My Berlin Kitchen by Luisa Weiss - Book Review

My Berlin Kitchen by Luisa Weiss is a mix of wonderful travelogue, memoir, cookbook and a touch of a fairy tale. Once I started My Berlin Kitchen it’s really hard to put down. Those who have read Luisa popular food blog “The Wednesday Chef” know some of her personal history but this is the memoir which fills the blank, exploring the loneliness and alienation of a child who never quiet feels at home wherever she is and the debilitating heart break when an important relationship fails. But there is a plenty of happiness embedded too: summers at her grandparent’s Italian farmhouse, falling in love, and, always the pleasure of the kitchen. Every page is more delightful and delicious than the one before. Each chapter closes with a recipe for a dish referenced in the text, most of which represent one of the places Weiss has called home.


Luisa Weiss was a toddler living in West Berlin when her parents divorced, and she spent her childhood commuting back and forth between Boston and Berlin. Faced with such a peripatetic existence, the one place she could find comfort and a sense of home was the kitchen. She started collecting recipes in college and launched her food blog when she was working as a cook book editor in New York.

When Luisa was 31, she was at the crossroads. She had the man, the friends and the dream job, but she knew something was missing. It’s time to take a leap of faith and follow her life’s passion. She broke off her engagement, quit her job and decided to move back to Berlin, discovering a city that had changed as much as she had, it was time to her way back home again through the kitchen door, where love and happiness had always been waiting on the other side.
 My Berlin Kitchen is a mouthwatering tribute to Berlin and a love letter to food, romance and following your heart. Love the way she told it with honesty and with sensitivity. The last two chapter is like fairy tale where Luisa telling “ I am the luckiest girl alive” and she is true . I can’t wait to try her Buttermilk Panna cotta, Braised Red cabbage and Pickled Herring Salad with Potatoes and Beet basically I want to try all her recipes and go through the book once again. I think foodies and non foodies all will enjoy the transcontinental romance about taking risk in life and kitchen, will thoroughly enjoy the chapters brimming with colorful cooking tales and savory recipes.

 NOTE: Viking/Penguin gave me a review copy of My Berlin Kitchen .

Be Happy And Stay Healthy.