ACNH How To Unlock Cooking

Cooking, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Animal Crossing
Caution: Hunger will increase by 85%


Be cautioned that if your food is too good your villagers will never stop coming over to your house. Especially the lazy ones. Looking at you, Biskit. 

How to unlock the ability to cook in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Cooking is an exciting feature that was added to Animal Crossings: New Horizons during the 2.0 update that the demi-gods at Nintendo graced us with last November. As we saw with the museum, Nook’s Cranny, the cafe, and other features that are upgraded as you progress, there are certain criteria you must meet before you can unlock cooking on your island. It’s a bit involved, but chances are, you already meet most of the criteria! 

How To Unlock Cooking In ACNH: 

  • You must install the 2.0 update. Yes, it’s kind of obvious but I figured I’d include it. If you don’t know which version you currently have, it’s displayed in the top right corner of the title screen. 
  • Your Resident Services building must be upgraded from the tent. Once you’ve built three housing plots, and had villagers move in to those, Tom Nook will announce that he will be upgrading the Resident Services building in order to accommodate the island’s growing population. Note: Having 3 villagers unlocks the Resident Services building upgrade, but you’ll need 7 villagers to unlock cooking.
  • Your island must have a 3-Star rating and K.K. Slider must visit the island. In order to do this, your 5,000 Bell loan must be paid off, your campsite must be constructed, your first bridge must be constructed, you have to have a Nook’s Cranny, and your island needs to be de-weeded and the scenery (flowers, decorations, fences, etc) needs to be up to Isabelle’s annoying standards. 
  • You need to complete Tom Nook’s DIY Customization Workshop. 
  • Go to Resident Services and access the Nook Stop terminal. Please note: You need to have at least 2,000 Nook Miles. 
  • Scroll down to the “Be a Chef! DIY Recipes+” and redeem it. The DIY Recipes app in your Nook Phone will be updated to include cooking recipes. 
  • You’ll need a kitchenette and ingredients to actually begin cooking but there are 141 collectible DIY cooking recipes in the game.

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