Pay-to-play Cooking training

See also: Free-to-play Cooking training

This is a guide which aims to assist players in training Cooking in pay to play by using the most effective and efficient techniques and methods.

This guide may not always be up to date (mainly concerning GE prices). Remember to check the Grand Exchange prices before purchasing ingredients.

Level advancement - Fish

This is a fast, but more expensive way to advance the Cooking skill level. Note that the money needed until next step column only accounts for the total amount of money that must be invested. It does not account for the money that will be earned back from selling the cooked fish. Fishing them yourself will give a sizeable amount of fishing experience along with a greater profit because it reduces the cost of ingredients to 0 (minus any cost for lures, e.g. feathers).

A side note: A slower, but more reliable way to train cooking is to check out the food chart under the cooking skill page to see what the best food you can cook without burning is, then cook that food. That means there's a certain number of items you must cook, without leaving things to chance or burning. The XP/hour below assumes around 1400 cooks per hour with no bonuses.

Levels	Food to cook	Base Experience per item	Approximate Base XP/Hour	Approximate XP/Hour (Portable Range)	Approximate XP/Hour (Cooking Urns)	Level to stop burning	Notes	Approximate profit/loss during this step	Methods to obtain
1 - 15	Various	Various, see Cooking	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	At this level, just cook anything readily available. Efficiency is not important because the first 10 levels are quickly gained. Examples include chicken, bread, shrimp, anchovies, etc.	Very little	Fishing, Players, Grand Exchange
15-30	Trout Cod Pike Salmon	Various	25k-50k	30k-60k	30k-60k	TBD	None	Very little	Fishing, Players, Grand Exchange
28-52	Sweetcorn	104	150k	176k	None	53	None	-1,495,000	Farming, Players, Grand Exchange
52-60	Desert sole	142.5	200k	241k	239.4k	81 with cooking gauntlets	Lobsters are no longer efficient. Desert Soles cost half the price, and give 20 more experience each. Desert soles can be fished in Menaphos Port District. These are a potential method for 99.	-86,250	Fishing, Players, Grand Exchange
60-80	Catfish	145	203k	245k	243.6k	83 with cooking gauntlets	Swordfish are no longer efficient. These are very similar to monkfish, but are 1/7th the cost currently.	-2,892,000	""
80-90	Beltfish	165	231k	280k	277.2k	Never, 99 with Cooking cape	High burn rate without cooking gauntlets. Highly suggested to switch to sharks at level 85 if using a range + cooking gauntlets.	-13,608,000	""
90-93	Shark	210	294k	355k	352.8k	94 with cooking gauntlets	Players will burn approximately 1% of Sharks with 93 Cooking and cooking gauntlets.	-1,259,401	""
93-95	Rocktail	225	315k	381k	378k	94 with cooking gauntlets	Without cooking gauntlets, players will never stop burning rocktails.	-735,525	""
95-99	Blue blubber jellyfish	235	329k	398k	394.8k	97 with cooking gauntlets	Blue blubber jellyfish have a very low burn chance, when using cooking gauntlets and a range players can expect no burns from 95-97.	-2,594,020	""
99+	Sailfish	270	378k	457k	453.6k	Never, 99 with cooking gauntlets or Cooking cape	Make sure to have the cooking cape or cooking gauntlets equipped so you do not burn any.	-1.31 gp/xp or-1.2 gp/xp on a fire. 99 to 120 will be: -119,962,041.78 or -109,056,401.62 on a fire	""

With cooking urns:

Cooking urns speed up the experience rates. In addition, it takes fewer supplies to level up. Players willing to spend time training Crafting to be able to use higher-level urns may find it easier to train Cooking, as the lower number of fish to be cooked can make a big difference in how often a character has to bank while cooking, as well as fewer fish to catch or buy. This means making a large investment of time in training Crafting, however.

• Training with meat may be done by going to Neitiznot's yak pen where people leave the meat on the ground. There is a range and bank near to make easily cooking banking and collecting.

