A la carte

About this board game

A la carte is a cooking game for 2–4 players that plays in about 30 minutes, challenging cooks to improve their culinary skills with miniature pans and hotplates.

Each turn, players choose whether to raise the heat, season their dish, or attempt to steal another cook’s recipe in progress. Heating is a random affair driven by a die, and a roll may even increase the heat on every player’s hotplate.

The heart of the game is seasoning. Players up-end small bottles filled with colored wooden pellets and try to add the right amount to their dish. The result is uncertain: sometimes the pellets tumble out, and sometimes they do not. The number of pellets cannot exceed two, because over-seasoning ruins the dish and sends it to the trash.

• Miniature cooking equipment: Each player receives a pan and a hotplate.
• Random heat: A die determines how the hotplates heat up, potentially affecting everyone.
• Push-your-luck seasoning: Shake out colored pellets, but avoid adding too many.
• Recipe theft: Try to take another player’s recipe while it is still being made.

With its unpredictable heating, tactile seasoning bottles, and competitive recipe stealing, A la carte turns kitchen skill into a playful contest of timing and risk. The game was originally released in 1989, while the 2009 version introduced changed rules, a new victory condition, additional recipes, and new mechanics.