The Thousands

Having used to work in an un-named large bookshop where the biggest sellers were magazines, followed by cookbooks, and Lee “I have a really boring pen-name” Child crime novels, the loss of a place for people to flick through cookbooks before they buy them is sorely missed. Cue Scrumptious Reads. Designed ‘conceptually’ by local architects, A-CH and installed with the help of the owners and friends, don’t let the ‘touch something and you’ll definitely break it’ looking interior fool you.

This concept store stocks the cookbooks you’re sorely missing – from Heston to Momofuku and simpler titles on wine and gardening. Anything food related basically. Apart from books, they sell fancy kitchen gadgets and homewares, teatowels, tea paraphenalia – all the kitcheny stuff that is good for your tea-loving cat-hoarding Great Aunt Hilda. Or the girl next door. They may not have the biggest collection of all time, but Scrumptious Reads have a well chosen range of books that cater for the lone chef to the cook-for-your-friends socialite.