A great recipe book from all your favourite animes from Mashle to Ponyo and Food Wars. Plenty if unquie recipes to try your hand at and image your in the anime world.

5/5 Stars! This is such a cute idea! Author, Nadine Estero set out to create a cookbook containing recipes based on popular anime. The book is divided up into different anime cafe themes, such as classic, comfort, cute, modern, outdoor, and bar. I love that Estero wanted anime fans to enjoy anime cafe themes and recipes even if they’re not close to an anime cafe. Each recipe has a detailed illustration, an anime reference/justification (even down to the episode), an ingredient list, special tools needed list, and a detailed guide on how to make it. It is helpful that the measurements for each recipe are provided in both American Standard and Metric increments. Some of my favorite recipes included the Sailor Moon Celestial Strawberry Float, My Hero Academia Taiyaki Zunde, KiKi’s Delivery Service Mini Pumpkin Herring Pies, Ponyo Honey Milk, Clannad Tri-Colored Dongo, Pokemon Dugtrio Sandwich, Spirited Away Peach Buns, and Attack on Titan Strawberry Brick Toast. The art in this was just gorgeous and all of the food looked so mouthwatering. It definitely delivered on the tasty anime food vibes! I can’t wait to try these out in the kitchen! Many thanks to Quarto Publishing Group, Rock Point, Nadine Estero, and NetGalley for providing an eARC for review!

I have to say that this is a beautiful book to add to your anime and manga collection. The illustrations are beautiful and the anime references are so nice. Unfortunately, it fell flat for me as a cookbook. There were no recipes I really wanted to try, even though my favourite animes were in there, and there was a lack of real-life food photography which I think would have been a must.

After reading, I wanted to learn more about the author so I went to her Instagram and other socials. I wish this cookbook would have been more like her content because her videos were exactly what I was looking for when I first picked this book.

In summary, because I requested this book with the intention of a cookbook, I give it 3 stars, but if you are looking for a beautiful anime-inspired book to add to your shelf, I would recommend it.

5 ⭐️ for the ideas, the time and dedication to creating these recipes, and the amazing illustrations

3 ⭐️ for the cookbook itself because I don't see myself ever picking it up to try a recipe

Thank you NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group – Rock Point for the ARC!

**The Anime Café** by Nadine Estero is a delightful follow-up to her popular *The Anime Chef Cookbook*, offering an enticing blend of anime-inspired culinary creations and café culture. This cookbook immerses fans in the vibrant world of anime through a unique lens—focusing on the role of food and drinks in their favorite series and movies.

The book showcases 50 recipes that span a diverse array of drinks, snacks, and sweet treats. From traditional Japanese favorites to inventive re-creations of iconic anime fare, Estero has crafted a collection that is both accessible and exciting. Each recipe is thoughtfully designed to bring a taste of the anime world into your own kitchen, allowing fans to recreate memorable food moments from beloved series such as *One Piece* and Studio Ghibli films.

One of the standout features of *The Anime Café* is its stunning anime-style illustrations that accompany every recipe. These illustrations not only capture the visual appeal of the dishes but also enhance the thematic connection between the anime worlds and the culinary creations. The book’s layout is vibrant and engaging, making it a visual treat as well as a practical guide.

Estero’s attention to detail extends to including information about the exact episodes in which the featured foods and drinks appear. This added touch will delight anime enthusiasts who enjoy tracing their favorite dishes back to their on-screen origins. The book also provides helpful tips on stocking an anime-themed kitchen, ensuring that readers have everything they need to bring these recipes to life.

The recipes themselves are designed to be fun and easy to make, catering to both seasoned cooks and beginners alike. Whether you’re craving a simple snack or a more elaborate treat, *The Anime Café* offers something for every palate. The step-by-step instructions are clear and straightforward, making the process of recreating these anime-inspired delights enjoyable and accessible.

Overall, **The Anime Café** is a charming and well-crafted addition to any anime fan’s collection. It beautifully combines the allure of anime food with practical, easy-to-follow recipes, and is a perfect choice for those looking to infuse their love of anime with their passion for cooking. Nadine Estero has once again proven her ability to bridge the gap between anime and the culinary arts, delivering a cookbook that is as delightful to read as it is to cook from.

