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A La Carte box art
1989 Ranked #2,463

A La Carte

Cooking dexterity game where rival chefs heat, season, and protect dishes in miniature pans. Dice-driven heat and awkward spice pours can ruin a recipe, so every flourish must improve your meal without spoiling it.

Family Games Action / Dexterity Action Points Set Collection Theme: Food / Cooking

Players

2-4

Play time

Not listed

Age

8+

Complexity

1.3/5

Rating

6.46

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.4/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 4.1/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.7/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.0/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.7/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

In one of his sillier games, Karl-Heinz Schmiel casts the players as semi-psychotic cooks attempting to hone their culinary skills. Each player receives a miniature pan and a hotplate.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

In one of his sillier games, Karl-Heinz Schmiel casts the players as semi-psychotic cooks attempting to hone their culinary skills. Each player receives a miniature pan and a hotplate. Then each turn you can either attempt to turn up the heat, season your dish, or attempt to steal another cook's recipe in the making. Heating your hotplate is a random affair with a die, and could raise the heat on everyone's plate. Spicing the dish is heart of the game and done by up-ending small bottles filled with little colored wood pellets. When the pellets tumble out of the bottle (sometimes, if they do), the number of pellets can't exceed two, because over-spicing the dish ruins it and you have to throw it in the trash! The 2009 version includes some changed rules, a new victory condition, additional recipes and some new mechanics in comparison to the 1989 version.

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Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
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Player resources

Rulebooks, player aids, FAQs, and solo resources.

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Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
2–4
Best with
2–4
Play time
30 min
Age
8+
Complexity
1.3/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
Karl-Heinz Schmiel

Artists

3
Jochen Eeuwyk Michael Präpasser Christof Tisch

Publishers

2
Heidelberger Spieleverlag Moskito Spiele

Linked items

No published linked games yet.