Cooking games have become an extremely popular genre of video games in recent years. Whether you‘re a master chef in training or just love the creative outlet of whipping up tasty virtual meals, cooking games allow you to unleash your inner culinary artist.
From fast-paced restaurant simulations to more relaxed baking games, cooking games come in all styles. The best titles feature mouthwatering graphics, intuitive gameplay, and endless recipe customization options. They make you feel like you‘re right there in the kitchen, chopping, frying and decorating to your heart‘s content.
Here are 9 of the best cooking and restaurant management games you can play on your Windows PC this year.
1. Cooking Simulator
Key Features:
- 80+ recipes to master using realistic ingredients
- Customize your kitchen with 300+ pieces of equipment
- Career and Sandbox modes offer different gameplay experiences
- Supports VR gameplay for next-level immersion
The ultra-realistic Cooking Simulator lets you take control of the kitchen in two distinct modes. Career mode starts you out as an aspiring chef who purchases their first restaurant. You‘ll steadily upgrade your kitchen and reputation as you master recipes ranging from ratatouille to apple pie. Sandbox mode serves as a more laidback playground where you can experiment freely.
With advanced chopping and cooking physics, Cooking Simulator replicates the sights, sounds and tension of a real professional kitchen. It‘s as challenging as it is addictive.
Where to Play: Steam (Windows, Mac OS)
2. Overcooked! 2
Key Features:
- Zany local and online co-op for up to 4 players
- Dozens of obstacles and hazards to overcome
- Fun throwback cartoon graphics style
- Accessible gameplay for gamers of all levels
The Overcooked series has earned widespread acclaim for its frantic yet friendly multiplayer cooking action. As you and up to three friends try to prepare meals under ridiculous constraints, the chaos ensues quickly.
With portals and moving walkways disrupting your progress, simply navigating the kitchens can feel like solving puzzles. You‘ll need tight teamwork and communication if you hope to achieve kitchen harmony. With loads of dishes and customizable chef characters to unlock, Overcooked 2 is easily among the best party games on PC.
Where to Play: Steam (Windows, Mac OS, Linux)
3. Battle Chef Brigade Deluxe
Key Features:
- Innovative mix of side-scrolling beat ‘em up action and match-3 puzzle cooking
- Whimsical fantasy story campaign with gorgeously illustrated cutscenes
- Local multiplayer battles to test your culinary skills against friends
- Daily cook-offs provide quick gameplay sessions
This indie darling takes a wonderfully inventive approach to cooking games. As the star member of the Battle Chef Brigade, you‘ll venture out to hunt dangerous monsters, gather magical ingredients, then return to camp for puzzle-based cooking showdowns. With a hearty blend of combat and cuisine, Battle Chef Brigade stands out with its lush art style and intricate match-3 cooking mechanics. If you enjoy Sabha or Bejeweled-style gem matching, this game should tickle your palette.
Where to Play: Steam (Windows, Mac OS, Linux)
4. Good Pizza, Great Pizza
Key Features:
- Manage your own trendy pizza shop
- 200+ customers to serve with unique orders
- 8,000 possible pizza combinations
- Addictive gameplay loop of making and selling pies
While clearly geared for pizza lovers, Good Pizza, Great Pizza offers a taste of what it‘s really like to manage a restaurant. As customers with particular tastes and preferences file in, you‘ll need to quickly prep and bake pies to order. As your shop grows in popularity, you‘ll be able to redecorate, upgrade equipment, and craft even more pizza varieties to please the pickiest patrons. It‘s simple, straightforward fun that delivers all the vibes of running a real pizzeria.
Where to Play: Steam (Windows, Mac OS)
5. Restaurant Empire
Key Features:
- Guide a rookie chef through 35+ hours of gameplay
- Design kitchens and dining rooms
- Research new recipes and trends
- Hire and manage restaurant staff
- Cater to nearly two dozen customer archetypes
With its lengthy campaign, intricate economical model and broad managerial tasks, Restaurant Empire is the ultimate restaurant tycoon and cooking game. Beyond mastering various cuisines and recipes, you‘ll conduct market research, purchase expensive equipment and decor, manage employee salaries, and compete with rival restaurants. Advanced features like inspecting customers‘ food allow you to provide elite hospitality service. Though gameplay leans towards complex at times, Restaurant Empire is entirely addictive once you grasp the basics.
Where to Play: Steam (Windows)
6. Cooking Dash
Key Features:
- 100+ fast-paced time management levels
- 10 unique restaurants, diners and food trucks
- Hundreds of upgrades for your skills and kitchen
- Quirky characters and humorous storyline
- Optional in-game strategy guide
The Cooking Dash series stands out for its relentless gaming action centered around frantic multitasking. As you scramble around whipping up burgers, baking pies, brewing coffee and more, the clock keeps ticking. You‘ll need quick reflexes and good prioritization skills to climb from clumsy cook to master chef while keeping your customers content. Luckily, an in-game strategy guide offers tips to maximize your efficiency. With its polished graphics and addictive gameplay format, Cooking Dash is a long-lasting good time.