Title: The Anime Café: 50 Iconic Treats, Snacks, and Drinks from Your Favorite Anime
Author: Nadine Estero
Genres: Cooking, Food & Wine | Comics & Graphic Novels
Pub Date: 3 Sep 2024
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9781631069918
Format Read: EPUB
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐⭐ (4 stars)

It's been a while since I've watched any anime, and my genres don't really overlap with the author's (who seems to favour the popular shonen & shojo shows), but I'm an experienced cook with a particular love for Japanese food, so I was really pleased to have the opportunity to read this book.

I'll pause briefly to say that if you're looking for a brilliant & comprehensive Japanese cookbook, I highly recommend 'Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art' by Shizuo Tsuji - a book that did for traditional Japanese food what Julia Child's famous 'Mastering The Art of French Cooking' did for French cuisine, ie making traditional methods & techniques accessible to an international audience that (at the time of its original publishing) was widely unfamiliar with Japanese food.

This book, of course, isn't trying to do anything like that. As it says on the cover, this book pulls specific / memorable foods from various anime series & offers up suggested recipes to recreate them at home.

Anyone familiar with either anime or with Japanese culture in general will be aware that, just like every country, Japan is big on international food, and French pâtisserie in particular is really popular & widely available. It's worth mentioning, just for anyone who may not be aware, that this is therefore a book which includes all the types of treats you'd tend to find in Japanese cafés, rather than just strictly Japanese dishes.

The book is broken up into the following, quite arbitrary, sections:
- Classic Café
- Comfort Café
- Cute Café
- Modern Café
- Outdoor Café
- Bar Café

I'm not really sold on that choice, as it's not particularly functional. All of the recipes fall into categories that could be described as follows:
- Non-alcoholic drinks (coffee, tea, juice, etc)
- Alcoholic drinks (cocktails, etc)
- Frozen desserts (ice cream, parfait, soda float, etc)
- Pâtisserie (cake, buns, etc)
- Other desserts (dango, pudding, jelly, etc)
- Pancakes & crêpes
- Savoury food (onigiri, salad, toast, soup, etc)

The book is illustrated in pink, cutesy colours which are really inviting. There are illustrated drawings of all of the recipes, but no photographs. I'm not entirely confident, reading through the instructions, that the visual effect in the home kitchen would be particularly close to the pretty illustrations for some of these recipes, but hey, the 'original' foods are from animated illustrations, so the graphic choice makes sense.

The recipes include serving size, prep time, cook time, and/or chill time, marinade time, etc where appropriate. As with just about every cookbook, these are really optimistic :) and I'd encourage allocating yourself at least twice as much time for prep & cooking, since of course speed of prepping, speed of appliances, and kitchen layout all make a difference. Again like most cookbooks, there's no time included for things like oil coming up to temperature, etc.

There isn't any information about the recipe / food item at all - it's all an intro about the anime episode, character(s), plot points, etc surrounding the dish. That's a bit of a weird choice - some of these anime intros got really wordy, and hey, again, that's the point of this book, but at least a line or two about the item being made would be expected.

What also isn't included, but very much should be with this type of book, is at least an approximate difficulty scale for each recipe. There are some recipes that a supervised child could easily make, and others that are pretty advanced for even confident cooks & bakers. With such a broad range, and broad range in potential readership ages, it'd just be nice to mark recipes as 'easy' or 'quick', 'intermediate', & 'take on a bit of a challenge' - or something along those lines.

There are 18 total recipes for drinks, 18 total recipes for sweet things, and 13 total recipes for savoury things.

You'll note that's just 1 short of the 50 in the title, and that's because I really, truly cannot bring myself to call 'sliced apples' a recipe. No, really. That's actually it. Apples. Sliced up. With a bit of lemon juice to prevent browning, and a notch cut into the peel to make them look, if you can really stretch your imagination, sort of vaguely like bunnies. (Pro tip from my home canning experience: citric acid or, better yet, tartaric acid are even better at preventing the oxidation that causes apples to turn brown once sliced.)

There are other inclusions in a similar vein: 'Heart Cappuccino' is (French press) coffee with latte art. 'Honey Milk' is, you guessed it, warmed milk with honey. 'Lemon Ginger Cure' is hot water with lemon, ginger, and honey. 'Homemade Lemonade' is water, sugar, lemons.

These filler recipes are on the complete opposite end of a complexity spectrum that also includes 'Mont Blanc Cupcake', 'Tofu Mochi Donuts', 'Bunny Cream Pan', and 'Taiyaki Zunda'.

I'm not entirely convinced that the type of person who would need a full, detailed, written-out recipe for warming up milk & adding honey to it would be the same sort of person who'd tackle making pâte à choux, crème diplomate, or yeasted doughnuts.

