Space Chef Review – Serving Up Charm With a Side of Repetition

Space Chef Review

Cozy life sims have grown a large following in recent years. Titles like Stardew Valley and Dave the Diver have cultivated cult fanbases thanks to their relaxing nature, rich environments, and addictive gameplay loops. Space Chef aims to capture that same spirit, with the twist being its cosmic setting. Will this strange concept cook up a delicious dish, or will it come up short on ingredients?

Space Chef is a game made up of several moving parts, challenging you to juggle them all within its core gameplay loop. You play as a restaurant owner whose main goal is to sell mouthwatering dishes to hungry customers. While you can cook up bugs and serve them for a quick profit, expanding your menu is what really brings in the big bucks. To do that, you’ll need to venture into the cosmos, exploring distant planets to gather exotic fauna and mysterious creatures for your recipes.

Into the Unknown

The five planets you visit are distinct, each featuring unique creatures, fruits, and vegetables that let you craft new recipes to delight your customers. As you venture into uncharted territory, you’ll need to come prepared to stave off predators, though these encounters never feel too challenging, keeping in line with the game’s relaxing tone. Beyond fending off wildlife, you’ll also need the right tools to gather ingredients, which means collecting resources to craft a wide range of helpful items for your journey.

You’ll find debris and junk throughout while exploring the universe and delivering your freshly made goods. Collecting this allows you to craft new items to upgrade your ship, kitchen and more. As space pirates roam, you’ll need to ensure that you upgrade your ship in order to protect yourself and your exotic goods. Although there’s a huge variety of items to discover, materials to craft, and ways to personalize your restaurant, like most life sims, patience is key. Over time, the options expand; however, it’s a slow start, which lacks clear direction.

Cooking is fun with simple mini-games akin to Overcooked, where you must stir and flip the cuisine, resulting in a star rating. This expands further into your voyage with new appliances and even bots to help you expand from a takeaway joint to a large restaurant. As you’re on the clock, you’ll have a time frame to cook and get the dish to the customer, but as this isn’t your only task, you’ll have to plan your day to ensure you get all your jobs done. There’s a fair bit of micromanagement, shuffling around items in your inventory, crafting, collecting and cooking, but none of these tasks are particularly engaging. It all starts to feel like busywork, and that tedium sets in fast.

Team Work Makes the Dream Work!

A nice inclusion is the ability to play cooperatively. Due to the low-stakes gameplay and ambling pace, it’s easy for casual or young gamers to be part of the adventure. Its cute, cartoony design also aids the appeal, as everything is well animated and crafted with care to make it visually appealing. Backing this is a nice, country-style soundtrack which further accentuates the game’s character. The personalities you meet along the way help flesh out the world, but I never found myself fully invested in their stories. Each one feels surface-level, reinforcing the game’s tendency toward repetitive, task-driven play.

Space Chef combines cooking, crafting, and adventuring into one seamless quest, but none of its individual parts truly shine. Progress may be slow, but the variety of options grows steadily, letting you cook up all manner of strange dishes to serve to your customers. The planets are diverse, and there’s no shortage of small tasks to keep you busy. However, while there’s plenty to do, few of these activities feel particularly rewarding. Its simple mechanics make it approachable and best suited for short play sessions rather than long stretches. With so many cozy games offering stronger management and life-sim elements, Space Chef risks fading quietly into the background.

***A PS5 code was provided for this review***