10 best anime like Food Wars!: Shokugeki No Soma

Food Wars!: Shokugeki No Soma is a popular anime series that revolves around Soma Yukihira, a talented young chef who enrolls in Totsuki Culinary Academy, an elite cooking school where only 10% of students graduate. Soma aims to become the top chef at Totsuki and eventually run his family diner.

The anime is known for its eccentric characters, intense cooking battles, and mouthwatering food visuals that look good enough to eat. Viewers who have finished watching Food Wars! and want more anime recommendations in the cooking genre can check out the best anime like Food Wars! to watch.

Disclaimer: The article reflects the writer's opinion. The anime are not ranked in any particular order.

Isekai Izakaya "Nobu", ***Chuuka Ichiban!*, and eight** best must-watch anime for fans of Food Wars!: Shokugeki No Soma

1) Yakitate!! Japan

Yakitate!! Japan, a popular cooking anime, follows Azuma Kazuma, an aspiring baker who possesses "Solar Hands" that make his bread warmer, fluffier, and more delicious. Kazuma enters the competitive baking world and competes in cooking challenges against rival bakers to become the master baker of Japan.

With its unique bread-making theme, fun characters, and outlandish reaction faces when tasting delicious bread, Yakitate!! Japan makes for an entertaining watch for Food Wars! fans. The anime will make viewers crave freshly baked bread with its scrumptious-looking creations.

2) Isekai Izakaya "Nobu"

Isekai Izakaya "Nobu" (Image via LIDENFILMS)

While most cooking anime focus solely on food preparation, Isekai Izakaya "Nobu” offers a refreshing take on the genre. The anime follows an otherworldly izakaya (Japanese pub) that serves nostalgic Japanese food and drinks to fantasy world patrons.

Like Food Wars!, each episode highlights the making of certain dishes along with characters’ reactions as they walk down memory lane while consuming Nobu’s food and drinks. The accurate depiction of traditional Japanese cuisine preparation techniques and theme of bringing people together through food make this a great anime recommendation for Food Wars fans.

3) Restaurant to Another World

Restaurant to Another World (Image via Silver Link)

Restaurant to Another World is an underrated hidden gem cooking anime. The story revolves around a small restaurant in Tokyo called Nekoya that secretly serves both humans and non-humans on different days of the week. From dragons to fairies, all kinds of fantasy creatures visit this restaurant to indulge in delicious comfort food from the human world.

Much like Food Wars!, this anime beautifully depicts dishes with great attention to detail. Watching delighted non-human customers’ reactions as they eat the food is entertaining for viewers. Overall, this heartwarming anime offers food, fantasy, and feelings - elements that Food Wars fans will certainly enjoy.

4) Chuuka Ichiban!

Also known as Cooking Master Boy, Chuuka Ichiban! is an older classic cooking anime series from the 1990s. Set during the Qing Dynasty era in China, the story follows Mao, as he aims to become a legendary chef and inheritor of his late mother’s cooking legacy.

Like Soma from Food Wars!, Mao enters challenging cooking competitions that test his skills against rival chefs. With Chinese cuisine as its highlight instead of Japanese food, Chuuka Ichiban! makes for an interesting watch, all while retaining competitive cooking battles similar to Food Wars. The historical Chinese setting also adds more depth and immersion to the story.

5) Toriko

For Food Wars! fans who also enjoy shounen anime, Toriko is a perfect combination of action, adventure, and cooking. The story is set in the Gourmet Age, where rare ingredients and delicious food are highly valued. In the series, Toriko is one of the world’s best Gourmet Hunters, who seeks out rare ingredients to create the ultimate full-course meal.

Toriko heavily focuses on food with creative dishes made from ingredients captured on Toriko’s adventures. The anime also features cooking battles between chefs. With visually-striking food animation and a unique gourmet hunting concept, Toriko offers an exciting cooking anime experience.

6) Ben-To

Readers looking for a funny, action-packed cooking anime should definitely check out Ben-To. This underrated series revolves around bento boxed lunches sold at discounted prices in supermarkets. However, these half-priced bentos are highly sought after, leading to intense brawls between students to get them.

The anime follows Yarizui Sen, as he aims to become the best bento brawler. With humorous characters, exaggerated reaction faces, and intense comedic fight scenes over food, Ben-To offers a unique comedic take on food battles compared to the dramatic cooking showdowns seen in Food Wars!.

7) Fighting Foodons

Fighting Foodons (Image via Nippon Animation)

Another great cooking anime recommendation is the classic Fighting Foodons. As implied by its name, this anime combines cooking battles with monster-battling action. The story revolves around 11-year-old chef Chase, who enters the Foodon world and aims to become the best Foodon master.

Like Soma from Food Wars!, Chase enters cooking competitions where dishes literally come alive as creatures called Foodons that battle against each other. With its fusion of cooking and monster battles, along with colorful animation, Fighting Foodons serves as an entertaining pick for Food Wars! fans, especially the younger audiences.

8) Yumeiro Patissiere

Yumeiro Patissiere (Image via Studio Pierrot)

For a sweet and wholesome cooking anime option, anime fans can check out Yumeiro Patissiere. This shojo series focuses on pastries, as the 14-year-old protagonist Ichigo Amano enrolls in a prestigious baking school in France called St. Marie Academy. Like Soma, Ichigo discovers her hidden talent and passion for baking sweets through practice and determination.

With a cute art style and focus on delicious pastries like cakes, tarts, and chocolates, Yumeiro Patissiere makes for a lighter cooking anime to watch, compared to the intense competitions seen in Food Wars! The anime highlights the joy of baking sweets rather than just engaging in battles.

9) Wakako-Zake

If you want a super short but food-filled anime, check out the two-minute long episodes of Wakako-Zake. This anime follows the everyday life of Wakako Murasaki, a young professional woman in modern Tokyo, who enjoys drinking and eating after work.

Each episode focuses on Wakako enjoying different food and drink items like ramen, oden, beer, and yakitori. With no complex plot but immersive food visuals similar to Food Wars!, Wakako-Zake serves as a relaxing mini cooking anime to watch.

10) Delicious in Dungeon

Delicious in Dungeon (Image via Liden Films)

For readers who enjoy Food Wars! but want something with darker fantasy elements, Delicious in Dungeon is a must-watch. Set in a dungeon with monsters to slay, the anime follows a group of adventurers, including chef Chilchuck. He utilizes the monsters' drops to cook delicious meals for the team to survive and fight another day.

With Chilchuck's creative dungeon-based dishes and the adventurers' extreme reactions after eating to regain strength, this anime offers a unique twist to cooking battles. The dark dungeon setting, paired with bright, appetizing food visuals also provides a nice contrast.

Overall, Delicious in Dungeon blends fantasy adventure with cooking, appealing to Food Wars! fans seeking something beyond just cooking competitions.

Conclusion

Just like the popular Food Wars!: Shokugeki No Soma anime, all these recommendations offer the core elements of cooking battle anime fans enjoy – mouthwatering food visuals, interesting cooking themes and techniques, competitive elements, and eccentric characters connected through food.

Whether you want more intense cooking battles, sweet stories, or simple food-focused anime after finishing Food Wars!, these options will surely satisfy your appetite for food anime. So, grab your ingredients and start watching!