It'd be a bit more reasonable if the super-simple recipes were, say, introducing some sort of specific technique or tip (how to prevent milk from scalding in a pan, or making simple syrup, etc), which then acted as a confidence-builder or keystone method for tackling the more difficult offerings. Again, with such a broad age range likely, including basic difficulty/complexity ratings would have been sensible.

More broadly, a lot of the recipes are relatively 'basic' for their categories - the choux puffs are choux puffs, the lemonade is lemonade, the dango is dango. There are some nods to more gimmicky / unique options like a purple sauce for the omurice, but since the author is recreating recipes from various anime titles, she's (presumably) staying true to what was shown.

All in all, the book certainly delivers what the title promises. I think it'd make a great gift for someone who's into anime or manga, and also likes to cook - and also for any cooks who are into very cute illustrations.

Thank you to Rock Point (Quarto Publishing Group) & NetGalley for providing access to this time-restricted eARC for consideration of review. All opinions are my own honest & unbiased feedback based on the copy provided.

#TheAnimeCafé #NetGalley

As a long-time anime fan, I love looking into cook books inspired by these shows / movies. "The Anime Café" has an adorable design and artwork.
The table of contents lists not simply the various dishes, but also the anime it's associated with, which I think is helpful. Another thing I appreciate is, that on the pages of the included dishes this book not only states the corresponding anime again, but also which episode it appears in as well as a short info text regarding said episode.
The thing I probably appreciate the most about this book is the fact that the measurements it uses are not limited to one version. In most cook books written in English I've seen so far, they only use cups. Here on the other hand, the corresponding measurement in gramms is also given.
The only aspect I'm not quite sure about is the separation into ... "categories" so to say. Instead of vegetable/meat dishes, desserts, etc. it is divided into things like "Classic Café", "Comfort Café", etc.

Oh my god. This was the cutest cookbook I have ever seen! Everything looks so damn cute and also very delicious. I really think a lot of these recipes are actually quite well to make yourself. I will definitely be trying some of them out myself!

Thank you to Rock Point and Netgalley for a free copy of this cookbook in exchange for an honest review.

I love cooking! And I love cookbooks, and have a pretty heft collection of them on my bookshelves. (Some more loved than others) It also means that I know what I look for an want in a cookbook, and unfortunately I would probably be left rather disappointed, if I bought this book for cooking. One of my biggest pet peeves, when it comes to cookbooks, is the ingredients and directions being split up, so you have to flip between the pages (it's very unpractical while cooking) to get see the full recipe. I know - mise en place should be followed, but truth just is that it's easier to follow a recipe where all the information is gathered for an easy for the eyes experience. I would've vastly preferred if this had been part of the layout plan for this cookbook.

Now - don't get me wrong. This cookbook has a lot of positive stuff going for it - there are a lot of recipes ranging in difficulty (most being easier things to make, which is a given in a café theme), the artwork is cute and the aesthetic is spot-on for the whole book.

There are also a lot of creative and inspirational recipes in this cookbook, with a good reference to where they come from, which can be fun for a watch part, or just if you've envied the Studio Ghibli food once or twice. I had personally hoped for more space to actual recipes than recipes on how to make milk with honey, how to make bunny apples, making different kind of floats and similar.

If you're new in the kitchen or just want a collection of (admittedly) very cute recipes, this is absolutely up your alley though. I could also see this as a nice alternative to a coffee table book if you're looking for something cute to accessorize with.

This cookbook is so well illustrated and the recipes seem very easy to follow! I think this would be a great gift for anyone who likes anime and cooking, or just anyone who likes anything cute! I think the illustrations are the best part, I could just sit there admiring the pictures to be honest.

'' The Anime Cafe: 50 Iconic Treats, Snacks, and Drinks from Your Favorite Anime '' is a colorful, utterly cute cookbook.

This book truly checked all my boxes: simple instructions, easy (ish) to find ingredients, colorful pages, nice intros that help me connect with the recipe, and photos ("") for each dish. Also, if you love A) food, B) anime, and C) pictures of anime food, this one is for you!

The Anime Cafe
Cookbook with 50 recipes from different animes
This cookbook is well organized into Classic, Comfort, Cute, Modern, Outdoor, and Bar Cafe with an index marking each page of the recipe. Each recipe has a drawing of the food,the anime it is from with a description, identified the tools and ingredients each component needs, and descriptive step by step instructions. I’m super excited for these recipes as most take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to make (this includes prep,cook, and sometimes freeze/cooling time). My favorites are the creme puff, honey milk, dango, cream pan, yaki udon, and karaage. Some seemed like they would be hard to make before I read the instructions then was thinking I can do this!

