If you want to master Heartopia this year of 2026, investing time in hobbies is essential. Among the options, cooking stands out as one of the most strategic for early game progress. To learn, you need to find the mentor Massimo in the city center and trade a Hobby Expansion Ticket for his lessons. This mechanic gains importance because cooking integrates perfectly with fishing and gardening, hobbies you will have already unlocked. In this way, mastering the stoves early means preparing meals that recover energy, complete missions, and accelerate your level in the Developers Guild.
The cooking process involves a timing and quick-time event mechanic to avoid burning dishes. However, purposely burning at least one food and one drink is a valuable tip, as it grants recipe discovery points. To progress in the hobby, it’s necessary to accumulate experience points by cooking, while new dishes are unlocked with Upgrade Tickets, obtained from tasks around the city. In other words, cooking in Heartopia is a deep system that rewards exploration and interaction with other in-game activities.
How to unlock and master cooking
To begin, you must reach level 5 in the Developers Guild (DG) and choose cooking among three options. After speaking with Massimo, the adventure at the stoves begins. The ingredients largely come from other hobbies: vegetables from your garden, fish you’ve caught, and items collected around the map. Therefore, it is recommended to maintain a balance between activities. The act of cooking itself requires attention: a spatula icon with a green circle appears during preparation, and you must click in time to adjust the temperature. If you fail, the dish becomes a “Bizarre Food or Drink,” the game’s elegant name for burnt food.
Ingredients and the importance of other hobbies
Mastering only cooking is not enough to access all recipes. Many dishes, like the Mushroom Pie, require ingredients that depend on the level of other hobbies. Wheat, for example, is only accessible if you progress in gardening. Similarly, better and more varied fish come with the evolution of fishing. Thanks to this interdependence, focusing on a single skill can stall your progress later on. Besides Massimo, keep an eye on the traveling merchant Doris, who appears only during specific weather events, like meteor showers or rainbows. She sells rare recipes but only accepts Star Fragments as payment.
Therefore, cooking in Heartopia is much more than a simple mini-game. It is a central activity that connects various facets of the game, encouraging exploration and the balanced development of your character. With these tips in hand in January 2026, you will be ready to become the most skilled chef in town, preparing dishes that will boost your journey in a tasty and efficient way.
