Five Quarters and Tasting Rome both focus on Italy's capital city, a place where a number of Italy's most famous dishes (think Carbonara, Cacio e pepe and Pollo alla Romana) originate. Both are beautiful books and there are plenty of crossover recipes – including those listed above – but are quite different in their approaches. Tasting Rome is very visual, with each dish photographed and plenty of landscape, reportage and street photography thrown in for good measure. Meanwhile Five Quarters is, unashamedly, as much a personal memoir as it is a recipe book, with Rachel Roddy coming from the Nigel Slater school of text-heavy cookbooks. Keep the former on your coffee table or kitchen shelf, and save the other for your bedside table to dip into every night – if you're lucky you might find yourself dreaming of gnocchi.
Florentine is one of those cookbooks which feels too beautiful to be left on a shelf, rather fitting for a text celebrating one of Italy's major hubs of art and culture. The cover is striking, while the design inside is simple but effective, with each recipe stunningly styled and shot. Baking is a particular highlight of Florentine (and, I'm sure, of Florence), with the first two chapters dedicated to bread, cakes and breakfast pastries to serve alongside a heady shot of espresso.
Finally, a little further south, there's the Campania region which Nina Parker showcases in her latest book Nina Capri. This book is a real celebration of their way of life, a peek into the everyday sort of recipes which people living in close proximity to such glorious produce (not to mention incredible weather) are lucky enough to enjoy. It's nice to have a chapter on breakfasts, a meal that doesn't immediately spring to mind when one thinks about Italian cuisine – now, of course, I can do nothing but think about fruit salads, ricotta pancakes and jams when I dream of Italy. Elsewhere there are plenty of delicious seafood recipes, from fritto misto to baked mackerel and 'nduja, along with colourful salads, fresh sauces and a great selection of cocktails.