I purchased a copy of the Genshin Impact Official Cookbook from Kinokuniya for $39.99 (before tax).
Chef Thibaud Villanova presents 60 delicious recipes inspired by dishes from the world of Genshin Impact. This beautiful cookbook features a silver holographic finish on the cover.
Dive into the world of Genshin Impact with 60 delicious recipes inspired by dishes from the game! Created by chef Thibaud Villanova, author of Gastronogeek Anime and The Unofficial Ghibli Cookbook, this recipe book will take you on an epic culinary journey through recipes from the first four regions of Teyvat: Mondstadt, Liyue, Inazuma and Sumeru.
Recreate signature dishes from the game, accompanied by the Gourmet Supremos, the game’s iconic cooking quest givers.
With prefaces from Michelin star chefs Paul Pairet and Mory Sacko, this book invites you to explore, taste, and experience the adventure of Genshin Impact in an entirely new way.
Featuring new and accessible recipes for chefs of all abilities, let the magic of cooking transport you into the world of your favourite game!
As a Genshin Impact player who loves to cook, buying the official cookbook felt like a no-brainer. After flipping through it with Team Redbeanime, I decided to make Barbara’s Spicy Stew—not only because she’s one of Team Redbeanime’s favorite characters, but also because the dish genuinely looked delicious.
The ingredients for the spicy stew include:
- Diced veal
- Carrots
- Onions
- Celery
- Bouquet garni
- Dry white wine
- Clove
- Peppercorns
- Sea salt
- Organic tomato purée
- Heavy cream
- Paprika
- Salt
- Butter
- Flour
For full transparency, I made a few substitutions. I swapped veal for pork belly, dry white wine for apple cider vinegar, and whole peppercorns for ground black pepper. Buying wine and peppercorns for a single recipe didn’t make sense, and I simply prefer pork to veal.
Visually, the cookbook is stunning. The design earns an easy A, and the paper quality somehow manages an A+++. Unfortunately, the recipes themselves don’t live up to that same standard. The instructions feel vague and occasionally contradictory. In the spicy stew recipe, for example, I was told to make a topping using heavy cream and paprika—but then also instructed to add it directly into the stew as one of the final steps, and to use it as a topping afterward. The lack of clarity forced me to reread the recipe multiple times just to make sure I understood what it wanted me to do.
The process also required an excessive amount of cookware. To make this one dish, I used three pots, four bowls, two cutting boards, and two knives—and I’m fairly sure I’m forgetting something. I actually ran the dishwasher halfway through cooking because I ran out of sink space.
Some steps felt unnecessarily demanding as well. The recipe asked me to separate the vegetables, star-shaped carrots, and meat after cooking them together in the same pot. Frankly, that’s a tall order. Removing the vegetables and meat from the broth was tedious enough the first time—and I had to do it twice when the roux refused to blend smoothly.
After roughly five hours of cooking, the final result looked… underwhelming. The stew smelled pleasant, but it wasn’t visually appealing. Worse, it tasted like tomato and sadness. That said, the rest of Team Redbeanime enjoyed it—somehow—so your mileage may vary.
As an avid home cook, I rarely have a recipe flop this hard, which made the experience especially surprising. At a $40+ price point, I expected clearer, more precise instructions. It’s baffling that a professionally produced cookbook offers less guidance than many food influencer TikToks. Spending an unreasonable amount of time cutting star-shaped carrots only to end up disappointed certainly didn’t help.
I’ll continue testing recipes from this book to justify the cost, but based on this experience alone, I can’t recommend it in good conscience. Unless you’re a die-hard Genshin Impact fan who needs every piece of official merch, this cookbook may be better admired on a shelf than used in the kitchen.
