30+ Cooking Games You Can Play Right Now

Good Pizza, Great Pizza

Good Pizza, Great Pizza gave me similar vibes to Cake Mania, but maybe less stressful (the customers are definitely weirder but more patient), so I would highly recommend it if you’re looking for something cozy and fun. You run a pizzeria and serve a varied cast of characters (you get to make the pizza manually), and upgrade your shop as you go.

Lemon Cake

Lemon Cake is absolutely adorable, and a perfect game to play to relax. In it you get a bakery, and you’re supposed to restore it. To do that, you have to grow your own fruit (and other ingredients) and then use those ingredients to make lovely pastries for your customers. The art style is also very cute, but the controls may take some getting used to.

Overcooked 2

If you need to get your energy up, this is the game to get you there. Also, perfect to play with friends! But yeah, I wouldn’t call this cozy, it’s very stressful and will make you scream and shout (and let it all out). There’s a time limit, the kitchen layouts are always shifting, but you do get to cook a lot.

Cookard

This is a blend of merge games (sort of), cooking sim and card game. So, everything is represented as cards (ingredients, food, customers) and you’re meant to connect them to get the right results. For example, connect the whisk card, the flour card and the water card, and boom, you have dough. It’s free which makes it great, but I will say it’s far more stressful than I expected and that the cards can get overwhelming. But I had so much fun, so I would recommend it!

Touhou Mystia’s Izakaya

I absolutely loved this game and it hooked me far more than I expected. The soundtrack is awesome, the art adorable, and the mechanics exactly what you want out of a cozy cooking game. During the day, you collect ingredients, at night you make food for the customers of your travelling restaurant. They come with their own stories, budgets and demands, so you have to make sure they leave happy. Amazing game, doesn’t get enough love!

Beastro

I was initially reluctant to play Beastro because I thought it would be more stressful and I was looking for something slow paced, but this is actually a really casual, relaxing sort of game where you take over a restaurant. You chop, prep and cook all the foods, and you can collect ingredients by day, there are awesome mini-games and some food-related deckbuilding which is fun (and not at all hard), so I hope you give it a shot and enjoy it.

PlateUp!

PlateUp is incredibly addictive, and very hard to do on your own. Eventually, the multitasking will get to you, so I highly recommend playing this with someone. But yeah, it’s an incredibly fun game where you build a restaurant from scratch, serve customers, and expand your empire as you grow. The graphics are nothing to write home about, but the functionality is amazing, and I would recommend it if you don’t need incredible visuals.

Cook, Serve, Delicious!

This game is practically a classic in the genre and a must-play in my book. It’s challenging, though, but extremely addictive. You’ll need to be very precise, quick and accurate to do well, and it really does test your reflexes (which, mine are terrible, but better since playing this). But all of this makes it really satisfying when you do actually pull everything off.

Venba

Venba is a different kind of cooking game. Its purpose is more to tell you a story about this family who moves from their homeland to a new place and they feel isolated and like they need to change and blend in while they also really want to hold on to their cultural roots (and they do that through cooking together). It’s heartwarming and sad, and while the main element is cooking, it’s more like a visual novel, but do give it a try if you want something unforgettable.

Cooking Simulator

If you need something realistic but still cozy (most of the time), then this is your game. It’s what it says on the tin: you cook in a very realistic way, with a real kitchen and real ingredients. There’s a bunch of DLCs so you can get one for any kind of food you want to cook (pizza, sushi, cookies and cakes, etc.), which is great. I personally struggle with simulators, but I do recommend this one if you just want to cook as you would in a normal kitchen.

Chef Life

This game takes you through the management side of the cooking business. You get to run your own restaurant, make design choices, choose the menu, manage suppliers and employees, plate food, and more, but you also get to cook. You’ll literally feel like a restaurant owner and I loved playing this so much. It’s casual, cozy, and really fun to play.