Remember: burning a piece of food does not yield experience, so it is always better to plan on having extra money.

At level 85, some players switch to cooking pies with the lunar spell so that they gain experience comparable to shark or better, but also gain Magic experience and spend runes. This requires 65 Magic. As the quest Lunar Diplomacy requires 65 Magic to complete, skill boosts will not work. Lunar spell-cooked pies will never burn.

Combined POH training with a Chef's delight (barrel)

A very useful tip for training AND to save gold is to install a Chef's delight barrel in your POH kitchen along with a range. Mounting an Amulet of glory in your quest hall nearby the kitchen requires 48 Construction, and can be used to provide teleports to Edgeville to bank. Teleportation to your POH can be used with a tab or runes. Using runes requires 40 Magic. This helps you burn less food with the cooking level increase, and cook higher level foods.

Steps to train:

1. Pick up food from a bank (raw).
2. Teleport to your house.
3. Grab a beer glass, and fill it with chef's delight from your barrel.
4. Cook the food.
5. Go to your quest hall, and teleport to Edgeville using your Amulet of glory
6. Bank, and repeat.

The total levels used for this method are:

• 40 Magic (optional to save 3x as much money by using runes instead of teleport tabs)
• 48 Construction (optional by buying flatpacks for everything but mounting your uncharged amulet of glory)

You can use cooking gauntlets to further boost your cooking success rate.

Alternatively, you could find a friend who has a larder and a range and continuously make cakes inside their POH for free. World 31 (House Parties) often has open houses in Yanille, and many of these do have these facilities.

Other methods of gaining experience

Alternate methods

Below are some alternate methods to level Cooking without burning fish; however, it will most likely be slower than the method above. It is recommended to use the above method to attain level 50 Cooking before beginning. It is possible to get 1,960 Cooking xp with 1 inventory of trout.

Clan Citadel

If you are in a clan with a cooking plot (barbecue) a substantial amount of Cooking experience can be gained weekly.

Cooked sweetcorn

Not exactly a profitable method, but it's effective. Simply buy a lot of sweetcorn, and cook it for 104 Cooking experience per corn. This method, although not profitable, is very cheap. You can get 2912 experience per inventory, more if using a bonfire. As it only requires 28 cooking to cook, this is great experience for lower levels. At level 67 Cooking, sweetcorn can be combined with chopped tuna to create tuna and corn for 204 Cooking experience and gives over 400 gp in profit.

Chocolate cakes

This method is possibly profitable, although it does take some time. Simply buy lots of chocolate bars at 165 gp each and cakes at 381 gp each, and make the cakes into chocolate cakes which sell for 309 gp. This is rather time consuming, but can make a large profit depending on the price of cakes. You get 30 Cooking experience per cake and -237 gp per chocolate cake. At today's prices, this method is not profitable.

Gunnarsgrunn cooking

This method neither makes nor loses money, so it can be quite helpful for players without a lot of money. Since many players power-fish salmon and trout at Gunnarsgrunn, you can easily light a fire with the trees nearby and cook all the fish that they drop. After that, drop the cooked fish and pick up the new fish the players have dropped. Since the fish are cooked, alternating between dropping and eating is both more effective and uses less clicks than simply dropping. It can be more efficient if you can get one of the other players to directly trade you the fish. This method is helpful to both players, the fisher gets more experience per hour and the cooker gets a free way of gaining Cooking levels.

Wine

While this method makes you lose a lot of money (-37,240 coins per inventory), it is very fast experience around 700K+ XP/H. 14 grapes are used with 14 jugs of water to make 14 unfermented wines which, after 12 seconds, become jugs of wine granting 200 experience each, up to 2,800 experience if no jugs of bad wine are made. Wine is made very fast, and ferments in your bank. As wine only requires level 35 Cooking to make, it becomes very difficult to fail.

