Critter Kitchen Board Game

About Critter Kitchen

Critter Kitchen is a competitive board game from Cardboard Alchemy for 1–5 players. During Restaurant Week in Bistro Bay, each player runs a restaurant, secretly sends three chefs to locations around the city, gathers ingredients and uses them to complete food challenges before preparing a final meal for a celebrity critic. Browse more board games at Thistle Tavern.

How Critter Kitchen Plays

Each round, ingredients are distributed across locations in Bistro Bay and every player secretly decides where to send their three chefs. Choices are revealed together, making it important to anticipate where rival restaurants might be heading as well as which ingredients you need.

The three chefs differ in speed and carrying capacity. Faster chefs reach locations sooner but carry less, while slower chefs can bring back more ingredients. Rumours gathered around the city provide clues about what the visiting critic values, giving you information to consider while planning your final meal.

Challenges revealed during the first six rounds give restaurants opportunities to earn stars by preparing dishes that meet particular ingredient requirements. After round seven, players use the ingredients they have collected to create their final meal and try to satisfy the celebrity critic. Different critics, rumours and restaurateurs vary the decisions from game to game.

Critter Kitchen Key Features

• Players: 1–5
• Play time: approximately 55–70 minutes
• Suggested age: 12+
• Publisher: Cardboard Alchemy
• Designers: Alex Cutler and Peter C. Hayward
• Artist: Sandara Tang
• Product type: standalone core board game
• Gameplay: simultaneous secret planning, ingredient gathering, food challenges and variable critic objectives
• Solo play: supported with dedicated solo components

What's in the Critter Kitchen Box?

• 1 box and chipboard insert
• 1 rulebook
• 1 Waterfront board
• 8 location boards
• 5 player boards
• 1 solo player mat
• 5 folding player shields
• Punchboard components for ingredients, spices, rumours, soup, stars, Zous Chefs and player plates
• 160 poker-size cards covering player locations, Zous Chefs, critics, challenges, restaurateurs, rumours, solo decks and reference cards
• 1 cloth bag
• 5 mouse meeples
• 5 lizard meeples
• 5 boar meeples
• 5 chef hat meeples
• 1 wooden round marker

Who Is Critter Kitchen For?

Critter Kitchen is suited to players who enjoy simultaneous decisions, reading their opponents, collecting resources and working towards changing scoring objectives. Because everyone plans chef locations at the same time, players stay involved in each round rather than waiting through a long sequence of individual turns.

The core game supports groups of up to five as well as solo play, with dedicated solo components included. Its changing critics, rumours and restaurateurs also give returning players different information and priorities to work around from one game to the next.