Where to Play: Big Fish Games (Windows, Mac OS)
7. Bakery Simulator
Key Features:
- Bake over a dozen realistic breads, buns and pastries
- Customizable cookbook with recipes to try at home
- Shop for ingredients from various suppliers
- Design and decorate your bakery‘s interior
- Negotiate deals with local businesses for distribution
Aspiring bakers will find Bakery Simulator scratches their itch to craft artisanal breads and tasty baked treats. Unlike many other cooking games, this one aims for true realism across the food preparation process. Flour, yeast, egg and water ratios impact dough fermentation and rising. Humidity and oven temperature fluctuations can ruin your careful prep work in a moment. While tricky to master, those looking for an authentic artisanal bakery experience need look no further.
Where to Play: Steam (Windows)
8. Burger Shop 2
Key Features:
- Juggle cooking, building, customer service and other tasks
- Hundreds of toppings and ingredients to unlock
- Decorate your restaurants and upgrade equipment
- Fun cartoon art style with some educational value
- Appeal to 5 wacky customer personalities
The best-selling Burger Shop game series narrow in on the art of crafting massive, mouthwatering burgers and managing the growing demands of your restaurant establishments. With colorful vector graphics and challenging time management gameplay, Burger Shop 2 offers lighter fun compared to hardcore restaurant simulators. As your burgers gain fame and customers flock in, multitasking across service types gets tougher. Burger Shop 2 hits the sweet spot between complexity and quick pick-up-and-play fun.
Where to Play: Big Fish Games (Windows, Mac OS)
9. Pizza Connection 3
Key Features:
- Build a global pizza enterprise across hundreds of cities
- Manage complex economic systems
- Invest in technologies to optimize production
- Market products based on regional tastes
- Lead competitors through pricing strategies
- Detailed tutorial guides new players
The Pizza Connection series has delivered addictive business simulation gameplay revolving around the world‘s favorite food for over 20 years now. The third entry ramps up the graphics, realism and complexity even further. With support for player-created mods and a sprawling economic model, properly managing your supply chains while accounting for hyperlocal tastes makes for exciting long-term gameplay. Veterans claim Pizza Connection 3 may offer the most authentic experience of maintaining a profitable pizza company ever depicted digitally. Patient newcomers can also succeed thanks to the embedded tutorial content.
Where to Play: Steam (Windows)
With so many varied cooking games available today across genres, which option best matches your interests?
For realism, you can‘t top Cooking Simulator. From chopping physics to recipe complexity, it mirrors actual life in professional kitchens. Fans of shows like Hell‘s Kitchen will feel right at home.
Those who enjoy frantic, party-style local multiplayer should play Overcooked 2. Coordinate with friends to overcome ridiculous obstacles and serve orders under pressure.
Battle Chef Brigade cleverly fuses brawler combat with intensive, match-3 cooking puzzles. If you like games like Candy Crush Saga merged with fantasy adventure, it delivers.
Management simulation buffs have a few great picks like Restaurant Empire and Pizza Connection 3 to become an elite restauranteur or global pizza tycoon through strategic high-level decisions.
Alternatively, quick service, time management cooking games like Cooking Dash provide tasty gameplay without the learning curve or need to manage complex systems long-term.
Finally, games focusing on specific cuisines like Good Pizza, Great Pizza let you master the tricks of the trade when preparing fan favorites like pizza or burgers.
While any Windows PC can handle most cooking games, certain accessories can greatly improve comfort, performance and immersion.
For extended gameplay sessions, an ergonomic keyboard helps reduce hand, arm and shoulder fatigue. Models with programmable macros can also help efficiently toggle between game functions.
A high refresh rate gaming monitor delivers fluid visuals so you won‘t miss any action during intense scenarios. Crisp image quality makes dishes and ingredients appear even more appetizing!
VR headsets like the Valve Index paired with cooking games optimized for virtual reality like Cooking Simulator VR bring you into the kitchen like never before. Just be careful not to actually try eating the virtual food!
Cooking games continue rising on the back of TV shows and general interest in cuisine as both entertainment and essential life skill. The top titles featured here are excellent gateways into the wide world of video game cooking – whether you fancy running a restaurant empire or specializing in pizza tossing abilities.
With modern graphics capabilities, Real physics and complex simulations, current cooking games let you develop legitimate culinary expertise that could translate to real-life kitchen confidence and mastery. Just don‘t be surprised if you work up an appetite or craving that‘s hard to fulfill until you exit the game!
