To celebrate the one year anniversary of our Chadstone shop's opening, we've put together a grazing board of reading recommendations that will also take you on a tour of the culinary delights available in Chadstone's Market Pavilion. Bon appetit! 🥂
Enjoy a coffee from Caffè Ducale with your copy of Slip
While getting a taste of Italy in your coffee cup, let this remarkable debut novel transport you to Italy, and offer the vicarious thrill of an intoxicating new relationship …
Grace, a young linguist, plans a trip to Sicily to research Italian dialects for an immersive six weeks, before she's joined by her long-term partner and barrister, Jack, for the holiday he needs after his first major trial.
But when Grace rents a room in writer Nico’s apartment, what was intended as a period of study and internal reflection takes a different turn. Moving gently at first, Nico and Grace talk and prepare meals together, and he opens the door to the local experience she craves. As they spend more and more time together, however, Grace and Nico’s conversations turn thrillingly intimate. And all the while, Jack’s arrival in Sicily draws nearer.
Grab a cannoli while reading The Godfather
While reading about the iconic Corleone family, indulge in one of their favourite desserts! If you're a big fan of The Godfather movie, you could also read Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli, about the process of making the film.
A modern masterpiece, The Godfather is the epic story of organised crime in the 1940s. It is also the intimate story of the Corleone family, at once drawn together and ripped apart by its unique position at the core of the American Mafia.
Still shocking forty years after it was first published, this compelling tale of blackmail, murder and family values is a true classic.
Visit the champagne and oyster bar, and read A Great Act of Love
Pair your sparkling wine with this epic story of reinvention and passion. Plus, set in Hobart, it's also a great pairing for oysters and other incredible fresh seafood!
Van Diemen's Land, 1839. A young woman of means arrives in Hobart, with a young boy in her care. Leasing an old cottage next to an abandoned vineyard, Caroline Douglas must navigate an insular colony of exiles and opportunists to create a new life on this island of extreme seasons and wild beauty. But Caroline is carrying a secret of such magnitude it has led her to cross the world, and it will take all she is made of to bring it into the light.
Soaring from the champagne vineyards of revolutionary France to London and early colonial Australia, A Great Act of Love is a spellbinding novel of legacy, passion and reinvention. At its heart is a family with champagne in their blood and a fearless daughter determined to rewrite fate.
Have a hot chocolate at Mörk and read Hot Chocolate on Thursday
This is the perfect book to read while people-watching in the Market Pavilion, and there could be no better accompaniment than one of Mörk's gourmet hot chocolates.
Across a bridge in a quiet neighbourhood in Tokyo, a seasonal cherry blossom sits on the river. Nearby is the Marble Cafe, where a woman writes in a notebook and a young waiter prepares her favourite hot drink.
Taking a walk along the river, cooking the best tamagoyaki, ordering hot chocolate, forgetting to remove our nail polish … The small, everyday acts that we do can lead to unexpected encounters and reverberate far beyond our own lives to make a real difference in the world.
Hot Chocolate on Thursday is a tapestry of slice-of-life moments that open and close with a woman ordering her regular hot chocolate at the mysterious Marble Cafe.
Pick up some groceries from Maita then sit down with Convenience Store Woman
Maita sells a mix of delicious snacks, convenience meals and pantry staples, so as well as buying ingredients for that new dish you're cooking, you can get a glimpse into Keiko's world.
Keiko is 36 years old. She’s never had a boyfriend, and she’s been working in the same supermarket for eighteen years.
Keiko’s family wishes she’d get a proper job. Her friends wonder why she won’t get married.
But Keiko knows what makes her happy, and she’s not going to let anyone come between her and her convenience store …
Enjoy a bagel (or two) from Hanks Bagelry and read Table for Two
Pair one of New York City's most beloved foods – the delicious bagel – with this delightful collection of short stories set in the iconic city.
Millions of Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction – six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood.
The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.
Pick up a premium cut at Vic's Butcher, to enjoy while reading What Hunger
This story about family, food and violence will give you a whole new appreciation for the impressive cuts available at Vic's.
It's the summer before high school and Ronny Nguyen's days are spent dozing off to trashy magazines while her brother Tommy, the pride of their immigrant parents, prepares to go to college.
The thought of Tommy leaving for college and being left alone with her parents, Me and Ba, fills Ronny with dread. Their parents rarely speak of their past in Vietnam, except through the lens of food. In the aftermath of the war, Me and Ba taught Ronny and Tommy that meat was a dangerous luxury, a symbol of survival that should never be taken for granted.
But when tragedy strikes, Ronny's world is upended and she's overtaken by a force larger than herself. This newfound power comes with an insatiable hunger for flesh, a craving that is both a saving grace and a potential destroyer.
Read The Ex-Boyfriend's Favourite Recipe Funeral Committee and be inspired by the connection between food & community
This is an uplifting story of how sharing food can help ease heartache, and which demonstrates how cooking for others is so often an act of love. If you're a foodie or a keen cook, this will warm your heart and leave you feeling inspired.
Twenty-nine-year-old Momoko has been tragically dumped. So, naturally, she drowns her sorrows and then pours her heart out to a curious cafe manager. When she starts to describe how she doted on her boyfriend, how he loved her cooking, the manager decides to indulge her, and allows her to slip into the kitchen, and cook up her ex’s favorite dish: a warm, delightful butter chicken curry. Soon, as Momoko finishes telling her story and shares her dish with the manager and other customers, she realizes this combination of cooking and sharing has healed her heart in a way nothing else can.
The manager has an idea – what if they started doing this regularly, inviting in patrons to hear stories about heartbreak, and cook up dishes that meant something to the relationship? Like an unconventional therapy group, the 'Ex-Boyfriend’s Favourite Recipe Funeral Committee' is formed, with Momoko at the helm.
Inspired by the author’s actual experience working at a café where she posted a recipe called 'My Ex’s Favourite Butter Chicken Curry', The Ex-Boyfriend’s Favourite Recipe Funeral Committee is a magical, soul-nourishing comfort read that is part confessional, part group therapy, part recovery, part cookbook.
