The Ultimate OSRS P2P Cooking Guide (1-99)

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Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Line cooks follow the recipe. Chefs create magic.

In the vast and sprawling world of OldSchool RuneScape, food is as much of a constant as it is in the real world. The harsh desert sands of Al Kharid have given rise to suitably spicy fare like kebabs and hot sauce. In the coastal areas, seafood abounds — everything from tuna (which tastes great on a potato!) to lobster, swordfish, and even sharks. And in between those two extremes, you can find Gielinorian citizens partaking of choice swamp snails, pizzas, stews, and cakes. 

Naturally, the skill and experience needed to properly prepare such a wide variety of cuisine are hard to come by. Only the most determined and disciplined adventurers will put in the time needed to become a true culinary master and earn the title of chef.

Are you a line cook, or are you a chef? Somewhere along the climb to 99 Cooking, you’ll have to make that decision for yourself. 

The High Ground Gaming OSRS Cooking Guide 1-99 P2P Edition begins after the break.  

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OSRS Heroes’ Quest Complete Guide

Simmer the Skill for About an Hour Before Grinding

Prep work for a Cooking climb isn’t quite as arduous as some skills. You’ll mainly need to source a lot of ingredients — the Grand Exchange should have you covered with the right amount of coin. 

There are only two quests worth mentioning for kick-starting your culinary career: Cook’s Assistant and Gertrude’s Cat. Any others offering Cooking experience either have other significant requirements or simply aren’t worth the time investment. 

Heck, Cook’s Assistant is barely worth the time investment.

Gertrude’s Cat might not exactly seem essential. And it isn’t — not in raw spreadsheet form. Completing the quest, however, grants you a pet kitten in addition to the XP reward. Having a pet kitten is the sort of reward that can’t be empirically measured. Just trust me. 

As for the consumable ingredients that will make up the bulk of your Cooking grind, we’ll cover those each in turn as we encounter them. Along with each step of the journey to 99, we’ll enumerate the foodstuffs you’ll need to reach the next milestone. 

It’ll be over before you know it, and you’ll have a snazzy new Max Cape to show for the trouble. Assuming you decide it’s time to become a chef. 

It’s All About Location

No matter what you’re cooking, where you’re cooking is just as important. 

Having a bank near to your cooking range is, of course, the ideal. The fewer steps there are between you and an inventory of fully-cooked goodies, the faster you’ll farm XP. This means that there are a few standout locations around Gielinor for the cook in a hurry. 

If you happen to have a fire cape lying around — who doesn’t, am I right? — you can access a sulphur vent in the TzHaar city right next door to their bank. Likewise, if you happen to have completed the Hard Varrock Diary and have 32 Cooking, the bank in the Cooks’ Guild is just about as close to a range as you could ask for. 

Even without the Varrock diary, the Cooks’ Guild is still pretty close to the Grand Exchange bank. 

If you’re on a fresh character or don’t much care for Fight Caves and Achievement Diaries, then you can make good use of the Catherby and Lumbridge Castle ranges. Both are relatively close to banks, and the latter (with completion of the Cook’s Assistant quest) offers a range with a lower chance of burning than all the rest. 

Which one you choose is up to you. In a pinch, even a campfire by the coast can work, especially if you’re leveling Fishing at the same time. Just be prepared to burn a few more than usual. 

You did get the cooking gauntlets, right?

Add a Dash of GP and a Generous Pinch of Determination

Some guides point you toward cooking poison karambwan right off the bat. And, y’know, that’s an option. But it’s important to remember that the grind to 99 is not a sprint — it’s a marathon. If you feel like jumping straight into the 1-tick end of the pool, don’t let this guide’s suggestions hold you back. They’re all just suggestions, after all.

The ideal P2P Cooking Guide OSRS route from 1-99 will look different for every player. If you’d rather take the low-intensity approach and keep Netflix or Amazon Prime on your second monitor, well, that’s more our speed. 

