Best Food Gifts for Gourmands
by Lilly Bouldin
What do you buy for someone who really knows their food?
The best gifts for gourmands are things they can genuinely taste the difference in: exceptional olive oil, properly aged balsamic vinegar, an unusual chilli condiment or a beautiful piece of tableware that makes serving dinner feel as important as cooking it.
Best Gifts for Gourmands & Serious Food Lovers
As Sous Chef's ingredients and gifting buyer, I spend a slightly ridiculous amount of time tasting, discovering and sourcing things that I think serious food lovers will get genuinely excited about.
These are some of my favourite gifts for foodies, from brilliant ingredients and condiments to the slightly extravagant treats I'd be very happy to receive myself.
Looking for more inspiration? Explore our food hampers, luxury gifts, small gifts and gifts for cooks and food lovers.
1. Best Gift for the Flavour Obsessive
Best gourmand gift for discovering new ingredients
This is for the person who genuinely gets excited about opening the kitchen cupboard.
Turn up the spice with Belazu Rose Harissa, a beautifully fragrant North African paste, or reach for cult favourite LGM Crispy Chilli Oil to finish poached eggs, silken tofu or ramen noodles.
White Mausu Black Bean Rāyu delivers chilli kick from gochugaru and chilli flakes. While La Costeña Chipotle Peppers in Adobo bring a smoky-sweet kick to marinades and sauces.
Terre Exotique Crazy Salt is an extraordinary blend of paprika, rosemary and cayenne with salt - it lifts every dish it touches,
2. Best Gift for a Chilli Lover
Best gift for the person who puts chilli on everything
This is for the person who reaches for the chilli oil before they've even tasted the food.
Rather than simply assembling a collection of very hot sauces, this hamper explores the extraordinary range of flavours chilli can produce.
There's nutty, savoury richness from White Mausu, smoky complexity from Kashmiri chilli and the deeply savoury fermented flavour of Hunan salted chillies.
Spoon them over noodles, fried eggs, roast vegetables, pizza and rice, or use them as the starting point for dressings and marinades.
If you know someone who collects chilli sauces and is always looking for their next discovery, this one's for them.
3. Best Luxury Gift for a Truffle Lover
Best extravagant gift for gourmands
For the person who believes almost anything can be improved with truffle.
This gloriously indulgent collection brings together truffle tagliatelle, Carnaroli risotto, silky truffle butter, earthy mushroom and truffle sauce, truffle oils and black truffle crisps.
Some things can be opened and eaten immediately, while the rest can transform an ordinary Tuesday evening into a very good Italian dinner.
There's even truffle honey to spoon over cheese.
The danger is that once this hamper is in the cupboard, every meal starts with the question: could I put truffle on that?
4. Best Small Gift for a Foodie
Best little indulgence for a pistachio lover
This is dangerously good.
Our pistachio cream is thick, smooth and intensely nutty, with the flavour of real pistachios coming through rather than disappearing beneath too much sugar.
Sicilian extra virgin olive oil adds richness, while a tiny amount of salt balances the sweetness.
Spread it thickly over toast and croissants, spoon it over vanilla ice cream or use it to fill cakes and pastries.
Or hand over the jar with a spoon. We won't judge.
5. Best Gift for Someone Who Knows Their Balsamic
Best condiment gift for a serious foodie
Give this to the person who notices exactly what a good condiment can do to a dish.
Our Balsamic Vinegar of Modena IGP balances rich sweetness with bright acidity and deeper notes of caramel, spice and vanilla.
Drizzle it over Parmigiano Reggiano, strawberries or vanilla ice cream, use it to finish grilled vegetables or whisk it into a quick vinaigrette.
It's versatile enough to become a cupboard staple, but distinctive enough to make someone reconsider what balsamic vinegar can taste like.
6. Best Tableware Gift for a Foodie
Best gift for someone who believes presentation is part of the meal
Gourmands appreciate delicious food. They tend to appreciate delicious plating too.
This statement serving plate comes from Yotam Ottolenghi's Feast collection for Serax, with bold graphic artwork designed to bring colour, abundance and a little theatre to the table.
Fill it with roast vegetables, salads, mezze or a pile of something designed to be shared.
It's functional tableware with enough personality to double as a centrepiece, and comes beautifully presented for gifting.
7. Best Quirky Luxury Gift for a Food Lover
Best design gift for a gourmand with a sense of humour
A boiled egg deserves excellent tableware too.
These wonderfully eccentric fine bone china egg cups take the form of duck feet, creating an unexpected little piece of sculpture at the breakfast table.
Give them to someone who appreciates modern design, excellent food and objects that make guests look twice.
They're luxurious, useful and just strange enough to be memorable.
