Your Cooking level

Cooking 0

Uninitiated. No dish of yours scores below 0, so the worst result you can get is Failed. Cook type recipes with what is about to spoil and level up; the floor rises 10 points at the next level, which is more than any one bonus.

Cooking 1

Novice Chef. No dish of yours scores below 10, so the worst result you can get is Failed. Cook type recipes with what is about to spoil and level up; the floor rises 15 points at the next level, which is more than any one bonus.

Cooking 2

Apprentice Chef. No dish of yours scores below 25, so the worst result you can get is Failed. Cook type recipes with what is about to spoil and level up; the floor rises 15 points at the next level, which is more than any one bonus.

Cooking 3

Skilled Chef. No dish of yours scores below 40, so the worst result you can get is Normal. Cook type recipes with what is about to spoil and level up; the floor rises 15 points at the next level, which is more than any one bonus.

Cooking 4

Veteran Chef. No dish of yours scores below 55, so the worst result you can get is Normal, and a dish that is exact, fresh and seasoned clears the Perfect line from the floor alone (55 + 38 = 93 against 90). Cook type recipes with what is about to spoil and level up; the floor rises 15 points at the next level, which is more than any one bonus.

Cooking 5

Master Chef. No dish of yours scores below 70, so the worst result you can get is Good, and a dish that is exact, fresh and seasoned clears the Perfect line from the floor alone (70 + 38 = 108 against 90). Cook exact recipes fresh and seasoned; the floor already rules out anything under Good, and the 38 points of bonuses push a dish toward Perfect.

Open the recipes list Every recipe with its four results and their Satiety, filtered by cooker, level and whether it names exact ingredients.

Every dish is scored, and the score decides which of four results you get: Perfect at 90 points, Good at 70, Normal at 30, and a failed dish below that. Your Cooking level sets a floor the score cannot fall below, 10 at level 1, rising to 70 at level 5, and a handful of named bonuses add to the score from wherever it starts. This page covers the scale, the floor, the modifiers, and what that means for which recipes are worth attempting at your level.

Those thresholds hold for 495 of the 496 recipes in the game, so treat them as the rule.

The four results

The score a dish needs for each result.
Result Score needed
Failed below 30
Normal 30
Good 70
Perfect 90

Every recipe produces a different item at each tier, and the gap is large. The same recipe cooked Perfect rather than Normal is a different food with different numbers. The recipes list shows the Satiety of each tier for every recipe.

Your Cooking level is the floor

Levelling Cooking does two things: it unlocks recipes, and it raises the floor no dish falls below.

What each Cooking level unlocks, in the game's own words.
Level Rank Floor What it adds
1 Novice Chef 10 Unlocks basic recipes. Minimum Food Quality 10
2 Apprentice Chef 25 Use ingredients directly from the Refrigerator when cooking. Unlocks more home-style recipes. Minimum Food Quality 10 → 25
3 Skilled Chef 40 Allows you to cook multiple dishes at once. Unlocks more advanced recipes. Minimum Food Quality 25 → 40
4 Veteran Chef 55 Unlocks premium recipes. Minimum Food Quality 40 → 55
5 Master Chef 70 Unlocks deluxe recipes. Minimum Food Quality 55 → 70

The floor is the part that changes your worst case rather than your options. At level 1 no dish scores below 10, which still allows a failed dish. At level 5 the floor is 70, and nothing you cook comes out below Good.

The modifiers

The named adjustments the game applies to a dish's score.
Condition Points
Every ingredient matches the recipe +10
Ingredients are fresh +10
A seasoning is included +18
An ingredient has spoiled -20

Read those against the floor and the plan for a good dish writes itself.

Use the exact ingredients. 10 points, and it is the one bonus that costs nothing but planning. Recipes that name exact ingredients are worth cooking precisely because of it.

Cook before things turn. 10 points for fresh ingredients, and 20 points lost if something has spoiled, a 30 point swing on the same recipe. See spoilage for how long each ingredient has.

Add a seasoning. 18 points, the largest single bonus available, and seasonings are cheap and long-dated. If you take one thing from this page: buy seasonings during the prep window.

The score is not the whole answer

Everything above decides which of the four results you get. It does not decide what that result is worth, because a dish carries a second multiplier the game never mentions: the grade of the ingredients that went into it, which runs 1.1× to 1.7× and is set by their price.

A perfect dish of cheap ingredients can be worth less than a good one of better ones. What a dish is worth has the grades, the price thresholds and the cheapest way to reach the top one, which turns out to cost about as much as a tin.

What that means at each level

Do everything right, exact ingredients, all fresh, a seasoning added, and you add 38 points to a dish’s score. That is the ceiling of what planning alone can add. What it is added to is not exported by the game, so the table below shows the two things that are certain at each level: the worst result the floor allows, and whether the floor plus the full bonus clears each line on its own.

The floor at each Cooking level, the worst result it allows, and the tier the floor plus the 38 bonus points would clear if nothing else counted.
Cooking level Floor Worst result Floor + bonuses
1 10 Failed 48, Normal
2 25 Failed 63, Normal
3 40 Normal 78, Good
4 55 Normal 93, Perfect
5 70 Good 108, Perfect

Appliances add on top of that. The best of the 9 cooking appliances contributes 5 points and holds 5 ingredients, which is what lets the larger recipes be cooked at all.

Exact recipes and type recipes

Recipes come in two forms, and they are used differently.

381 recipes name exact ingredients. They qualify for the 10-point match bonus and are what you cook when you have planned the meal.

115 recipes take any items of a food type, any meat, any vegetables. They cannot earn the match bonus, but they will accept whatever is about to spoil. They are the answer to “I have three things and no plan”, not the answer to “I want a Perfect dish”.

Filter by Any of type in the recipes list to see the flexible ones.

What to do

  1. Buy seasonings in the prep window. At 18 points they are the cheapest route to a higher tier, and they keep long enough to still be there when your Cooking level catches up.
  2. Cook exact recipes when the ingredients are fresh, and type recipes when they are not. The 20-point spoilage penalty costs more than the 10-point match bonus gains.
  3. Do not bank on Perfect while the floor still allows a failed or Normal dish, which is every level below 5. Cook for the experience and let the floor climb.
  4. Reach Cooking 3 before you build a routine around cooking. That is where more than one dish at a time becomes possible.

Quick reference

  • Thresholds: Perfect 90, Good 70, Normal 30.
  • Floor by level: 1 → 10, 2 → 25, 3 → 40, 4 → 55, 5 → 70.
  • Bonuses: seasoning +18, exact ingredients +10, fresh +10.
  • Penalty: spoiled ingredient -20.
  • Multiple dishes at once: Cooking level 3.
  • Every recipe and its four results is in the recipes list.