What do you think?
Rate this book
Salt and Sugar - A Rival Chefs MM Romance
Ryo Takahashi has built his restaurant on discipline, precision, and the legacy of the father who taught him that food could speak when words failed. With the city food awards approaching, he needs one perfect dish to prove that his elegant, exacting vision deserves its place at the top.
Alex Moreno does not have marble tables, tasting menus, or critics whispering in his dining room. He has a family food truck, a line around the block, and recipes that carry his mother's memory in every bite. To Alex, food should be generous, messy, unforgettable, and real.
The media turns them into rivals before they have even shared a fine dining against street food, precision against instinct, polish against heart.
Then they meet at dawn in the farmers' market, anonymous beneath hoods and caps, fighting over the same basket of mushrooms before discovering a connection neither expected. Week by week, coffee by coffee, the stranger across the table becomes the one person who understands what cooking has cost them.
But the awards are getting closer, their families are watching, and the city is hungry for a showdown. Ryo and Alex may be competing for the same prize, but the real risk is admitting that the one man they are supposed to beat might be the one man they cannot let go.
Salt and Sugar is a contemporary MM rival-chefs romance about family recipes, professional pride, secret dawn meetings, and the dangerous sweetness of falling for the competition.
Alex Moreno does not have marble tables, tasting menus, or critics whispering in his dining room. He has a family food truck, a line around the block, and recipes that carry his mother's memory in every bite. To Alex, food should be generous, messy, unforgettable, and real.
The media turns them into rivals before they have even shared a fine dining against street food, precision against instinct, polish against heart.
Then they meet at dawn in the farmers' market, anonymous beneath hoods and caps, fighting over the same basket of mushrooms before discovering a connection neither expected. Week by week, coffee by coffee, the stranger across the table becomes the one person who understands what cooking has cost them.
But the awards are getting closer, their families are watching, and the city is hungry for a showdown. Ryo and Alex may be competing for the same prize, but the real risk is admitting that the one man they are supposed to beat might be the one man they cannot let go.
Salt and Sugar is a contemporary MM rival-chefs romance about family recipes, professional pride, secret dawn meetings, and the dangerous sweetness of falling for the competition.
362 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 9, 2026
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
June 5, 2026
Love Story, Yes. Smut, No.
Do not go into this book if you are a typical MM smut reader. If you want something vibrant and descriptive and full of life, and can live without sexually explicit scenes, then give this book a try. However, if you want smut you will not find it here.
Overall a 3 stars from me. It was a very cute MM read. There were several times I felt there were almost insurmountable inconsistencies but I pushed through. Had I been someone who absolutely couldn’t stand a plot hole or an inconsistency I probably would have dnf’d it. The story was cute enough for me not to care.
******************Spoilers ahead************
*********** Seriously, you’ve been warned****************
1. I felt that Will’s love story was secondary to Alex and Ryo’s at first, which is how it should have felt being that it was a secondary love story to the main couple. However, we didn’t get a good conclusion to his and Matteo’s story. What about them three months later? Just a casual mention.
2. Ryo and Alex apparently met for WEEKS at the market every Wednesday morning. We only saw 2-3 of those. The first two and the last one. We find out in the epilogue that there was apparently weeks/months of it. That was not clearly elaborated in the writing.
3. There is NO way that these chefs as intense and obsessive as they are about each other and their reviews and interviews that they couldn’t recognize each other off the bat.
Again, read it. The writing is very flowery. The author is amazing at descriptors and setting the scene. The analogies and depictions are top tier.
Do not go into this book if you are a typical MM smut reader. If you want something vibrant and descriptive and full of life, and can live without sexually explicit scenes, then give this book a try. However, if you want smut you will not find it here.
Overall a 3 stars from me. It was a very cute MM read. There were several times I felt there were almost insurmountable inconsistencies but I pushed through. Had I been someone who absolutely couldn’t stand a plot hole or an inconsistency I probably would have dnf’d it. The story was cute enough for me not to care.
******************Spoilers ahead************
*********** Seriously, you’ve been warned****************
1. I felt that Will’s love story was secondary to Alex and Ryo’s at first, which is how it should have felt being that it was a secondary love story to the main couple. However, we didn’t get a good conclusion to his and Matteo’s story. What about them three months later? Just a casual mention.
2. Ryo and Alex apparently met for WEEKS at the market every Wednesday morning. We only saw 2-3 of those. The first two and the last one. We find out in the epilogue that there was apparently weeks/months of it. That was not clearly elaborated in the writing.
3. There is NO way that these chefs as intense and obsessive as they are about each other and their reviews and interviews that they couldn’t recognize each other off the bat.
Again, read it. The writing is very flowery. The author is amazing at descriptors and setting the scene. The analogies and depictions are top tier.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review