The latest One Piece game, One Piece: Grand Gourmet, has some charming retro graphics and a very odd premise, as you take control of a floating restaurant run by the Straw Hat pirates. Developed by Game Dev Story developer Kairosoft and published by Bandai Namco, the game demands you feed all the characters from the anime series.
A Culinary Battle on the Grand Line
The premise is simple enough, provided you know your lore. After a storm, Luffy and Sanji (the Straw Hats' cook) are left stranded without the rest of their crew. That is, until they find out that their identities have been stolen by a group of pirates on the make. These fake pirates have created a restaurant ship and named it the Baratie – never mind that the real Baratie already exists (the original Baratie restaurant ship was, in fact, founded with help from Sanji) and now it is having its reputation dragged through the muck.
How to solve this? Easy: Luffy creates his own restaurant ship (also called the Baratie) and the stage is set for a grand culinary battle that takes place all through the Grand Line. The aim is to beat the fake Baratie at its own game, by creating food that is even more delicious, and even more popular, than theirs.
A Cluttered and Complicated Simulation
The ship takes a roughly chronological approach to its wanderings, starting in the Sea of Beginnings, you follow the fake Baratie across the Sea of Seasons, The Floating Island, and Ever-Changing Sea (amongst others) in your quest to keep up with its wild wheeling and dealing. Although the meat of the game involves setting up the restaurant and feeding the people that come through its doors, the game is deceptively complicated. There is a lot to do; Grand Gourmet makes sure of that. Notifications, interactions, and little cut scenes pop up with worrying frequency; at times, it felt like I was sitting back and watching things happen, rather than contributing to anything that was unfolding on screen.
The Real Baratie (or whatever you choose to name your new restaurant) starts off as a fairly basic space: one table and wooden decor. There's a decidedly retro aesthetic going on here – tiny pixellated characters scurry across the screen like mice, their movements becoming ever more frantic the more people that need feeding. To encourage even more customers to set foot inside, there's a lot of decorating to be done. A high marker of client satisfaction lies in the comfort level of the tables. Rather than adding cushions, that can only be achieved in Grand Gourmet by decorating the local environment with things like flags, statues, pet-friendly areas, sea-beast meeting zones, and the like.
If that sounds cluttered, you'd be right. It's a recipe for madness, rather than anything aesthetically pleasing. A few hours in, swimming pools butt up against giant crab enclosures; buffet areas face right onto clumps of tables; and random additions like aquariums are scattered through the whole thing like awkward piles of confetti. It's not exactly relaxing, let alone pretty, but the game doesn't seem to care about that.
Quests, Recipes, and Showdowns
But wait… there's more to do. In addition to decorating, Luffy – and the rest of the Straw Hats, who are rescued from various locations as the game goes on – can be sent on quests to collect ingredients, find new potential customers, and unlock new locations (which, in turn, feature new ingredients). Sanji can then whip those ingredients up into new, themed recipes, which, in turn, can be used to create set menus for the restaurant-goers to chow down on. It's a fun way to expand the restaurant, and drive the game forward, in a way that pays tribute to the franchise's complex lore.
It's also very necessary. Did we mention that all those restaurant goers need to be wooed into coming back? Because they do. Every one of them either wants to sample a specific, yet-to-be-created dish, add a new gimmick to the restaurant (options range from things like optician's shops to performance areas) or be given a specific gift that will make them a 'fan'. In return, they'll give you money, coins, and likes which can be spent on fulfilling more requests or building more stuff. And at the end of each level, there's a cooking showdown against the fake Baratie, in which Sanji will pit his best set menu against theirs.
It's frustrating, because it feels unnecessary. The game is cluttered and feels like it; the background music is bland and the gameplay feels clunky. Although it's certainly fun to spend time with Luffy and his Straw Hats, there's so much meat on the bone One Piece: Grand Gourmet is unlikely to make you feel anything but bloated.
Review Summary
In Short: A restaurant management sim with plenty of good ideas but so much fan service and unnecessary complication that it proves very difficult to find the fun in it.
Pros: For fans of the game, this is the chance to indulge in the franchise's lore, make dishes from the anime, and spend time with your favourite characters. The game's cheery enthusiasm is endearing.
Cons: Overly complicated and cluttered, and the background music is dreadful. Non-fans will struggle to understand what's going on or why you should care about the customers.
Rating: 5/10
Formats: Nintendo Switch 2 (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, PC, iOS, and Android
Price: £15.99
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Developer: Kairosoft
Release Date: 23rd October 2026
Age Rating: 7