Curry

As an alternative to swordfish, at level 74 you might choose to cook curry as you will get much more experience, and will not burn any at that level. However this method is also much more expensive. Cooking 6626 uncooked curry is required to get you to level 84. Cooking curry gives the most experience in one step, making it faster than any other item that takes 4 ticks to cook, such as rocktail. However wine can be made 4 times faster and is therefore faster experience than curry.

Dairy churn

As normally unused as it is now, churning cheese wheels is one of the better ways of making cooking experience. Firstly it doesn't fail, you cannot burn cheese using a dairy churn, and therefore you constantly get 64 experience per bucket of milk. Second, each slice of cheese you make gives you an additional 4 experience. Finally, you can get milk from dairy cows scattered all over RuneScape. There are also milkmaids near milk cows from whom milk can be bought.

A good place to train with a churn is at the Sinclair Mansion, just north of Seers' Village/Camelot. All you need is 14 buckets, or whatever number you prefer. There's a dairy cow just a few steps south of the churn. Milk the cow, churn the milk, drop the churned product, and then repeat for fast churning exp.

Another good place to train is the farm south of Falador, by cabbage-porting with your explorer's ring 3 or 4, buying a full inventory of milk from the nearby milkmaid and churning it in the nearby churn. Bank, using an amulet of glory or a ring of kinship for example, then repeat.

Alternatively, with a POH in Yanille, you can take buckets of milk from the larder in your kitchen, half an inventory at a time. Then, go to the dairy churn in the food shop east of the POH portal. Once all milk has been churned, you may take the cheese to the bank even farther east to the bank, and repeat.

Tuna and corn

At level 67 Cooking, using cooked sweetcorn on a chopped tuna awards 204 experience. Using bank shortcuts, this can be a fairly quick source of experience. Because of its use in tuna potatoes and the low cost of materials, this method can often be profitable.

Completing quests

Main article: Quests/Experience rewards § Cooking

Some quests grant Cooking experience. Refer to the main article for more details.

Cost of levelling

Without cooking gauntlets

Fish	Start Level	Finishing Level	Number Of Fish Required	Cost per Raw Fish (coins)	Total Cost (coins)	Sell For (coins)	Profit/Loss (coins)
Trout	50	58	1,760	187	-391,578	41,880	-349,698
Salmon	58	63	1602	265	-1,237,285	149,408	-1,087,877
Tuna	63	74	7277	61	-261,263	149,905	-111,358
Lobster	74	86	20,846	154	-3,210,284	2,397,290	-812,994
Swordfish	86	92	20,854	259	-5,401,186	3,607,742	-1,793,444
Monkfish	92	99	43,448	537	-23,331,576	8,124,776	-15,206,800
		Total Fish	96,194	Total cost	-33,833,172	14,471,001	-19,362,171

With cooking gauntlets

Fish	Start Level	Finishing Level	Number Of Fish Required	Cost per Raw Fish (coins)	Total Cost (coins)	Sell For (coins)	Profit/Loss (coins)
Trout	50	58	1,760	187	-391,578	41,880	-349,698
Salmon	58	64	2,029	265	-1,051,785	127,008	-924,777
Lobster	64	80	13,159	154	-2,037,728	1,521,680	-516,048
Swordfish	80	87	14,188	259	-5,834,234	3,896,998	-1,937,236
Monkfish	87	94	26,483	537	-9,301,914	3,239,214	-6,062,700
Rocktail	94	99	22,622	1,861	-42,099,542	39,724,232	-2,375,310
		Total Fish	81,765	Total cost	-60,716,781	48,551,012	-12,165,769

Alternative method (cooking gauntlets)

Fish	Start Level	Finishing Level	Number Of Fish Required	Cost per Raw Fish (coins)	Total Cost (coins)	Sell For (coins)	Profit/Loss (coins)
Shark	90	99	36,610	971	-35,548,310	30,313,080	-5,235,230
Blue blubber jellyfish	95	99	18140	2,466	-44,733,240	42,139,220	-2,594,020

You can also cook Sharks as an alternative to Rocktails and Monkfish. At 90 Cooking, you will burn roughly 7% of your sharks, which still works out at a higher xp/h rate than monkfish and will probably be more profitable. If you're using a Master Flameproof Aura and cooking gauntlets, you no longer burn sharks at level 90 Cooking.

