Fire Emblem Engage Cafe: How does the kitchen work and how to get a good rating?

As in many RPGs, Fire Emblem Engage offers a bite to eat before going into battle, in order to benefit from various bonuses that can make a difference on the field. But how it works is a bit opaque, getting a gourmet meal isn’t always easy, while it’s a huge advantage.

What determines the rating of a meal?

All the factors are not yet known, we will have to wait for datamining and an in-depth statistical analysis to get all the details, but we already know the main lines.

The level of the character with a given pot : In order, from best to worst, this gives, Specialty > Excelle > Mastery > Start > No grades. This means that you should always aim to cook a dish with as high a yellow mark as possible. Even at ‘Start’, the chances of the outcome being catastrophic are very present, so aim for Specialty ideally.
The number of ingredients : The more different ingredients a meal uses, the higher its score can be. If the character is proficient, you’re almost guaranteed to get at least a “B” with a 4-ingredient dish. But it also means that it’s harder (if not impossible) to get an excellent score like S+ with a character whose specialty is a one or two-ingredient meal, like a simple Citrine potato.

Anna's recipe for a dish that received an S+ with a rare fruit - Fire Emblem Engagement — Anna’s recipe for a dish that received an S+ with a rare fruit

The extra ingredient : There are 3 to choose from, rare fruit, rare vegetable, and rare fish. On a case-by-case basis, adding an ingredient can improve the rating, if it’s the right kind. It seems that it can also degrade it, for example, adding fish to a dessert. However, this isn’t always very intuitive. If in doubt, save the game before cooking, if the result is disappointing, choose another ingredient. There are hundreds of different dishes, so experimenting by remembering all the combinations is difficult after all.
luck factor : Sometimes the person in charge of the kitchen is inspired, and sometimes he is clumsy. This can greatly affect the rating. It seems to be fixed beforehand, so loading the game won’t give a different result, in our experience. It’s best to try cooking something else, with another mystery ingredient, if you really want a different result.

Guests

You can choose 2 allies to share the meal with, they are all eligible apart from the cook. This is an opportunity to improve your support with these 2 allies, but mostly when possible, ideally their support level between them, there aren’t many opportunities to do that. You then need to look for dinner with allies who also have a mutual support gauge.

For significant meal support gains to be made, they must like the dish. You can see it in the menu when you select and invite.

Of course, the difficulty is finding a dish that the cook has learned enough of, that the 2 guests like, that they have support for each other, and that you have the components in stock. That’s a lot, and sometimes there just isn’t a perfect solution. We advise you to do this promote having a good note for the mealespecially at a high level of difficulty, even if it means sacrificing mutual support levels.

Effect of grades

From a certain level (C), meals give greater bonuses and to more characters. It depends on the meal being prepared. When you get very high ratings, like S or S+, you’ll get pretty big stats for all your characters, like +2 or even +3 in different stats. You can also collect Link Shards from the board.

Get the ingredients for cooking

The best dishes call for more luxurious and rarer ingredients, not to mention the extra ingredients. There are quite a few food sources, some are more important than others:

Navigate the battlefield : After each fight, go around the area to collect the shiny items. This sometimes includes local food.
Visit Somniel: After each battle, go around the map, there are tons of food scattered everywhere, especially in the orchard and farm.
Set up your farm: Many farms give out ingredients. Cats give fish, donkeys give rare vegetables, flamingos give rare fruits, etc. However, you’ll want to favor dogs all the same.
Scan amiibo: When they are not from the Fire Emblem saga, most of the time it gives a random cooking ingredient.

Fish: This is by far the best upscale food source. Sashimi in particular is required in several of the 4-ingredient dishes he specializes in, which requires catching golden fish with the ultimate rod.
Donate: By going to the Bulletin Board, you can donate Tokens to each Kingdom, as they are unlocked. Level 2 at 5000 coins almost always provides a large amount of varied food to use in the cafeteria. This should help you hold on for a while.

Takeaway meal

If the meal’s rating is at least “D”, the cook will wrap the leftovers, to be eaten in the next battle. You have to think about manually adding them to a unit’s inventory, like a potion, which isn’t very practical. Consumed on the battlefield, the meal does 20hp (regardless of its rating), which is 5 HP more than a potion, but on a single charge. Bunet has the ability to create a second meal by consuming it, which is random and uninteresting. Celica’s ring bearer, on the other hand, will completely fill his Fusion gauge, which is just great, using it at the right time. We therefore recommend that you give it to this wizard.

If you forget to eat your meal, the next time you go to the canteen, leftovers will automatically be thrown in the trash. You can’t memorize them. In the worst case, sell them to a dealer for 50 ecus, there is no small profit!