Publisher Penguin has slashed its famed Australian cookbook division, Lantern

Simon Thomsen July 22 2015 - Business Insider

Matt Preston with Penguin cookbook authors George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan. Photo: Scott Barbour/Getty Images.

Penguin’s Lantern imprint, publisher of one of Australia’s top selling cookbooks, Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion, has fallen victim to the digital era, with its Sydney-based parent company, Penguin Random House, announcing it will cut the books it publishes in 2016 and its publishing director, Julie Gibbs, will depart at the end of the year.

Lantern was created by Gibbs, regarded as the doyenne of food publishers, in 2004. Over the past decade, a who’s who of Australian chefs, including Thai expert David Thompson, French chef Guillaume Brahimi, Masterchef judges George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan, Karen Martini and Kylie Kwong published best-sellers under the Lantern imprint.

Rockpool chef Neil Perry’s new book, Spice Temple, comes out under Lantern later this year.
It produces opulent illustrated books – The Cook’s Companion is priced at $130 – that won international awards for design, including travel, gardening, lifestyle, interior design and art books.
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