Screenshots & trailers
Review sentiment over time
Weekly positive-review rate (green) and review volume (bars). Dashed lines mark significant patches; the amber line is the start of the current scoring window. Hover the dots to see what drove a dip or a jump.
How this score was computed
The VGC Score is a weighted blend on a press-comparable 0-100 quality scale. Steam approval rates are first calibrated (95% positive on Steam ≈ 89.5 quality, since Steam approval skews high). Press and tracked creator reviews each count ~2x a player review and share one cap against player evidence (creator buy/skip calls pool into an approval rate, calibrated like Steam approval); all-time sentiment is capped and halved (it's context, not verdict); reviews of the current build carry the most weight when a fresh patch anchors the window; and a 'typical game' prior keeps small samples from pegging the scale. Because press reviews and Metacritic user aggregates describe the launch build, their weight decays as the game ages (3-year half-life after a 1-year grace). That's how a game that launched rough can outgrow its old reception once updates win players over. Reviews under 2h playtime (the refund window), non-Steam activations, and free copies are downweighted.
| Component | Positive | Quality (0-100) | Weight (pseudo-reviews) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Press reviews (OpenCritic) | – | 73 | 17 |
| All-time Steam reviews | 84% | 77 | 1000 |
| Metacritic user ratings | – | – | 0 |
| Post-patch Steam reviews (trust-weighted) | 91% | 85 | 19 |
| Calibration prior (typical game) | – | 72 | 50 |
Scoring window: last 30 days (no significant patch detected) · 53 reviews sampled · 51 total reviews in window · weighted 36.9 up / 3.8 down · computed 17m ago · full methodology →
Press & Creators reviews (15)
Individual verdicts from outlets we track: scored reviews first, most trusted outlets first among them. The small badge is each outlet's trust score: how well its scoring history aligns with players.
- 79
“Depending on what you’re looking for in your cooking sim this will either sizzle or get sent back”
read full review ↗ - 60
“Do well and everyone is happy and they might leave tips. You can spend your hard-earned coin on new cooking equipment, décor for your bistro, furniture, that kind of thing. As you progress, you learn new recipes, and you can add new flourishes to old ones. Eventually you get more chefs you can lead to help you out. And if you're really struggling there's options to lower the difficulty significantly, which makes the game quite chilled out if that's more your thing.”
read full review ↗ - 80
“Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator captures both the stress, gratification, and realism of the heat in the kitchen. With the opportunity to juggle many different knives at once, such as prepping, managing staff, and cooking, there’s a lot to this game. Players can show individual creativity through plate and restaurant design, or focus simply on the meal. It’s a solid addition to the many different cooking games within the simulation genre.”
read full review ↗ - 75
“Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator is a very good simulator of what it's like to be a professional chef, while also making it fun to play.”
read full review ↗ - 80
“Despite the steep learning curve, there's plenty to enjoy in Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator. You will of course be held by the hand in the beginning and the game will give you enough tips to make everything succeed, but things will go wrong and trial and error will regularly come into play. Anyone who can look past this will be able to call themselves a cooking wonder in no time. For now Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator is highly recommended and should be on the menu of every gamer who enjoys the simulator genre even a little.”
read full review ↗ - 75
“The sheer amount of recipes, Michelin endorsement, and intuitive mixture of gameplay styles are enough to satisfy gamers who are also culinary enthusiasts. Just make sure you have a controller in hand if you decide to buy it on Steam. In a scale from Pizza Hut to Gordon Ramsay, this game scores an honest Guy Fieri.”
read full review ↗ - 60
“I enjoyed my time so far with Chef Life and looking forward to playing more. It brings its own take on the sim genre while inspired by predecessors such as Cooking Simulator. With an interesting narrative, the game has multiple branching options on the path to success.”
read full review ↗ - 80
“I’ve had a really fun time playing Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator, with the blend of cooking and managing a restaurant feeling super rewarding. It helps that the game manages to nail all aspects of its design, with every facet of the gameplay offering enough to keep players invested but without overwhelming them with needlessly awkward mechanics. It’s just a really enjoyable experience and certainly scratches that wannabe restauranteur itch that a lot of players might have after watching their favourite chefs on TV. It does have some issues with the most notable being some of the technical bugs in the game, but they didn’t stop me from having a really good time on my quest to earn that Michelin Star.”
read full review ↗ - 70
“There’s so much to dig into for Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator; I’m only scratching the surface of it. While players won’t get to experience calls like “Yes, Chef!,” “Behind!,” or the hauntingly distinct ticket machine crunching out order after order…the underlying stressors and demands of working in a restaurant are still there.”
read full review ↗ - 80
“I enjoyed my time with Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator. It’s definitely a simulator, but it’s not overly complex like some in the genre tend to become. With the management aspect and how detailed some of the recipes are, it offers that depth simulators genuinely capture while simultaneously keeping the actual cooking and plating something fun and enjoyable. The story could be better, but again, something that should make or break your decision in this genre. An essential aspect of being a chef is having pride in your work and seeing the customer enjoy their experience; Chef Life captures this and does this well.”
read full review ↗ - 80
“Chef Life: Restaurant Simulator is fun and exciting. Having worked as a culinary miracle for several hours, we can say that Chef Life is not just a cooking simulator. Chef Life requires you to be constantly focused on all fronts.”
read full review ↗ - 75
“It may not be the most in-depth sim, but Chef Life: A Restaurant Simulator does a great job of recreating the mechanics of running a restaurant without devolving into grim spreadsheet nonsense or coming off as loose-limbed mobile port fodder. I wouldn't give it a Michelin star, but I'd definitely eat there.”
read full review ↗
Nindie Spotlight
Push Square
FingerGuns
GameGrin
Play Watch Read
WayTooManyGames
Thumb Culture
Use a Potion
But Why Tho?
Saving Content
GameSpace
PlayStation Universe…and 3 more tracked reviews.
Patch history
- Patch 06: Tokyo DelightApr 19, 2024
- Patch 05: Softlock Solved!Mar 21, 2024
- New FREE DLC: the Cooking Lab!Feb 20, 2024
- Small PatchAug 7, 2023
- Patch 04: QoL, UI and Save SystemJun 22, 2023significant · resets scoring window
- Adressing the Stuck PotsMar 30, 2023
- Small Patch — 10.03.23Mar 10, 2023
- Post-Launch Patch — Fixed Your Blender Chef!Mar 3, 2023significant · resets scoring window