Notes

• Another option is to cook Cavefish, which would sometimes make more profit than sharks from 94-99.
• If you do not want to do Rocktails from 94-99, as they are fluctuating everyday and may cause loss, you can do Sharks from 94-99.
• Assuming no fish are burned and all fish are sold, the profit for:
  • The no cooking gauntlets method is -19,362,171 coins.
  • The cooking gauntlets method is -12,165,769 coins.
• A player with 80 Cooking and cooking gauntlets will burn fewer than 2% of swordfish on a fire; therefore, it can be to one's advantage to begin cooking swordfish at an earlier level.
• If one cooks using a range rather than a fire, and wears cooking gauntlets, the burn rate of monkfish at level 86 is less than 0.5%, so this may be a cheaper and more efficient method of levelling than swordfish.
• Baking pies with the Bake Pie spell in the Lunar spellbook makes for quick Cooking experience, but is very costly.

Tips

XP boosts

Assignable XP bonuses are usually better assigned to slower skills than cooking, however there are a number of boosts that are useful.

Clan avatar

Activating your weekly buff will boost Cooking XP by 3% (plus up to 6% with fealty bonus).

Sous chef's outfit

Wearing as much as you own of this outfit can boost Cooking XP by up to 6%.

Pulse cores

Using a pulse core or being caught in the blast of a pulse core can provide a 10% experience boost for 10 minutes.

Cooking urns

Cooking urns will significantly increase experience rates per hour, and indeed per fish by up to 20%.

If using Cooking urns together with bank presets, it may be a good idea to use an inventory preset with a new cooking urn (r) along with an activated cooking urn. This method sacrifices one inventory space for the convenience of not having to bank again for new urns, and guaranteeing the start of another urn right after one is being teleported away.

Dwarven army axe

Upon completion of the Troll Warzone, the dwarven army axe provides an extra 3 experience when it is equipped whilst cooking food, apart from cheese. This is great for lower levelled players.

Collecting raw fish

After finishing the quest Throne of Miscellania you can set up your kingdom to gather raw fish. If allocated and well funded, subjects will gather raw swordfish and raw tuna, and a good amount of raw fish available to be cooked can be collected – either every day, or after a few days. This is a free way to help towards levelling your Cooking skill.

The introduction of high level bosses, and Menaphos fishing means that players could alternatively stock on high level fish such as raw sharks and rocktails from bosses such as those in the Heart of Gielinor. Menaphos fishing is rather fast and close to a bank, supplying players with a good amount of raw catfish, beltfish and desert soles which go rather cheaply on the Grand Exchange.

Another great place to get fish is on the west bank of the River Lum next to Gunnarsgrunn, as there are usually several people power-fishing along the river's bank, dropping their trout and/or salmon. You can go to Gunnarsgrunn to cook the fish right in one of the shops. It's a great place to cook as there are very few players cooking there and lots of fishers.

Portable ranges

Portable ranges are similar to bonfires and provide maximum convenience for banking. They provide 21% additional Cooking experience when cooked on, have the same burn rates as a standard range, have a 5% chance of producing an additional food item (which is sent to the bank but does not provide any experience), and can be placed anywhere by the player, even right next to a bank.

Each range lasts 5 minutes once placed and can either be purchased from GE or obtained from Treasure Hunter.

You can usually find a portable range being hosted somewhere, usually at the Combat Academy (CA) in Lumbridge, north of the castle by the bank chest. This allows you to cook on the range without even moving from the spot in front of the bank chest.

