Best Desert Festival Chef Dishes In Stardew Valley

Summary

• The Chef in Stardew Valley’s Dessert Festival offers dishes with unique buffs, such as Shrimp Donut for fishing and mining buffs from Crystal Cake.
• Dishes can be stacked for even more benefits, like Spicy Tacos for defense and speed, and Superfood Cake for luck and mining.
• Rare fruit is a key ingredient for luck boosts, while other ingredients like pungent garlic and rich marinara provide attack and defense bonuses.

The Dessert Festival arrived with the 1.6 update of Stardew Valley and is filled with a host of activities and shopping experiences. One of the things that you can, and should, do is visit The Chef. He’s hoping to follow in the footsteps of Frankenstein’s experiment, just with food. You know, instead of, well anyway.

The Chef gives you a list of ingredients for you to choose from and makes a dish using those. The reason you should take your culinary chances is that each dish gives you different buffs. This list will break down the best dishes you can eat, and how to order them, like a video game secret menu.

Updated on December 27, 2024 by Marissa Fiore: Visiting The Chef is always a good idea before tackling the different activities there are at the Desert Festival. This list has been updated to include a few more options and how they can help you.

13

Mountain Chili

Cave Loaf And Rich Marinara

One of the biggest challenges at the Desert Festival is to head into Skull Cavern and start knocking out objectives for Marlon. And this is one of the food items that can help you. Mountain Chili focuses on giving you plus three mining stat and plus one to defense. This will allow you to break rocks quicker and increase your survivability.

While you ideally don’t want to take any damage, let’s be so for real right now, the Serpents can already be sprinting you down before the screen fully fades back in. So adding some extra defense while you race to the bottom can make the difference between staying conscious or, well, not.

You can only eat one of The Chef’s dishes a day. However, you can stack buffs with other meals and drinks in addition to what you order from them.

12

Cave Kebab

Cave Loaf And Pungent Garlic

Another form of defense is a good offense. And that’s what the Cave Kebab is going to do for you in the Skull Cavern. Downing this stinky treat will give you plus three to your mining skill and plus one to your attack stat, allowing you to slay your enemies in fewer hits.

You can then use that with your best weapon and take the Cavern by storm. If you pair this with some rings too, you could really give any of those monsters what for. Just keep your eye on your health while you do Leeroy.

No matter what dish you decide to eat, be sure to bring something with you to replenish your health. This can be food-based or you can bring a stack of Life Elixir
with you, which, thankfully, can be found in Skull Cavern too.

11

Hot Log

Cave Loaf And Uncomfortably Hot Sauce

Speed is one of the most important aspects of Stardew Valley. When you constantly find yourself racing the clock, especially in the Skull Cavern, having more speed can mean you that you squeeze in a few more floors. So yeah, the Hot Log gives you a plus one to your speed and a plus three bonus to your mining.

While you should ideally be bringing bombs with you into Skull Cavern, if you are relying on your pickaxe and a dream, eating this can help get you down floors quickly. Your biggest obstacle then is the monsters that call the Cavern home, so keep food on you and bring Coffee
!

If you are planning on eating one of The Chef’s dishes that buffs your speed, it’s a good idea to stack that bonus with foods and drinks that also give you speed. These include Spicy Eel
, Coffee and Triple Shot Espresso
.

10

Shrimp Donut

Shrimp And Cherry Syrup

It might only sound appealing to the most die-hard seafood fans, but the Shrimp Donut is what you should eat before attempting any of Willy’s challenges. After consuming this questionable, uh, sweet treat, you will have a plus three bonus to fishing and a plus one to your luck stat.

You can also take advantage of the festival by downing this donut and then fishing for the most challenging sea critter in the Desert, the Scorpion Carp
. The luck stat can also aid in finding treasure chests, so if you choose to eat the Shrimp Donut, make the most of your buffs and fish until they run out.

9

Crystal Cake

Cave Loaf And Cherry Syrup

Now this sounds like a sweet treat, especially for the Abigail lovers in the audience. This blue cake gives a plus one luck bonus as well, but a plus three bonus to mining, so this will be very helpful in the Skull Cavern challenges that Marlon has set up.

Especially if you are using your pickaxe to do the majority of the work, the mining proficiency you get from the buff means it will take less energy to break through the stones. And, of course, luck will help with loot and Staircase
, making it easier to walk away with some good stuff in your pockets by the end of the day.

