Let’s face it: cooking games have always had a hold on us. We’ve all played games like Cooking Mama and Papa’s Pizzeria, Papa’s Freezeria, Papa’s Burgeria … Papa’s a jack of all trades – and we were glued to our family computer to “work” at every outlet.
As time went on, we ditched those games on our desktops and moved on to the golden age of smartphones; but who’s to say we should leave our love for cooking games in the past too? Here are 12 free cooking games on mobile to rekindle your love for the digital kitchen.
Image credit: Good Pizza, Great Pizza
Pizza may be a comfort food to most of us, but who knew making it could be comforting too? Good Pizza, Great Pizza is an aesthetically pleasing game that lets you make pizzas for loyal customers as the owner of a quaint pizzeria. Earn a profit and use your coins to buy new ingredients for your creations, equipment upgrades, decor, and power-ups.
The game’s calming colour scheme and easy gameplay will have you hooked. Grateful customers will shower you with tips, compliments, and gifts to thank you for your culinary skills, which is great if you’re someone who needs constant validation.Â
Rating: 4/5 – The game’s adorable aesthetic and calming warm hue coupled with the constant stream of compliments both entertained and subconsciously healed my inner child as I played.Â
Good Pizza, Great Pizza on the App Store | Good Pizza, Great Pizza on Google Play
Image adapted from Animal Restaurant
Animal Restaurant is reminiscent of having a tea party with your stuffed animals when you were little. Play as a restaurant chef cum manager and learn new recipes to feed your cute community. You’ll receive cod fish as currency to upgrade your restaurant and culinary skills.Â
The fast-paced game automatically serves each customer its cooked dish once it’s ready, so you won’t have to wait around for anything to load while you play. You’ll also come across shy customers who’ll make reservations for a later time. Remember to open the app in time for their booking, or you could lose their business and sacrifice your rating.Â
Rating: 3/5 – This game involves a lot of rapid tapping to perform actions, which I grew tired of after a while. I stuck around a little longer to see how far I could take my restaurant … before my thumbs gave up.Â
Animal Restaurant on the App Store | Animal Restaurant on Google Play
Image adapted from: Boba TaleÂ
Here’s a game you can play even offline, especially while waiting in line for your real-life bubble tea order. Boba Tale lets you create and serve combinations of bubble tea to adorable animal customers.
Apart from boba, you can also whip up sweet treats like pancakes and cupcakes. Play to earn gems that can be used to upgrade your boba store with decor and new ingredients.Â
Rating: 2/5 – The gameplay was a little slow and the lull periods without any action lasted a bit too long for my liking. But if you’re someone who can look past that for the cuteness, you’ll like this game.Â
Boba Tale on the App Store | Boba Tale on Google Play
Image credit: Hello Kitty LunchboxÂ
If you’re someone who loves Hello Kitty or all things wholesome, you’ll like Hello Kitty Lunchbox. Prepare Hello Kitty’s lunch for her with specific preset ingredients as well as a little customisation of your own. This game incorporates motion control and swiping gestures, so you’ll get more variety than just constant tapping.
Once Hello Kitty is happy with her order, she’ll give you her lunchbox to pack her lunch in, which you can customise with a fun print or stickers.Â
Rating: 2.5/5 – The gameplay was simple, with a single stage and no room for advancement. It’d be ideal for a child who likes colourful graphics and the idea of cheffing it up for their favourite character, or if you’re young at heart and want something chill and relaxing.Â
Hello Kitty Lunchbox on the App Store | Hello Kitty Lunchbox on Google Play
Image credit: Restaurant Dash: Gordon RamsayÂ
If you’ve ever watched an episode of Hell’s Kitchen and thought to yourself, “I can do that”, then Restaurant DASH: Gordon Ramsay is for you.
Play as a server in Gordon’s restaurant and learn how to prepare and serve dishes in a fast-paced, high pressure setting. The easy gameplay lets you tap and create a pathway for the customisable avatar for seamless movement and task completion.
Megafans of the celebrity chef will be happy to know that he lends his voice to this addictive game. so it’ll be like he’s talking directly to you. If degradation isn’t your thing, don’t worry, Gordon doesn’t call you names or berate you. and profanities – yes, they’re part of the game – are bleeped out.Â
Rating: 4/5 – Apart from the jarring animation of Chef Ramsay that looks almost too detailed, the game was very addictive. The ability to easily create pathways for the server instead of constantly tapping the screen also made it much easier than most games to play.Â
Restaurant Dash: Gordon Ramsay on the App Store | Restaurant Dash: Gordon Ramsay on Google Play
Image credit: Airplane ChefsÂ
All players for Airplane Chefs, now boarding. This unique simulation game allows you to prepare a cart full of snacks and meals before delivering them to passengers on a plane. Prepare food in the galley and make sure your cart is fully stocked to keep up with the demand of the passengers, who could potentially get ticked off if served too slowly.