We’ll present all the options along with suggested routes and let you make the decision. Like a good recipe should. And we’ll assume you did the above quests (and perhaps burned a few hunks of beef and bread) in order to start at Level 12 Cooking.

Now let’s get cooking! 

Not Quite Red — More Like Orange Lobster

Notice that we overshoot the level milestones slightly when transitioning to newer fish in the higher levels. While it can be a perfect science, we opt for the less scientific “just get a few extra levels and call it good” approach. You’ll still be burning some items, but not as many as if you went straight for the new tier. 

Completing the Family Crest quest allows you to snag the cooking gauntlets, which significantly reduce the burn chance for all the fish from lobster and up. Family Crest has a thick cut of requirements you’ll have to sort before you can take it on, but if you’re in this for the long haul, it might be worth the trouble. 

Notice that we stuck with fish from floor to ceiling in the above route. Of course, there’s plenty more you can cook on your way to 99. Let’s take a look at a few of those, starting with karambwan.

…Ok, so those are fish too. Or “mollusks” if you’re feeling precise. Let’s get them out of the way, then. 

Karambwan Calamari

Starting at Level 30 Cooking, you can serve up a succulent meal of cephalopod in the form of the Karamja karambwan. To properly cook this beautiful yet dangerous tropical fish, you’ll have to complete the Tai Bwo Wannai Trio quest. It’s a fairly sizable quest in terms of requirements, but if you’ve already completed Family Crest, it should be no problem.

Karambwans are an easy 30-99 Cooking grind item. They offer some of the best-in-class Cooking XP with 180 apiece up to Level 80 when you unlock Sharks. And even then, they offer the best XP per hour when practicing 1-tick Cooking.

If you’re ready to truly grind for your 99, then 1-tick karambwans might be the route for you. If you’re still looking for alternatives to sprinkle into the mix, read on. 

Would You Like Some Cheese With That Wine?

Fancy yourself a vintner? No Cooking Leveling Guide OSRS P2P flavored run would be complete without mentioning wine. Good old wine — grapes, water, age, and go! 

Fortunately, in OldSchool RuneScape, you don’t have to let it age for years for peak flavor. More like a dozen or so seconds after preparing the last jug in your inventory.

If you’re interested in the science of RuneScape Cooking, be advised that you may produce a jug of “bad wine” when preparing wine below Level 68 Cooking. Above that, it’s all good wine all the time. And at 200xp per jug, wine also offers some incredible XP per hour. Just camp the Grand Exchange for purchases and banking. 

Magical Pies, Stews, and Curry — Oh My!

Last but not least, we’ve reached the miscellany of the Cooking grind. If you happen to have completed the Lunar Diplomacy quest, you’ll unlock a whole new spellbook with plenty of utility spells on tap. One of those is the Bake Pie spell, which requires level 65 Magic to cast and powerfully streamlines the process for making pies. 

While it’s not the fastest or most profitable Cooking training option, you won’t be burning any pies in the process. 

Making curry is another option we want to outline in this OSRS P2P Cooking Guide. That’s because it offers decent XP at 280xp per – but is one of the more click and attention-intensive training options. You’ll be making uncooked stews first, with bowls of water, potatoes, and cooked meat, then you’ll add a curry leaf as the last step before cooking it — a lot of steps and a few coins between you and each curry. But sometimes you just have to make a little curry, you know? 

Achievement Unlocked: No More Kitchen Nightmares

You’ve reached the end of the OSRS P2P Cooking Guide. You ground your way through a smorgasbord of seafood, sprinkled in some wine and pies for flavor, and perhaps capped your Cooking quest off with a curry or two. 

When you claim that Max Cape for Cooking, you are no longer a line cook, you are a chef. Wear that cape proudly, and saturate Gielinor with quality foodstuffs to sustain warriors, mages, and rangers the world over.

Related Reading

• P2P Magic Guide
• P2P Crafting Guide
• P2P Runecrafting Guide
• P2P Firemaking Guide
• P2P Woodcutting Guide