8

Spicy Tacos

Hearty Beans And Uncomfortably Hot Sauce

Okay, just about anyone could go for some Spicy Tacos, even in the sweltering heat of the Desert. But these tacos give you more than a tasty way to fill up, so if you eat these, you will gain a plus three bonus to your defense plus one to your speed.

Many players go nearly broke buying coffee to speed up their walking; after all, you rack up the steps in Stardew Valley. Speed is incredibly helpful in the Skull Cavern, allowing you to move from floor to floor and run from enemies quickly.

7

Sweet Bean Cake

Hearty Beans And Cherry Syrup

Okay, syrup on beans? Maybe not the way to go in real life, but in Stardew Valley, it makes this delicious-looking cake that gives you buffs to both your defense and luck. The hearty beans give you the plus three for defense, while the cherry syrup gives you the plus one boost to luck.

Naturally, defense helps you withstand more strikes from enemies flying and walking around the Skull Cavern, while luck enables you to find some of the better chests on Treasure Room floors and staircases. It will take a lot to knock you out and stop you from progressing down those floors.

6

Nachos Of The Desert

Extremely Sharp Cheddar And Uncomfortably Hot Sauce

Well, you may be able to guess at this point that the uncomfortably hot sauce is the source of your speed; meanwhile, the extremely sharp cheddar gives you a plus-three bonus to attack. What’s better than withstanding more enemy attacks? Killing them before they can touch you.

Thanks to the ability to stack food effects and buffs, you can look at some of the other dishes that give you even more powerful attacks. You could make yourself a few Roots Platters to give you a total of plus six to your attack, really giving all of the monsters and run for their loot.

5

Elf Quesadilla

Extremely Sharp Cheddar And Cherry Syrup

There’s a theme here. Although all of the stat increases have their importance, luck is one of the best stats you can boost as it can turn an unlucky day into a neutral one, all the way to making a very lucky one the luckiest days of your farmer’s life.

And, with plus one to luck and three to attack, you will be able to defeat monsters quickly and gather up the loot that they drop, which should see you walking away with Battery Pack
, gems, and Prismatic Shard
for all the trouble.

4

Superfood Cake

Rare Fruit And Mushroom Creme

Wait, where’s the cherry syrup for the luck boost? That’s the neat part, you won’t need it in this dish thanks to the rare fruit. This ingredient gives you a huge plus three to your luck stat, and there are only two dishes in the whole game that give you that much of a luck increase or higher, Lucky Lunch
and Magic Rock Candy
.

Oh, yeah, and mushroom creme does something too, huh? That ingredient gives you a plus one to your mining ability. This will help slightly with energy as you break open rocks, but let’s be honest, you’re bringing bombs to the Skull Cavern, right? Right?!

3

Sour Salad

Rare Fruit And Rich Marinara

This rare fruit gives you that amazing plus three to luck, but the ingredient that’s new to the mix is the rich marinara. This yummy pasta sauce gives you a plus one to defense. Why? No one knows, but for some reason, a good tomato sauce can bolster your body’s natural defenses.

This will allow you to take some extra punches on your way down through the Skull Cavern, and thanks to the ability to stack dishes, you can pair this with some other defense-boosting entrees. Crab Cakes
are an excellent source of vitamin defense and can be dropped by Iridium Crabs.

2

Warrior Smoothie

Rare Fruit And Pungent Garlic

Get ready to see a lot of rare fruit. It’s not going away anytime soon. That’s because, and this can not be stated any clearer, the plus three bonus to luck is hands down the best buff you can get from any of the dishes the chef makes.

Then the rich, pungent Garlic
gives you a plus one to your attack; of course, that means you won’t clear enemies as quickly as you would with the Elf Quesadilla or Nachos of the Desert, but if you bring staircases with you, you won’t need to. However, having the slight boost to beat back the monsters certainly helps when a bunch of Serpents fly at you from all corners of the screen.

1

Rumpled Fruit Skin

Rare Fruit And Uncomfortably Hot Sauce

ConcernedApe is pretty good at puns and proves it with this dish. If you look at these ingredients and wonder why someone would want a plus one to speed and a plus three to luck, think about what most players eat and drink before going into the Skull Cavern.

Ginger Ale
and Spicy Eel are commonly used together thanks to both dishes giving you luck and the Spicy Eel giving you a speed boost. This means you can rush down the floors of the Skull Cavern at an incredible pace, so fast and lucky that no monster can really keep you down.