Cooking Mama

Cooking Mama is a series of cooking games on mobile and Switch, which you can enjoy entirely for free (well, on mobile). As the name says, you get to cook food! There’s also a farming component to get the right ingredients, but mostly you chop, prep and cook the meals to serve to your customers. The graphics are a bit outdated, but it’s cute and you can give it a go to see what you think. I played this a lot when I first got a smartphone and found it enjoyable.

Creature Kitchen

If you’re into cozy horror and cooking, let me introduce you to this gem. Don’t expect jump scares, just an overall creepy atmosphere where you get to cook for creepy creatures, explore the house and the forest and so on. You have to suit your new friends’ tastes though. It’s not overly complex, but I found it a perfect sort of autumnal game where you get to relax but also stay interested in what’s going on. It’s a hidden gem, give it a try!

Bento Blocks

Have you ever seen those moms on TikTok making beautiful bento boxes for their kids? No? Just me? Well, either way, this game is kind of like that. It’s cooking with a puzzle element where you have to slice food to make sure it fits properly into the bento box. I didn’t expect to find it so satisfying, but it really was. Maybe I can’t make a perfect lunch box in real life, but I sure can here. There’s about 200 levels, and you can finish it in a few hours, so maybe I’d wait for a sale to get your money’s worth.

Cuisineer

Cuisineer is a bit different in that you do dungeon crawling to get ingredients and then cook them up. Kind of like Delicious in Dungeon, if you ever watched that anime. It stays cozy and cute, but you do have to do some fighting to get what you need. I found it a bit repetitive after a while, but then most games that have a loop do get that way after a while. Still, it’s worth playing, especially for its lovely anime aesthetics!

Battle Chef Brigade

This is a blend of action RPG and cooking, which somehow really works. First you gather ingredients by fighting and beating monsters and then you cook food from those ingredients by choosing different pans and fusion properties, and then serve them up. Because there’s so many different things to do, you never get bored of it, you constantly switch between these, and it’s really fun. There’s also a bit of a story in there, and the art is fantastic.

Travellers Rest

In this game, you run a tavern where you have to please your customers with your amazing food and drinks. But to make those, you have to go out and explore, collect ingredients, grow them, etc. It looks really cute, and the tavern gets really lively, which I loved. It’s kind of like Chef Life and PlateUp in the sense that you have to expand and manage everything, but there’s also crafting in here. I wouldn’t recommend it if you just want to cook, but for an entertaining mix of all life sim stuff, with the focus on cooking, yes, it’s great!

Hungry Hearts Diner

Yes, this is a mobile game, but it’s so lovely you just have to try it. You play an old, lonely grandma (already heartbreaking) running her family restaurant. You get to make and serve up some traditional Japanese dishes and get some great stories, plus there are other games in this series you can enjoy too. It’s a perfectly cozy idle game and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Epic Chef

Man, I really dislike the art style on this one, and I almost didn’t play it because of it, but I love everything else about it. The humor, which feels very Monty Python-esque, the farming, fishing and especially the cooking, all of it is excellent. You get to follow this fun story, cook (epically), and meet some fun side characters. If you don’t mind the art style, you’ll love it.

The Sushi Spinnery

In this one, you manage a sushi bar and the quality of your ingredients and food is extremely important. For a management game, it’s far more relaxing than you’d expect, but it does have some challenging elements so you won’t get bored. Plus, this series has a burger version and a ramen version, so you can give those a try if you end up liking this one.

Nonno Lorenzo

This was so super chill and relaxing. Basically, you just collect ingredients, find new ones to put on a pizza, and then make the pizza to serve to your lovely customers. You get to explore a lot and the art is really clean and nice to look at as well. If you need a feel-good experience and something to put a smile on your face, Nonno Lorenzo is it.

Box Bakery

This is a lively, cute little game that is surprisingly deep with its stories and characters. At first you’ll cook a lot too, discover new bread recipes and make them using fun ingredients, but then you can also automate a bunch of that later if you want to focus on other elements. I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did, and I mainly started playing it to see if it would be good for my kids, but it’s really not a kids’ game (though it could be) and it kept me interested for days.

