Lots of people make a nice big bath of popcorn up before watching their favorite shows, but what about fans that want to sink their teeth into some serious meals? Cooking shows are immensely popular, so much so that even fictional food made in the world of anime has entranced fans for years.
Food is an amazing way for people to connect together and the stories told through Japanese animation with those themes are truly a sight to behold. Even if they’re drawn with pen and paper, some of the dishes shown in anime are absolutely mouthwatering as well.
Updated September 17, 2022, by Patrick Armstrong: One reason cooking makes for a great anime subject is that it’s so relatable. It can be great to watch a show about wizards or superheroes, but viewers are always at a bit of a distance because they’ve never experienced that life. Food, on the other hand, is something with which everyone is intimately familiar. Cooking can be the backdrop for romance, action, suspense, or mystery. Whatever the plot, the characters are sure to cook up something savory for viewers to enjoy. The best cooking anime are no different.
13 Silver Spoon
School is one of the most popular anime settings, not only because it’s easy for young people to relate to the daily trials and tribulations of going to class, dealing with difficult teachers, and hanging out with friends, but also because the school setting is ripe for storytelling. Not all kinds of schools have received equal love in anime, however, which makes the agricultural high school setting of Silver Spoon so refreshing.
Silver Spoon is a food and slice-of-life anime about a kid who transfers from his traditional school and learns about animals, food production, and making friends.The themes are great, and while the storytelling is on the simple side, the characters are all fantastic. It’s easy to stick around to learn more about ingredients and food production when the central cast is as solid as that of Silver Spoon.
12 Sweetness & Lightning
Sweetness & Lightning is an anime that goes heavy on the sweetness in all the best ways. It’s about Kouhei, a father who is left to care for his daughter alone after the death of his wife. The problem is that Kouhei doesn’t know how to cook. The result is predictable: his daughter ends up eating pre-made convenience store meals, which are the height of neither flavor nor nutrition.
Kouhei is a teacher, however, and a student in his class inspires him to learn to cook for his daughter.Sweetness & Lightning splits its energy between depicting Kouhei’s relationship with his daughter and the preparation of the meals they eat together. As both a touching family story and a food anime, it succeeds beautifully, making it easy to recommend.
11 Fighting Foodons
Fighting Foodons is, admittedly, a controversial choice for any best food anime list. The show is bizarre, even by anime standards, a food-based riff on the creature-collecting craze inspired by Pokemon. Chase, the hero, is a chef who uses foodons (weird creatures with designs based on food) to combat the series’s villain, who has been kidnapping chefs and forcing them to cook up powerful foodons with which the villain can take over the world.
No, Fighting Foodons doesn’t look or feel much like other food anime. While it certainly has its flaws, it’s also one of the most creative food anime out there. While its “food as fighters” concept won’t please everyone, the sheer creativity on display in Fighting Foodons makes it well worth a watch, whether one wants to see tasty dishes or some monster-taming madness.
10 Yumeiro Pâtissière
Who hasn’t eaten a lot of sweets in their life? Ichigo Amano has so much that a famous patissier recognizes her fantastic palette and gets her to join the most prestigious culinary school focusing on deserts around — St. Marie’s Academy.
While the fact she is in a class with all of the “Sweet Princes” of the school follows a bit of an anime trope, the fact that fairies (yes, the magical kind) are added to the mix really changes up what could otherwise be just a simple shojo anime about making sweet treats.
9 Cooking Papa
Cooking Papa never made a big splash outside of Japan after it was released in the 90s and it’s an absolute shame. This is because it’s easily one of the best anime about food and cooking and is well worth a watch for fans of the genre.
The manga that inspired the series is one of the longest-running of all time spanning over 157 volumes showing just how popular the series is. Watching Mr. Araiwa cook amazing dishes for his wife and son is not only wholesome but also quite funny at times.
8 Restaurant To Another World
Restaurant to Another World stands out compared to typical isekai anime by bringing multiple people from all over another world into the Western Restaurant Nekoya to try the amazing meals Tenshu is able to cook. Throughout the series, viewers get to learn about each character coming to eat and hear about why they love their favorite meal on the menu.
The series was so popular when it originally aired in 2017 that it surprised fans that a second season hadn’t been ordered. Thankfully, season two is finally set to come out in the Fall 2021 anime season.
7 Born To Cook (Mister Ajikko)
Born to Cook is the first major cooking anime to come out — it even supposedly is what inspired the show Iron Chef to exist. One of the best anime of the 80s, Born to Cook follows the story of Ajiyoshi Yoichi as he goes from a boy helping his mother run a cooking house to a culinary competitor against some of the best chefs in the world.
His unique ideas on how to tackle each recipe he has to create are sure to inspire any cook watching to try out new things in their own kitchens.
6 Yakitate!! Japan
Fans looking for a show that will not only show off tons of amazing bread baking but will leave them smiling to the end will find that Yakitate!! Japan is the perfect choice to watch. The show follows Kazuma Azuma as he tries to create a national bread that all of Japan could be known for.
The show is campy, light, and absolutely hilarious at times. Don’t go in expecting a terribly deep story, just turn it on and imagine the lovely smell of baking in the air.
5 Food Wars!
An entire elite academy for high school students dedicated to teaching teens cooking skills through extreme methods that have ultimate cooking competitions? It’s someone fans would only see in anime!
Food Wars! shows Souma Yukihira as he decides to join the illustrious Tootsuki Culinary Academy at the suggestion of his father and slowly climbs his way to the top of the culinary food chain there. The “shokugeki” competitions where chefs go head to head will leave fans drooling over the amazing creations these young chefs bring to the table.
4 Cooking Master Boy (Chuuka Ichiban!)
“The Era of the Cooking Wars” might not have been a real period of time in China, but this anime taking place in the 19th century Qing Dynasty sure shows some incredible dishes being made. Cooking Master Boy shows Mao Xing as he tries to travel through China after his mother’s death to become a famous chef just like she was.
While the original aired with over 50 episodes back in 1997, a surprise continuation was released in 2019 called New Cooking Master Boy which spanned over two seasons. Cooking Master Boy has to be amazing for a show this old to make a comeback.
3 Wakakozake
Wakakozake is unique compared to most cooking anime as its episodes only span two minutes apiece. Throughout the series, Murasaki Wakako goes to twelve different restaurants and tries twelve different dishes with a combination of drinks.
Each recipe is something viewers would actually be able to order in Japan and the show is almost like having Murasaki as a tour guide of the Japanese culinary world.
2 Isekai Izakaya: Japanese Food From Another World
Isekai Izakaya was originally released as an ONA — an original net anime. This direct-to-internet release is a lot like Restaurant to Another World but has a stronger overarching storyline. Patrons from another world come to the bar called Nobu in Kyoto, Japan to try their Toriaezu Nama ale and the amazing dishes served there.
Viewers that want to know more about the restaurant and the how and why it can connect to another world will find Isekai Izakaya the superior cooking anime to watch over Restaurant to Another World, though both are worth watching for their own merits.
1 Ristorante Paradiso
There are few countries known for their cuisine quite like Italy and Ristorante Paradiso focuses on the amazing dishes found there. It follows Nicoletta as she tries to track down her mother Olga in Rome.
When she does eventually find her mother at the Casetta dell’Orso, things aren’t quite what she expected and she quickly becomes wrapped up in the food and people to eat there. This results in one of the best cooking anime around, with plenty of memorable moments for viewers to savor.
