Ophelia Payne

TITLE: Little Chef: Cozy Cooking

GENRE: Casual, Indie, Early Access

DEVELOPER: Julien Truebiger, Hello Erika, Danny van Duist

PUBLISHER: julien & erika

RELEASE DATE: 16 March 2026

Little Chef: Cozy cooking has been in development for over 2 years and was released today in Early Access.  Now, I know that can be scary for people. The game isn’t finished, it may never be entirely complete, it may become something entirely different than what you’re playing now…sure, but it may be wonderful, and you fall in love with an indie gem.

I played the demo for this during Steam Next Fest and then picked up this code for review. Currently, there are 2 ‘chapters’ available, and that comes to my first hurdle I jumped. Yesterday, I was following up in their Discord with some questions I had before posting this review to confirm there was only 1 level, only to be told there was supposed to be 2. Within minutes, I had the delightful Julien in my DMs helping me figure out what the issue was, only to discover I had 2 bugs. They took my input, fixed the issues and put out an update. This is why I love supporting indie games: you get to support people who love what they are doing. This is also part of the experience of an Early Access game; you get to help shape the very game you’re playing. The devs are aiming for an approximate window of 6 months for Early Access, according to their post on their Steam page.

Now, let’s dive into what the Little Chef: Cozy Cooking game is.  The gameplay is a cozy puzzle sandbox, where you cook dishes in your unique kitchen. Dragging and dropping up to 3 items into your cooking pot, and combining items found around your kitchen, you will discover recipes to fill up all the slots in your recipe book. Over the 2 levels currently available, you will discover 170 recipes. Cook everything from comfort foods to gourmet meals, to some surprises, even monstrosities and even some silliness.

The first level is in your Student Dorm, and it really felt like you were a student struggling to make meals with a limited amount of ingredients.

Trial and error is the name of the game; you can unlock extra ingredients in each level by solving some puzzles. Need to unlock a cabinet, how can you find a key? If you are stuck on a recipe, take a look at the description, and often there will be a hint there. Don’t be afraid to let your mind think outside the box, like you would in an escape room. What will happen if you cook the kitchen sponge with the chef’s knife? Let’s find out.

Each recipe you unlock reveals a little more of the story. I enjoyed Little Chef: Cozy Cooking a lot. I liked that it made me think a little more when finding those last few recipes. I liked the Zen-like and methodical way you cook in the game, and I loved the little extra things like finding out how to get your plant to grow in the dorm.

Currently, you can get Little Chef: Cozy Cooking for under $8 USD. Based on what I’ve played and my experiences dealing with Julien directly with the bugs I encountered, I think it’s work investing some time and helping them with their full launch.

Until next time…be good to yourself and be good to each other.

**Thank you, Press Engine, for the review code**