Douglas Robert Brown’s handbook covers opening and running a restaurant, including staff hiring and training, menus, the bar, catering, marketing, accounting and budgets, with later editions adding franchising and preparing to sell. Chuck Rogers calls it the bible of the trade and suggests owning both print and Kindle copies.

Will Guidara took over Eleven Madison Park at twenty-six and, through a real partnership between kitchen and dining room and gestures far beyond what guests expected, made it the world’s top-ranked restaurant. Sam Parr calls it the best business book he has read in years.

Roger Fields, a finance man turned restaurant owner and consultant, walks through opening a place and surviving year one, from location, concept and menu to staffing and ambiance with profit first. Grégoire Jacquet, a veteran owner, says Fields showed him how much there was still to know.

Mainly a company history: Howard Schultz tells how a single Seattle store, inspired by the coffee bars of Italy, grew into a global chain, with lessons on valuing employees as much as profit. Mohnish Pabrai calls it a good account of the Starbucks story.

George Orwell’s account of destitution in two cities is mainly about life on the margins, but its Paris half follows his time washing dishes in restaurant kitchens and a grim hotel. David Kramaley says it changed the way he sees the world.

Barbara Ehrenreich’s report is mainly about whether anyone can live on $6 an hour, but her stint as a waitress, alongside other low-paid jobs, shows that no such work is truly unskilled. Angela Pham argues that empathetic business leaders need its perspective.

Tim Ferriss writes a cookbook for people who do not buy cookbooks, mainly a method for learning any skill fast, with sections on kitchen basics, foraging and food science and tips from chefs and sommeliers. Marin Gerov recommends it.

Kazuo Uyeda, an internationally known bartender, sets out the Japanese approach to mixing cocktails in the first English edition of his guide, a bar craft book rather than a business one. Joshua Skenes, owner of the Saison restaurant, names it the book he gives or recommends most.

Food psychologist Brian Wansink is mainly concerned with why people overeat, but his experiments on plate size, brand names, packaging, music and room color, and the hidden persuaders restaurants rely on, show how a dining room shapes appetite. Noah Kagan lists it among books that changed his life.

Former New York Times restaurant critic Mimi Sheraton compiles the dishes, ingredients and restaurants she rates best in the world, from Peruvian and Senegalese food to dinner at Alinea, a food lover’s guide more than a business book. Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls her the most experienced food critic alive.

Mainly a hotel story: Chip Conley used Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to rebuild his boutique hotel company after the post-9/11 slump, applying it to what employees, customers and investors each need. Tony Hsieh calls it an operating manual for life.