How to Unlock & Level Culinarian in FFXIV

Final Fantasy XIV has an abundant variety of jobs for players to choose from, and they’re suited for all types of adventures in Eorzea from combat to crafting and gathering. The latter two especially go hand-in-hand, as gatherers are responsible for, well, gathering all the necessary resources that crafters need to make their desired items.

One such crafter is Culinarian, which is a job that you can start early on in the game and contributes greatly to the game as a whole, particularly for EXP and stat boosts. Granted, you may not know off-hand where exactly to started, but we’ve got your covered there. Here is how to unlock and level Culinarian in FFXIV.

Where to Unlock Culinarian in FFXIV

Like many other jobs in Final Fantasy XIV, Culinarian is first introduced and unlocked for the player by visiting their respective guild, in this case the Culinarian’s Guild. It can be found in Limsa Lominsa, specifically in the Upper Decks area at The Bismarck restaurant (X:9.7, Y:8.2). You can conveniently take a teleport from Limsa Lominsa’s Main Aetheryte straight there.

Speak to the Guild Receptionist named Charlys (seen above) to pick up the Level 1 quest called “Way of the Culinarian”. Completing this will give you your first cooking skillet, and kick off the job quest line for Culinarian, which will help level and guide you with learning how to cook all of the game’s various meal items.

Also, while you can get better skillets and knives off the Market Board, they can be overpriced due to seller inflation, and it can be rather inconvenient if you’re just starting out in the game, or are just low on gil in general. There is a nearby roegadyn vendor NPC at the Lower Decks in East Hawker’s Alley named Iron Thunder (X:8.1, Y:11.7) who sells both crafting and gathering gear all the way up to Level 49. The higher level ones don’t go for more than a few thousand gil a piece, so make sure you don’t overlook your local merchants, as they’re typically the better bargain for basic necessities.

Meanwhile, to the right of Iron Thunder you’ll see the Independent Jeweler named Sorcha (X:8.5, Y:11.5), who sells crafter/gatherer job accessories that go up to Level 27. Across from her is the Tradecraft Supplier named Engerrand (X:8.5, Y:11.7) who sells some basic cooking ingredients for cheap.

For well-priced Culinarian Tools (Skillets, Knives) in particular, you’ll need to run further down to West Hawker’s Alley and talk to another roegadyn vendor named Syneyhil (X:6.3, Y:12.0).

How to Level the Culinarian Job in FFXIV

Like other crafting jobs in the game (such as Leatherworker, Armorer, and Blacksmith), Culinarian has two primary, consistently reliable ways of gaining EXP, as well as some other miscellaneous methods that we’ll make note of as well.

Complete Your Crafting Logs

The first is literally picking up your skillet and cutting knife and getting some hands-on practice with the basics of crafting. On your hotbar, you’ll notice a couple of red boxes, which every crafter has by default. One is a quick access to your Inventory, while the other is your Crafting Log (seen above). Open it up, and you’ll see all items that you can make for every crafting job you’ve unlocked, based on your current level for those jobs.

The items themselves have their own levels, and are tiered for every 5 levels. So for example, as Level 1 Culinarian starting out, you’ll be able to craft at least all items leveled 1-5 at the beginning tier at the bottom. As you level up your Culinarian job, more tiers of crafting log items will unlock, and you’ll earn the most EXP for crafting the higher-leveled items in a given tier.

Make note that when crafting any of the items, you need to make sure you have the correct number of all required materials for it (seen on the right side of the Crafting Log menu), including elemental shards (e.g. – pink-colored Lightning shards seen above). They can either be Normal Quality (NQ) or High Quality (HQ) materials, and the latter will help boost your odds of crafting a HQ item, which in turn yields even more EXP.

Material themselves can either be gathered or bought via the Market Board. If you prefer the second option, try and stick to the cheapest materials you can get. The last thing you want while leveling is to go bankrupt in the process.

Also, you can make any number of the items in your log that you want, to make the EXP grind more efficient. If you want to cook 50 plates of a certain meal at a time, and have enough materials to do so, nothing is stopping you. Just keep in mind that as your level goes up, the EXP gains for lower level crafts can hinder your progress.

Completing Your Job Quests

The second is your Job Quests, which for crafting classes goes up to Level 70. Upon completion they give you substantial chunks of EXP, as well as some supplementary items to help you along the way such as gear, primary/secondary tools, new abilities, DoH (Disciple of Hand) food buffs, and extra gil.

It is possible that you can pitstop during your quest grind and awkwardly forget where you left off, or how many quests are left for you to do. One VERY handy reminder tool added to the game is the job quest notification at the top left of your screen (as seen above), right underneath the MSQ quest bar. It will tell you what your next/current quest for the job you’re currently equipped as is, and clicking on it will show the pickup location for it. Doesn’t get much better than that.

If you want a broader look at the entire quest line for Culinarian, here are all of them in order of Level, along with their NPCs, locations, and coordinates.

You can also sprinkle in some Tradecraft Levequests between these job quests, which you can pick up in various areas of every expansion up to Endwalker, depending on your Culinarians’s current level. They involve completing specific crafts, and upon turning them in you’ll get a good EXP boost, gil, and some materials.

Beyond the point of these quests, from Level 70 onward your next main source of EXP gain for your Culinarian comes from any or all of the following four methods:

• The Crystalline Mean – The Crystarium (X:10.7, Y:8.4) upper floor; teleport via the Main Aetheryte
  • Pick up the blue quest “The Crystalline Mean” from here to unlock all the quest lines available in the area.
  • Here you can pick up multiple quest lines specifically for crafting jobs that are similar to high-level ‘Role Quests’ picked up by combat jobs.
• The Diadem – Foundation – The Firmament (X:10.8, Y:14.0)
  • Speak to the Elezen NPC named Aurvael to enter The Diadem
  • Any crafter can be leveled in this special instanced area. They must be a minimum of Level 10 to enter.
• Studium Deliveries – Old Sharlayan (X:5.6, Y:8.4)
  • Very similar in concept to The Crystalline Mean
  • Must have a crafting job at Level 80 minimum to pick up these quests
  • Must first complete the following pre-requisite quests: “Sound the Bell, School’s In” (Level 82 MSQ), “Inscrutable Tastes” (Level 50; Foundation), and finally “The Faculty” (Level 80; Old Sharlayan).
• Beast Tribe Questlines
  • The following beast tribes utilize crafting jobs for their questlines:
    • Ixali – The North Shroud – Ehcatl (X:6.1, Y:23.6) – A Realm Reborn (X:24.0, Y:22.0)
    • Moogles – The Churning Mists – Bahrr Lehs (X:15.7, Y:28.8) – Heavensward expansion
    • Namazu – The Azim Steppe – Dhoro Illoh (X:6.3, Y:23.8) – Stormblood expansion
    • Dwarf – Lakeland – Watt’s Anvil (X:9.1, Y:13.2) – Shadowbringers expansion
    • Loporrits – Mare Lamentorum – Hoper’s Hold (X:17.4, Y:16.0) Endwalker expansion
• Grand Company Supply and Provisioning Missions
  • Visiting your Grand Company’s HQ and speak to the Personnel Officer
  • Supply Missions cater to every crafting class, can be completed daily, and provide copious EXP upon turn in.

That concludes our guide for how to unlock and level Culinarian in FFXIV. We hope you find this helpful, and let us know which crafter you’ve leveled and enjoyed the most so far.

Be sure to check out all of our other guides for Final Fantasy XIV, such as everything you should do daily and weekly in the game.