8. Best Luxury Kitchen Gift
Best gift for someone who takes seasoning seriously
For a serious cook, seasoning is never an afterthought.
This extraordinary Chiarugi pepper mill is handmade in Florence and finished with hand-applied gold leaf, turning one of the most ordinary objects on the table into something spectacular.
Inside, a steel mechanism cuts rather than simply crushes the peppercorns for a precise grind.
It's made for someone who cooks constantly, cares about beautiful kitchen objects and thinks grinding pepper over dinner should involve at least a little ceremony.
9. Best Non-Alcoholic Gift for a Gourmand
Best sophisticated alcohol-free foodie gift
For someone who doesn't drink alcohol but still wants something interesting in their glass.
NON No.1 combines tart raspberry with a subtle salty edge and soft floral chamomile, creating a layered drink designed to be sipped and considered rather than treated as a substitute for something else.
Serve it chilled with food or pour it as an alcohol-free aperitif.
A particularly good present for a food lover who enjoys tasting new flavour combinations.
10. Best Olive Oil Gift for a Food Lover
Best everyday luxury for a gourmand
A really good olive oil is one of the easiest ways to make everyday food taste better.
Honest Toil extra virgin olive oil is extracted within hours of the harvest to produce a raw oil with the freshest flavour. It is unfiltered, so contains the sediment from olive skins and pips that gives it an opaque, rich green colour and thickness. Its light peppery spice is balanced beautifully by cut grass flavours.
Pour it over tomatoes, beans and grilled vegetables, use it to dress salads, finish pasta or simply bring it to the table with excellent bread.
It's the sort of present that introduces someone to a better version of an ingredient they already use every day.
11. Best Statement Serving Bowl
Best gift for a seafood-loving gourmand
This striking black serving bowl takes its shape from an oversized mussel shell.
Fill it with steaming mussels, seafood, pasta or something generous enough to put straight in the middle of the table.
It's a piece for someone who believes the pleasure of eating begins before the first bite – with a table that makes everyone want to sit down.
Even empty, it's a brilliant sculptural object.
12. Best Savoury Food Gift
Best gift for the serious savoury snacker
Not every food lover wants chocolate.
This indulgent trio brings together three different pâtés and mousses, including rich duck pâté, smoked salmon mousse and smooth goose mousse.
Put them on the table with excellent bread, cornichons and something good to drink and you've got the beginnings of a very satisfying evening.
A timeless edible present for someone whose idea of a treat is emphatically savoury.
What Is a Gourmand?
A gourmand is someone with a particularly enthusiastic appreciation of good food and drink.
For gift buying, that usually means someone who cares about ingredients, notices differences in quality and enjoys discovering new flavours, producers and ways of cooking.
They might collect olive oils, have strong opinions about balsamic vinegar, travel for restaurants or own considerably more chilli crisp than one household reasonably needs.
What Should You Buy a Gourmand?
The trick is not simply to buy something expensive. Choose something that gives a serious food lover a new experience.
- For the ingredient obsessive: choose the Sous Chef's Selection Hamper.
- For the chilli lover: choose the Cult Chilli Hamper.
- For the truffle lover: choose the Deluxe Truffle Gift Set.
- For the pistachio obsessive: choose Sous Chef Sweet Pistachio Cream.
- For someone who knows their condiments: choose Sous Chef Balsamic Vinegar of Modena IGP.
- For the olive oil enthusiast: choose Sempre Sicilian Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
- For the design-conscious foodie: choose the Ottolenghi serving plate, Serax egg cups or mussel bowl.
- For the serious cook: choose the Chiarugi Gold Leaf Pepper Mill.
- For someone who doesn't drink alcohol: choose NON No.1 Salted Raspberry & Chamomile.
- For the savoury snacker: choose the Luxury Pâté Selection Box.
What Makes a Good Gift for a Foodie?
The best gifts for foodies are rarely the ingredients they'd automatically put in their weekly shop.
Look for something that offers discovery: a condiment from a producer they haven't encountered, an exceptional version of an everyday ingredient, or tableware that changes the way they serve a favourite dish.
Most importantly, choose according to how they actually eat. Someone obsessed with truffles will probably be happier opening an extravagant box of truffle ingredients than receiving another generic kitchen gadget.
For a serious food lover, discovering something genuinely delicious is part of the present.
Shop gifts for gourmands and food lovers at Sous Chef
Looking for more inspiration? Explore our food hampers, luxury gifts, small gifts and gifts for cooks and food lovers.
About the author
With a Fine Art background, Lilly has a keen eye for colour, print, and product balance. Her expertise is in kitchen and homewares buying and has worked at some of the biggest brands in the UK.
