How Aussie cookbooks are winning hearts and stomachs worldwide

The Age

16-05-2025

'Seriously, when I (very late) sent through the material, and five days later I got the editorial comments, you couldn't see any of my writing, it was all blue and red. I was like 'woah', I thought I was done. It was so much! But I'm very happy that we went through that process – the final product is really amazing.'
As for making dishes his own, Papadakis says you can take inspiration from the classics or your peers.
'I try to keep the integrity of the flavour and be original at the same time,' he says. 'A good example is our Tipomisu, a take on a tiramisu but very different, thus the name. We changed the coffee soaked savoiardi with a rich chocolate brownie and finished it with a salted caramel coffee sauce.
'In a similar way, we have had a smoked eel carbonara, where instead of guanciale I use local smoked eel, crisped up in a similar way as the guanciale, and make a smoked eel stock for the egg mix.'
The book team includes editorial manager Virginia Birch, designers Andy Warren and Megan Pigott, photographer Mark Roper, stylist Lee Blaylock and illustrator Robin Cowcher.
Australian cookbooks have form in the James Beard awards. Publisher Jane Willson has clocked up four wins and five nominations, including the latest for Tipo 00.
Those wins include Josh Niland's first two books – The Whole Fish Cookbook and Take One Fish – the late Greg Malouf's Suqar in 2019, and Milk Made by Nick Haddow in 2017, all while she was at Hardie Grant. Nominations there include Carla Oates' The Beauty Chef in 2018 and From the Earth by Peter Gilmore in 2019.
More recently, at Murdoch Books, she has garnered nominations for Mat Lindsay's Ester in 2024 and The Miller's Daughter by Emma Zimmerman in 2023.
She says common ingredients in the best books are 'committed authors, appetite for risk (from all involved), a POV/something to say and a team that's greater than the sum of its parts – and is firing'.
'That last element is actually more important than you might think,' she says. 'Book-making is such a collaborative undertaking. I don't think it's any coincidence that the authors who get that and, indeed, embrace that, are often the ones who are recognised.
'It's a total thrill to win, but it doesn't really sell books ... What it does do, however, is recognise a commitment to thoughtful, quality, often boundary-pushing publishing.'
Niland's The Whole Fish Cookbook won the major gong in the overall Book of the Year in 2020 as well as its category. His Take One Fish won its category in 2021, then Fish Butchery: Mastering the Catch, Cut and Craft won its category last year.
The Sydney-based chef known for his restaurant St Peter wrote that first book in just eight weeks on his mobile phone and has sold more than 200,000 copies.
'Doing the book was a good lesson in working with creatives in other fields,' Niland says. 'I felt like we managed to put together a team for [ The Whole Fish ] that was so ready. And nobody was combative or said, 'No, I don't think that will work' … it was like being in a drama lesson where you get taught to say yes, and it just made the product better.'
Lorraine Woodcheke has spent much of her career marketing Australian chefs and authors in North America, as marketing and publicity director for Hardie Grant in the US and before that at Penguin Random House/Ten Speed Press and Chronicle Books. Now with Murdoch, based in San Francisco, she says a nomination is a major honour and 'a win is life-changing'.
'It becomes a permanent part of a chef or author's bio – a credential that carries weight across the food and publishing industries anywhere in the world.'
While it may not immediately equate to sales, a win significantly expands visibility, particularly in the US,' Woodcheke says. '[It] affirms an author's place among the most influential culinary voices of their time. That recognition stays with them for the rest of their career and beyond.'