Cooking cape

The cooking cape, when worn, prevents players from burning food. This is incredibly useful for high-level products like summer pies, which often have a high burn rate even with cooking gauntlets and 99 Cooking. This also allows the gloves to be swapped out for brawling gloves if cooking in the Wilderness.

Brawling gloves

Cooking brawling gloves can be obtained as a very rare drop from revenants, the Chaos Elemental and the rare drop table. When worn, they provide an additional 50% experience when cooking, but when used at or above level 47 Wilderness, they provide an additional 300% Cooking experience instead.

The gloves are best used either with the barbecue in a clan citadel or near the lever to the Mage Arena bank for maximum experience gain with minimum banking times. This can yield up to 800,000+ experience per hour when cooking sharks or rocktails. However, players will have a rather high burn rate without the cooking cape since players cannot use cooking gauntlets or Sous chef's mitts as a replacement.

Bonfire

Bonfires are a great way of training Cooking for both members and non-members. Cooking on a bonfire will earn a player 10% more experience. Additionally, compared to a range they can be placed and so are often closer to a bank.

Recommended places to cook

An excellent place to cook is on a hosted portable range, usually found at the Combat Academy. Players may use the "portables" friends chat to discover current locations of range portables. This allows you to gain 21% bonus experience, as well as extra food items 5% of the time, all without having to move from the spot right in front of the bank chest.

Below is a comprehensive list of commonly used locations to cook (any other location close to a bank can be used too). If you still wish to use a regular range, oven or similar, a list of some places more suited for cooking follows.

Popular bonfire/Portable range hosting locations

Location		Advantages	Disadvantages	Requirements
Al Kharid at Shantay Pass		Very close to a bank. Left-click bank chest. In world 100, there will be a lot of people cooking here, so a fire almost always lit.	Can be crowded in certain worlds producing lag.	N/A
Grand Exchange		Very close to a bank. There are almost always bonfires around to cook on. Pets are not allowed.		N/A
Lumbridge cellar		Very close to a bank. Left-click bank chest. In world 100, there will be a lot of people cooking here, so a fire almost always lit.	Can be crowded in certain worlds producing lag.	You will need to have completed the first part of Recipe for Disaster to use the Culinaromancer's chest as a bank.
Burthorpe		Very close to a bank. Left-click bank chest. In world 2, Burthorpe is the unofficial portable trainer deployment location. A portable range is almost always found here, 24/7. The 21% extra xp from this, plus other bonus xp equipment can make for easy 200k xp/hr and you never have to move even 1 spot. In world 48, there will be a lot of people cooking here, so a fire almost always lit (2600 total level required).	You probably need to bring your own logs and light your own fires. Less common area for bonfire participation.	N/A

Permanent bonfire locations

Location		Information	Additional information	Requirements
Prifddinas		Just next to the Prifddinas Lodestone and extremely close to a bank. The bonfire has a right-click 'Configure' option so that the player does not have to use food on the bonfire, rather they can just click on it with raw food in their inventory.	N/A	Plague's End completed
Menaphos		Located in the Worker's District of Menaphos just east of a bank. Players will gain reputation while training here.	Very popular training spot for Ironmen without access to Prifddinas.	The Jack of Spades completed Tier 6 Reputation with the Worker district

