Interview by Amelia McGarveyPortrait by Lily Carr-Gomm

AM Tell me about the place, in your own words.

ET We’re a shop that only sells cookbooks and anything related to the table. We are open five days a week, more or less. The shop was established in 1983 and it’s still going strong. We source books from all over the place, but because now you can easily buy yourself books from anywhere, I’m selective about what I buy. The shop’s particularity is that four days a week, from Tuesday to Friday, we try the recipes. Lunch starts at 12pm and we seat about 30 people, no bookings: first-come, first-served. We offer food at a reasonable price, because we want to bring in people who wouldn’t otherwise come. Otherwise, I would be sitting at the till all day waiting for people to find us. The lunch service allows us to draw in extra guests and get more people talking about us. Tuesdays are vegetarian, Wednesdays and Thursdays are meat, and Fridays are fish. I say to people, “If you arrive after 11.30am, it is too late.”

AM The shop began in response to a lack of variety in the cookbook market at the time and the desire to bring books together from all over the world.

ET Our founder Heidi Lascelles’s philosophy was to always find a niche. She was a nurse, and she was so passionate about nutrition and cooking for the family that she decided to open a shop encompassing that. The frequency of sales has changed a lot since the internet, but physical books are still in demand, and I make sure that I buy what people would want to keep. I’m very selective: I don’t do books with faces on them.

AM So, no celebrities?

ET I don’t do celebrity cookbooks, especially from TV chefs, because they age very quickly.

AM Not even Nigella?

ET Nigella is different, of course. She’s good at what she does. She's not just a flash in the pan. The problem with TV chefs is that they’re always discounted in the supermarket. It would be silly to say to a customer, “Look, you could get the book up the road for 35% off.”

AM What is it about people like Yotam Ottolenghi, or Nigella Lawson, or Alison Roman, that makes the celebrity cookbook author such an enduring figure? Even going back to Julia Child, there is something in the way they instruct and interact with the reader that people connect to.

ET They’re all different and they’re all alike. These people are now marketing a lifestyle: Ottolenghi makes beautiful food; his shops are beautiful; the displays are very flamboyant and full of colour, and the books are good too. Not all his recipes are easy, but people will still get something out of them. It has to be about the whole lifestyle. After all, a roast chicken is a roast chicken. And there are so many roast chickens.

AM Do you think the purpose of cookbooks has changed?

ET Eating will always be a necessity. In the past, nobody needed to be told how to cook because the woman was always at home, and recipes were passed down from grandmother to mother. Now, everybody works – they want to spend their spare time doing what they enjoy. If cooking is not quick or fun, people can just order online. It’s becoming a form of entertainment. There are two types of shopping: weekly shopping, buying what you need, strawberries and all of the crap, maybe a bit of cucumber. And then shopping for an occasion, where you have in mind what you want to cook, either to entertain yourself or others, because it’s more affordable than a restaurant. That’s the way I see it: a cookbook delivers what you could get in a restaurant for half the price.

AM Do you cook much for yourself?

ET I cook every day here. At home,I cook from time to time. I love it now that I’m not a professional chef, and it’s no longer commercial. I’m happy to have 40 people for lunch. If the food is good, it’s because of me. If it’s not good, it’s because of the book.

AM You’re quite strict with what you serve, but the prices are also very lenient.

ET I try to be fair. I don’t want a table of four coming and sharing two starters and two main courses. What is on the board is what you’re going to eat. If you havean allergy, you can talk to us about it. If you are vegetarian or a non-vegetarian, I won’t be able to help because I cater to what we’re doing on a certain day. When we finish, it is finished. There are no leftovers. We’ve got no storage. If I put the price up, people become more demanding. I just want to be fair.

AM Is seasonality important to you?

ET Of course. I go for what’s at the market. We’ve got three or four vegetable suppliers. If there’s cabbage, there’s cabbage.

AM How has it been having the shop go viral? 

ET You have to do these things now. If you don’t, someone else will and they probably won’t be as good looking. I got a lot of blame for going viral from the regulars, but I always keep a table for them. I always make sure they can come back home. But the fact that I’ve gone viral is really good for the street. Just look at Portobello Road Market, the weekend is absolutely crazy here. The kitchen doesn’t open on weekends becauseI don’t want to become a restaurant: we’re a book shop.

AM You began the test kitchens to stop yourself from getting bored just selling books. Do you find that the two work well together? With social media, there will always be billions of cooking videos, but here you get to try them, too.

ET It’s all just a phase anyway. You come, you stay for a while and you disappear just as fast. I don’t follow anybody; I don’t know how to. I would rather wash the floor or peel some carrots. I don’t know how much social media has changed the landscape, but we’re still selling cookbooks.

AM They’re just such a lovely thing to own, in the same way that any form of print media contains worlds within it.

ET Yes, you’re buying a lifestyle and a bit of a dream. .