Pack My Lunchbox

So you’re not actually cooking in this one, but you are packing lunch boxes according to your customers’ requests, which I found scratches a similar itch. Most of the puzzles are relatively easy, but some are quite challenging. You have to do everything in a specific way too. Like for example, someone might say they want something sweet and fruity and you have to figure out what that is, whether it’s apple pie, cheesecake, or something else. It’s fun, give it a go! And the DLCs make it even more fun.

KuloNiku: Bowl Up!

I found this game entirely by accident (tapped on the cooking tag on steam) and I’m so glad I did. It’s so cute and so much fun. Basically, you inherit a meat ball restaurant and you start making food based on your customers’ requests, but there’s also a rival restaurant in town. There’s a bit of story too and you can switch to cozy setting which means there are no timed events and you can just enjoy the progress.

High Times

This is a blend between dating sim, running a cafe and donut baking, so if that’s your jam, enjoy High Times. The trick is that the donuts you’re making come with mood enhancers, so it’s up to you to pick the right donut mood for every character and their specific situation. It’s really cute, and I enjoyed it, so I hope you like it too.

Chef RPG

This is kind of like Stardew Valley but with cooking as the main focus. You still get characters to romance, and you can explore, farm and forage, but the main focus is on producing food for your customers. I found it really cute, and the pixel art style is very satisfying to watch. Great game!

Ugoku Sushi Bar

As the name says, in this game you run a sushi bar where you make all sorts of different sushi for your customers. The twist is that you have to put the orders on the conveyor belt at the right time and in the right order to please the people who arrive. This is very low stakes and very cozy but so so charming, so give it a try.

Kebab Chefs! Restaurant Simulator

This is another restaurant simulator, but in this one you make kebabs and you get to expand your restaurant, renovate, design, etc. It’s fun alone, but even more fun if you’re playing with someone else, so give it a go with one of your buddies or family members and you’ll double the fun.

Cake Mania

Play it on Primary Games for free (just enable ads or it won’t work)

As I mentioned, playing this game with my sister is one of the core memories for me. It’s so fun, so cozy, sometimes very stressful (to a child, I guess), and just lovely. I played it a little when I remembered it for this article, and all those colors and sounds just brought me right back. Give it a go if you haven’t yet!

Diner Dash

Play it on Crazy Games for free.

You can also find part two for free here.

Similarly to Cake Mania, I loved Diner Dash. It’s a game that used to stress me out so bad, but I loved it when I pulled off a perfect day. There’s not a ton of cooking, but it’s there, and it’s all about doing everything well and on time.

Restaurant Empire 2

This one is still available to purchase, with the controls being a little iffy and clunky but still worth your time if you want to manage a restaurant empire. You can fight against competition, open a bunch of different restaurants, open restaurants in different cities, etc. It’s great!

Tales of The Shire

This is a cozy life sim with hobbits, and what do hobbits like to do but eat. So, the cooking and getting good ingredients is really important here, and the game overall is so cozy and so adorable and relaxing. I’d wait for a discount to get it at this stage because it’s a little expensive for what it gives.

Dave The Diver

During the day, you dive the dangerous depths to collect ingredients for your sushi restaurant, and during the night you run said shop and make food for your customers, manage employees, and all sorts of things. It’s really fun and one of the most beloved games for a good reason. See my full review here.

Moonglow Bay

Moonglow bay is charming and heartfelt, with cute graphics and a great cooking element. I really enjoyed playing it, though it’s not overly long.

Winter Burrow

If you’re looking for a wintery, cozy and simple game with some sad stories and really great art, this is it. The cooking isn’t the focus as your main job is to try to restore the burrow, make friends, and so on. But you do get to make some pies! So join this cute little mouse on his adventure if it sounds like your jam.