Pay-to-play range locations

Location		Information	Additional information	Requirements
The Rogues' Den		Located in the Rogues' Den, under The Pick and Lute pub, just east of the Taverley lodestone.	A fire is close to Emerald Benedict, the banker who is walking around the room. This fire is everlasting, so there is no need to worry about relighting it, saving time and inventory space. It is one of the most efficient training spots with at least 1,250+ cooked food per hour (with zero burned fish). It is recommended to use cooking gauntlets here, since a fire has a higher chance of burning food than a range. Players should lure Benedict by talking to him when he comes near by, improving the cooking rate as banking takes slightly less time.	N/A
Nardah		Quiet desert town with an oven next to the bank.	The bank and oven are found at the south end of the town, close together, so minimum running. Players can angle the camera to be in sight of both for easy banking.	N/A
Catherby		Just east of the Catherby bank, very close to each other.	This is a popular spot because it is close to the Catherby fishing spots. The food can be easily cooked before banking after being fished. The door can be annoying when it closes.
Cooks' Guild		A bank and a range are a few steps from each other.	A player must have earned Varrock armour 3 to use the bank located inside the Cooking Guild. In terms of distance from the range to the bank, this spot is the best place to train cooking on a range. Players without access to the bank and range on the ground floor can still use the ranges on the 1st2nd floor[UK] and use the west-Varrock bank or even use the south-west bank at the GE. Although this would be slower, you will still have quick access to the GE to buy or sell food.	The Varrock Armour 3.
Fishing Guild		Fish, cook, and bank.	Players can fish, cook, and bank all in one run. However, it is a somewhat long walk from the range to the bank. Therefore if the player is only looking to train cooking, do not use this spot.	Level 68 Fishing to enter the guild. 63 with admiral pie.
Lumbridge		Good place to cook if players have started the quest Recipe for Disaster.	The Culinaromancer's Chest in the cellar is a bank and a food store, that both can be used in conjunction with the range in the kitchen just above. This range has a lower burning rate than most other ranges, so it can be good to cook here if you still burn some food.	Must have started Recipe for Disaster (which requires the completion of Cook's Assistant).
The Tree Gnome Stronghold		Useful because players can make Gnome cocktails, Gnome foods, and various other dishes.	Hudo and Heckel Funch can supply plenty of cooking ingredients. There is easy access to a bank as well.	N/A
Zanaris		A quiet nice place to cook at, since there is a bank close.	Players can also cook pies in here easily since there is a wheat field and a windmill nearby. If players have started the quest Fairytale II - Cure a Queen and are able to use the fairy ring, they can travel to the Grand Exchange quickly to sell and buy supplies, using the code DKR.	Completed Lost City.
Neitiznot		Fremennik island of Neitiznot with a clay oven next to the bank.	You can easily cook at the clay oven and then left-click the bank, without moving the screen.	Requires the player to have started The Fremennik Isles quest.
TzHaar City		There is a oven just south-east of the TzHaar Fight Cave banker.	Using this spot can be useful when you own the TokKul-Zo ring. This ring can teleport you next to the banker and has unlimited charges.	N/A

Free-to-play range locations

Location		Information	Additional information
Lumbridge bank		A good way for beginning cookers to start the skill.	There are 4 log respawn points just outside the bank. Equip a Dwarven army axe when cooking to light the logs. Another option at Lumbridge would be to use the cooking range at the ground floor of the castle to reduce the chance of burning food.
Al Kharid bank		The best free-to-play spot to train cooking on a range.	A range is right by the bank, providing fast runs to and from the bank.
Draynor Village		This spot is good for cooking fish because of the fishing spot near the bank.	People usually train firemaking here because there is a lot of room for starting fires with no interruptions. You can possibly cook on the fires right outside the bank door. Alternatively, in Ned's house is also a fireplace to cook on.
Gunnarsgrunn fishing spots		Many players would rather give away or drop salmons and trouts, while doing power fly-fishing.	It's a good idea to bring a hatchet for cutting a tree nearby to start a fire, or instead cook fish on the endless fire near Peksa's Helmet Shop.
Karamja fishing spots		These are good places to train both cooking and fishing	In busy worlds there are usually plenty of fires made by other players. When done cooking an inventory players can go to the General store, sell all fish and start over. With the level 3 Explorer's ring, it is feasible to bank in Draynor, thus making a profit, although this is slower exp and players have to walk back to Karamja. Players may also use the deposit box close to the monks of Entrana (though the boat is for members only the box is available even in free worlds), making it faster to deposit their catches.