Learn how to play Menu Masters in less than 5 minutes

Learn the board game Menu Masters in less than 5 minutes with our quick summary of the rules.

What is the goal?

  • the game is based on a cooking/restaurant theme where players compete to collect ingredients and use them to complete menus and earn stars
  • Across a series of rounds, players compete by deciding which round to:
    • purchase and collect ingredients from stores
    • earn money by owning stores
    • take money from the bank
    • use the required ingredients to complete menus and earn stars
  • The game ends when any player completes 3 menus and the winner (Menu Master) is the one with the most stars

Game setup

Board Setup – Setting up the stores

Set up the stores by:

  • Placing store boards in middle of the table in following order:
    • Produce Stand, Butcher Shop and Bakery
  • Each store has its own cards. Shuffle and place the card decks on their stores.
  • Draw 3 Cards from top of each deck and place in the store window on the store board

If playing 4+ players:

  • add Supermarket Store board to the right of bakery
  • draw the top card from the deck of Produce Stand, Butcher Shop and Bakery
  • place cards in store windows of Supermarket store board
Menu Masters Store boards

Player Setup – Preparing the Chef board

Each player will select:

  • a chef board
  • 4 Chef cap pawns matching the colour of the board
  • 6 coins

Menu Cards will be shuffled and each player gets 2 menu cards.

Menu Masters completed setup

Shared/Community items (placed in the middle)

  • 2 coins per player are used for the BANK and placed near the middle
  • 3 menu cards are drawn from the deck and placed in the middle

Remaining menu cards placed on top of store boards

Gameplay

Youngest player starts first or the one who most recently went to the supermarket.

Starting player takes the first chef token.

Series of rounds are played consisting of the main steps below:

Step 1 Placing chef caps

  • Starting player places his 1st chef cap, continuing clockwise
  • Players place Chef caps one at a time

When placing chef caps, you have 3 options

  • Buy an ingredient from a store
    • Place chef cap in store\’s centre window
    • If there is a cap there, queue up by placing your cap underneath
    • There is no  limit to the number of caps you can place in the line
  • Own a store (earn coins from your selected store)
    • Place chef cap on the store deck
    • You can own more than one store but you can\’t buy ingredients from the store that you own
    • Only owner per store
    • Store owners will earn the coins spent in that store for that round, which they can spend in future rounds
  • Collect a coin from the bank
    • Place coin from the bank under the chef cap
    • Only can be done once per round
    • The coin can only be used in future rounds
    • If no more coins in the bank, this option is no longer available

Step 2 Purchase Ingredients

In this step, players purchase ingredients from stores they have chef caps on.

Purchase ingredients are resolved store by store in the following order:

  1. Produce Stand
  2. Butcher Shop
  3. Bakery
  4. Supermarket

First come first serve

  • The player with the chef cap on top of the stack gets to choose and purchase an ingredient first
  • Only one ingredient per chef cap

The more chef caps in the stack, the higher the price

  • Cost of the ingredient is based on the number of chef caps (irregardless if it\’s owned by you) in the stack at the time of purchase
  • Coins spent are placed on store deck
  • Chef cap is removed (lowering cost of other ingredients at the store)
  • the ingredient is placed in your basket (bottom side of your chef board)

Out of stock

  • if all 3 ingredients at the store have been purchased, remaining players with chef caps in the queue do not get to buy any ingredients from that store

Full Basket

  • Maximum of 6 ingredients at one time for each player. If you have excess ingredients during the round, complete a menu or discard an ingredient

Players can choose to discard chef caps from a store and choose not to purchase

Completing Menu Step

Players can complete 1 or more Menu cards on their turn.

  • All the ingredients on the menu are needed
  • You may complete the menus on your chef board or the menus that are shared across all players

Power Food / Wild Card ingredients

  • 2 of the same ingredient can be combined to create a power food
  • Power food can be used to represent any item from the same store

On completing a menu:

  • announce its completion to all
  • show players the menu card and ingredients used to complete
  • place completed menu card on top of ingredients used next to Today\’s Special section of Chef Board
  • menus on your chef board are not replaced, shared menus are replaced by drawing a new menu card

How do you win?

When a player completes 3 Menu cards,

  • all players complete current round and tally scores
  • scores are tallied by adding the number of stars on ingredients used to complete each menu
  • for Power Food ingredients, only include the highest star value of the 2 cards in your score

The player with highest stars wins. In a tie, the player with the highest number of coins wins.

Video Walkthrough

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