Image credit: Airplane ChefsÂ
Hope you’ve got the need for speed because you’ll need to clear trays, throw out the garbage, and deliver food to different cabins as quickly as possible. Level up and earn more dishes and preparation methods, as well as different cuisines for different countries. Â
Rating: 5/5 – Easily the most addictive game I’ve played. I was constantly on my toes and was thoroughly entertained by the new dishes and cuisines. In fact, I may have played more than the necessary time needed for this review.Â
Airplane Chefs on the App Store | Airplane Chefs on Google Play
Like most cooking games, Breakfast Story lets you prepare dishes for your customers – but with an added layer of storyline and progression. Play as a protagonist who leaves their office job to follow their passion of cooking for others. Your goal is to complete each level to earn new dishes, and progress onto different restaurants with different cuisines.Â
For those who like a little weirdness factor, you’ll be happy to know that your first customer is a talking dog who engages in inquisitive conversation with you, and says you’re able to understand him because of your kind heart. Don’t worry, he’s a recurring character so you’ll get the pleasure of getting to know him real well throughout the game.Â
Rating: 2/5 – With its bright colours and talking animals, it’ll likely be a fan favourite amongst children. Plus, the fact that it’s designed for tablets in mind means their small fingers will be able to manoeuvre the dishes well.Â
Breakfast Story on the App Store | Breakfast Story on Google Play
Calling all hotpot aficionados, build and own your own hotpot restaurant with My Hotpot Story. This game, complete with adorable character designs and highly detailed food graphics, lets you whip up and serve delicious hotpot dishes to eager customers.
Work hard and earn enough money to hire a service crew who’ll help you deliver dishes to your customers, rather than you having to furiously tap and execute each action manually. Let them focus on the food while you focus on making your customers happy, and see your collection of hotpot toppings grow. Beware, your stomach just might growl from the visuals.Â
Rating: 2.5/5 – Because it takes a while to advance through stages, those with a short attention span might get bored and impatient. However, you’ll love the journey and development of it if you prefer a slower-paced game.
My Hotpot Story on the App Store | My Hotspot Story on Google Play
We’ve all been to a hawker centre or food court, but now you can experience what it’s like on the other side of the stall with Kopi Tiam Mini. Whip up classic kopitiam drinks like Kopi C Peng as well as local dishes like egg prata with curry, serving them up to both local and international customers.Â
The game takes place across the local landscape with iconic regions, cartoon-ified. The first chapter is set in Little India, and it’s part of the fun to see which familiar settings will unfold with each level. Could your neighbourhood be next?
While this is the free mini version of the app, the full Kopi Tiam Mini game is available for purchase for just $4.48 on the App Store and $2.99 on Google Play.Â
Rating: 4.5/5 – It felt much more immersive to play a game with dishes and drinks I liked and scenarios I could identify with as a Singaporean. This is one way to experience that mad hustle and bustle which our beloved kopitiam uncles and aunties live and breathe.Â
Kopi Tiam Mini on the App Store | Kopi Tiam Mini on Google Play
Dr Panda Restaurant: Asia is a cooking simulation game with no in-app purchases, meaning your littles ones can safely have their fun without mistakenly making a purchase. Pick out ingredients for dishes as per customers’ requests, and the cute animal chef will take them to the kitchen for you to work your magic.Â
To cook, you’ll have to pick ingredients up from the tray and drag them around the kitchen to appliances like the stove, oven, chopping board, and so on. Swipe your screen to cut or stir-fry the ingredients to prepare the dishes. As a bonus, the characters’ facial expressions will give you hints as to if you’re doing the right thing.Â
Rating: 3/5 – A kid-friendly game which makes for a fun virtual cooking experience. Suitable for young children who don’t have to get bogged down by tiny graphics or complicated controls, and the loveable character designs and bright colours are also a nice touch.
Dr Panda Restaurant: Asia on the App Store | Dr Panda Restaurant: Asia on Google Play
Image credit: Kuma Sushi Bar Â
Play as an adorable kitty sushi chef in Kuma Sushi Bar, a calming tap-tap game with pretty pastel tones and Japanese graphics that are almost too cute to handle. Inherit a sushi chef from your kitty grandfather and prepare little sushi rolls for your customers, who are just as cute.Â
Besides just preparing cartoon sushi, you’ll start off the game with the restaurant in a haphazard state. Decluttering the restaurant is part of the gameplay, so you can expect some satisfying Marie Kondo action.
Rating: 3/5 – The cute graphics are sure to win you over if you’re a sucker for aesthetics. Those who prefer more relaxed games, instead of racing against a timer during each level to clock the highest points, would appreciate this too.Â
Kuma Sushi Bar on the App Store | Kuma Sushi Bar on Google Play
On top of just cooking dishes, you’ll actually have to wrangle up the ingredients yourself in Hunt Cook: Catch and Serve. Hunt for animals like pheasants to include in your recipes, learning tidbits of info about various wildlife along the way. You’ll be journeying through the game alongside your “boss”, a talking dog complete with a little ascot and chef’s hat.
Image adapted by Hunt Cook: Catch and Serve
Use the profits you’ve earned from happy customers to upgrade your restaurant and kitchen. You’ll also get to expand your artillery collection so you can hunt even more varieties of animals, thereby expanding your recipe repertoire.Â
Rating: 4/5 – While the concept did throw me off at first because this is the first 2-in-1 hunting and cooking game I’ve tried, I quickly became hooked. The aspect of chasing after your prey alongside an adorably dressed dog definitely upped the cuteness factor.Â
Hunt Cook: Catch and Serve on the App Store | Hunt Cook: Catch and Serve on Google Play
From animal sushi chefs to serving passengers 30,000 feet up in the air, there is no lack of interesting culinary games out there for us to play on our phones any time, anywhere.
The best part is, cooking skills aren’t required at all. Now you can be a whizz in the virtual kitchen even if you aren’t culinarily adept in the real world.Â
Check out these apps to snazz up your tech:Â
Cover image adapted from: Good Pizza Great Pizza, Restaurant Dash: Gordon RamsayÂ
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