Anime has glorified several aspects of Eastern culture, including food. Whenever cuisine is presented in the medium, it's never dull or of fleeting importance.
Japanese anime are especially known for their visually captivating representation of food. Some series simply exist to enhance the audience's culinary experience through divine cooking sequences and sparkling dishes. Fans love the extra dimension and detail added to the food in anime, and some shows have done such a great job that they literally left viewers drooling.
10 Cinderella Chef (2018)
Based on a popular donghua, Cinderella Chef puts a delicious twist to the isekai genre, which ends up giving the audience a unique blend of food, action, and romance. Ye Jiayao used to be a talented cook who wanted to create out-of-this-world recipes. However, one day she gets teleported to another world after one of her experiments goes terribly wrong.
Now reincarnated as a magistrate's daughter, Ye Jiayao finds herself in between political wars, a budding romance with an undercover agent, and the fact that her cooking skills could be the key to her survival. In terms of food presentation, Cinderella Chef has cooking sequences equivalent to that of a high-octane shonen battle scene where viewers are taken on an unforgettable culinary ride.
9 Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits (2018)
It's one thing to make food for humans, but what about when one has to satisfy the appetite of spirits? Aoi is special as she inherited the ability to see spirits from her grandfather. However, she finds herself in an impossible situation when she's kidnapped and forced to marry an ogre king to settle her grandfather's debt.
Aoi refuses to trade herself and instead decides to run a restaurant in the spirit world to clear the debt. Even though there's a lot going on in the show, the focus remains on Aoi's gourmet experimentation to develop different palettes for different species.
8 Bonjour Sweet Love Patisserie (2014)
If cooking isn't simply enough to satisfy the audience's appetite, Bonjour Sweet Love Patisserie can sweeten things up with a little reverse harem romance. This sugary story features Sayuri Haruno, who dreams of becoming a pastry chef and enrolls in a distinguished culinary school.
Sayuri soon finds herself surrounded by handsome young men who all aspire to be successful pastry chefs themselves. Bonjour Sweet Love Patisserie delivers a delicious plot topped with colorful pastry dishes and a dash of romance. Every dish this show features is a visual masterpiece and will leave the viewers drooling for more.
7 Freshly Baked!! Ja-pan! (2004)
This show is binge-worthy for anime watchers who are all about bread and baking. Freshly Baked!! Ja-pan! is about a young boy obsessed with making the national bread of Japan. It's hard to fathom that not only is this anime about food, but the plot is solely focused on a single type of food and Yakitake!! Japan amazes the audience with its creative execution.
The detail about baking, bread, and the ingredients which go into it is spectacular and delivered in a way that never bores the viewer. It's hard to imagine how an anime show can pull off a quirky shonen-esque story with just bread being the star of the show - and this is precisely why the show is a must-watch for anime fans.
6 Toriko (2011)
Toriko might be the most unique cooking anime audiences will ever find in the genre. Instead of working with the slice-of-life pace, Toriko takes an adrenaline-fueled approach to food and gives fans over-the-top cooking sequences.
Toriko is a "food hunter" hired by restaurants to find the rarest ingredients. Along with his partner, Komatsu, Toriko goes on life-threatening quests to fight monsters while trying to fulfil his dream of his very own Lifetime Full Course Menu. Watching Toriko is like seeing an alternate version of Goku but with cooking skills as his super Saiyan power. As for the food, every dish in Toriko is a creative twist to the original dishes and looks absolutely scrumptious.
5 Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill (2023)
Tsuyoshi thought he could finally be special when he was summoned to another world by a powerful kingdom. However, he soon realized that not only was he summoned by mistake, but he also doesn't have any worthwhile skills to survive in this new world.
Fortunately, Mukoda has infinite access to an "Online Supermarket", and this leads him to believe that he can make his own way and live off his impeccable modern cooking skills. Campfire Cooking in Another World puts great emphasis on explaining the process rather than just pop-out dishes. Not only does the show keeps the audience engaged with its food explanation, but the presentation is equally stunning.
4 Gourmet Girl Graffiti (2015)
Gourmet Girl Graffiti is one of those feel-good stories that are heartwarming with no complex agendas or characters. Even though the anime doesn't elaborate on the cooking process, it does signify the importance of eating and cooking good food with good company.
Machiko is a sweet middle-schooler who lives alone but loves to cook. However, she feels her food lacks flavor and a kick that would send someone's taste buds into overdrive. She soon realizes that the only thing her food is missing is someone to share it with, and that's all thanks to her cousin Kirin who comes to live with her on weekends. The dishes featured in Gourmet Girl Graffiti aren't too fancy, but they're nostalgic and put emphasis on homemade cooking.
3 Restaurant to Another World (2017)
The isekai and cooking genres seem to go hand-in-hand because Restaurant to Another World is another successful example of the norm. A seemingly normal-looking eatery in a shopping district mysteriously closes every Saturday to welcome some very special guests.
The enigmatic head chef who is known as "Master", entertains creatures from another realm with his finger-licking-ly good dishes that are served both traditional and western-styled. Creatures like mages, dragons, fairies, elves, and even werewolves enjoy Master's exotic food which is served with mind-blowing visuals and mouthwatering cooking sequences.
2 Cooking Master Boy (1997)
Mao Xing was shaken up by his mother's death, but he vowed to travel across China and become a world-class chef to follow in her footsteps. Cooking Master Boy is one of those early 90s-era anime shows that were the first of their kind - and is popular to boot. It's the perfect anime title for someone with a love for classics as well as food.
This show features intense cooking scenes as Mao embarks on an adventurous journey to learn the best ways to cook delicious food. The show was such a hit that it received a reboot decades later, which is a continuation of the original series. Cooking Master Boy is hilarious and follows all the classic tropes.
1 Food Wars!
Perhaps the best cooking anime of all time, Food Wars! takes it up a notch when it comes to creativity, uniqueness, and visual domination. The anime series follows the story of Souma Yukihira, who wants to become a top chef and gets admitted into the prestigious Tootsuki Culinary Academy upon his father's suggestion.
Food Wars! can be considered a Naruto-styled anime with cooking as the main skill young high schoolers use to participate in high-stakes competitions. What makes Food Wars! the best is its originality, especially when it comes to cuisine. The characters make out-of-this-world dishes with intricate detail and explanation, and the visuals are phenomenal.
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