$24.99Cuisineer Fight first, cook after
Run the restaurant by day, raid monster-filled dungeons for fresh ingredients, and turn your haul into dishes the whole town lines up for.
Is Cuisineer worth it?
Cuisineer is worth it if…
- you like the idea of fighting for your dinner, literally
- you enjoy tycoon and management games where the supplies come from your own sword arm
- you want something cute and colorful you can play in short sessions
- you loved the loop of gathering by day and selling by night in games like Recettear or Moonlighter
- you prefer a game with no time pressure over your head
Screenshots
Dungeons with a spatula
The dungeons of Paell are where dinner starts. Pom fights with kitchen gear: a trusty spatula, a Smackerel, a Swordfish, even Konpeito Fist weapons. Every weapon channels a flavor, Salty, Sour, Sweet, Bitter, Umami, Frosty or Toasty, and the flavors unleash flame, poison, chain lightning and stranger effects. The action is quick and constant: you dodge, weave and swing through monsters like artillery shrimps and fire-breathing peppers, sipping boba tea to keep going. Each biome, from the Green Ruins to the Frozen Fjord and the Konpeito Swamps, is procedurally generated, so its size, shape and resources change on every visit.
Cooking the loot
Whatever you hack out of a dungeon ends up in the kitchen. Cuisineer has over 100 recipes from around the world: crunchy Popiah rolls, rich Kaya jam, double-fried crispy chicken with zesty lemon, sweet treats piled high with berries. You gather the ingredients yourself, so a dish tastes a little like the fight it came from. Then comes the satisfying part: matching the right dish to the right customer. Loyal patrons in Paell want the rare recipes you cook up, and pleasing them is how the restaurant grows. The food looks as good as the fights are lively, all hand-drawn color and cheerful detail.
A dining hall of your own
Back in town, the restaurant is yours to shape. Local artisans help you customize the kitchen and tailor the dining hall to the patrons who fill it, and there is plenty of furniture to arrange as you see fit. The latest update adds more: year-round festivals that shake up the calendar, a wardrobe feature for Pom, and new weapons to take below. Between shifts you can wander Paell and chat with the townsfolk, from Naicha the bubble tea seller to Alder the big, friendly carpenter, who barely fits in the frame.
Run the business, pay the debt
For anyone who likes building and running a place, this is the heart of the game. Pom inherits a restaurant, a pile of debt and a village in need of good cooking, and every dungeon run feeds the business: ingredients become dishes, dishes become gold, gold becomes a better kitchen and a bigger dining hall. Townsfolk hand out quests for items found in the dungeons, and helping them earns gold, new items and more recipes. You decide when to open the doors, what to cook for the crowd, and where the profits go next. The score is simple: a full dining hall and a debt shrinking day by day.
Questions before you play?
Can you play it solo?
Yes, it is a single-player game through and through. You play as Pom, an adventurer turned restaurateur, and the whole loop of dungeon diving, cooking and serving customers is built around one player at their own pace. There is no penalty for staying up late, and you cannot fall asleep in a dungeon, so sessions end when you decide they do.
Can you befriend the townsfolk?
You can take their quests and help them out, and Paell is full of charming characters to meet, from shopkeepers to a carpenter taller than the screen. What the game does not have is a friendship or romance system with gifts and relationship levels: the townsfolk mostly matter as quest givers and shopkeepers. Come for the cooking and the dungeons more than the social life.
What do you actually do in the restaurant?
You cook the dishes, match them to waiting customers and collect the payment, then reinvest in the kitchen and dining hall with help from local artisans. The restaurant side is relaxed and low-pressure compared to the dungeons: the challenge there is planning what to cook and how to grow the place, not twitchy reflexes.