Made the Valentine Chocolate Cake and it is delicious 💕 I did add 1/8 cup sugar to make it a bit sweeter since the mix tasted a little bitter. Glaze and cream turned out great. Super excited to make the rest!

If I had to come up with a downside of this, maybe that the step by step directions are kinda smooshed onto some of the pages since it is two columns- kinda have to zoom in to read them easily when making the recipes.

This book was ultra cute and perfect for someone like me who both enjoys anime and baking. I really loved the information added about the recipes, such as the episode of the show and the context of the recipe coming up in the show and bonus info about the recipe. Helps you jog your memory about the scene and also lets to learn a few tidbits about the recipe. Even the quotes from characters were cute.

As for the ingredients lists, I like that some ingriendents were given an alternative form of measurement. For example, cup measurements were also given in grams or litres. That i find were helpful from my experience in looking at recipes and usually needing to go convert some measurements.

i appreciate that the recipes range from simple to more complex. So its good for any skill level

I really liked the illustrations. They were simple and cute but also make your mouth water. I really like the art style of the book in general.

Perfect book for anime lovers/cooking and baking enthusiasts!


Thank you so much to Rock Point and Netgalley for this ARC!

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review. Thank you!
It isn't easy to 'read' this book... Haha, yeah, because it's full with our favourite anime recipes :D There are a lot from them that I want to try, but first I need to sort out how to get the ingredients in my hometown :')
The descriptions are plain and simple, so I assume (again, I haven't tried them yet) they aren't hard to prepare.
At each recipe there is a little story as a recap where we could have seen the food in the anime. I found it really nice! Nadine also lets us know how many servings we will get and how many time it takes to prep and cook the dish. The pictures are in good quality and at some recipes we can find notes or a quote from the anime.
Every part of the book shows Nadine's creativity, hard work and her love to the genre! <3 It is always a pleasure to move out from my comfort zone (yeah, cook books are VERY out of my comfort zone :'D), so thank you again for the opportunity!

I will DEFINITELY be giving some of these recipes a shot. Especially some of the drinks! The artwork is stunning, I love that the foods and drinks are all illustrated. It's so pretty! Will my creations look as beautiful? Probably not, but that's alright! I love that the author includes some background on what anime the recipe is from as well as which episode. I bookmarked that carrot elixir page because I WILL be going back to it!

I wish this cookbook had photos of the food (though the illustrations are cute!), but the recipes are really fun and most of them are pretty easy to make (and I'm no cooking expert) A perfect gift for the anime-loving cook!

What a cute way to make manga loving fan happy with ways to help them make their favorite characters dishes. I’m excited to make one of these.

This book had many fun recipes for food and drink. I liked that I recognized almost all of the anime titles. I think it might have been better if the pictures were photos instead of drawings.

This is the cutest recipe book I've ever seen! My siblings and I are huge anime fans, so we were thrilled to discover this book of treats inspired by some of our favorite anime shows. We were excited to see all the different recipes featured, and we can't wait to try them out and bring a taste of our beloved anime world into our kitchen!

I always love seeing the food in anime, so I was excited to have a look at this cookbook. It's very cute, colourful and nicely laid out. I was disappointed that there are illustrations of the dishes, rather than photos. I loved the illustrations, but I would have liked to see real life images of how the food should look.

Each recipe tells you which anime the food can be found in, and a little background of the dish in that anime.

Instructions and methods are comprehensive and easy to follow. Timings are clearly stated, which is always nice. Some of the recipes require ingredients or equipment it might be tricky to get hold of depending on where you live - I'd certainly have to go online and order some of the ingredients.

Some recipes are as simple as honey milk (which fans may recognise from Ponyo), others are more complex. I feel like most would make fun projects for weekends or when you have a bit more time on your hands.

There's a good mix of desserts, drinks and savoury treats. In particular, I was drawn to the coffee float, potato mochi, and strawberry brick toast.

This would be a lovely gift for an anime fan who enjoys cooking.

My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for sending me a digital ARC in order for me to provide my honest opinion.

This book was so cute! Not only were most of the anime in it popular enough that the average anime fan would recognize nearly all of them, but the selection of anime across different genres is broad and includes slice-of-life, romance, isekai, and action, so there's a little something for everyone. The pictures included are so cute, and I'm excited to try out the different recipes. Definitely a 5 star read for any anime foodies.