You could be eating better in Monster Hunter World.
We know how you feel. Every time you stroll up to the canteen and you’re like… Damn, Chef’s Choice. You are lookin’ good. 50 health and 50 stamina? With some random effects and a bit of a Palico boost? I’ll take TWO.
It’s easy, and it seems like consistently the best meal. But in the Monster Hunter World canteen, Chef’s Choice is the culinary equivalent of driving automatic. You could be taking more control over your meal buffs — here’s how to put the “can” in canteen.
How the Canteen Works in Monster Hunter World
You get three different kinds of benefit from the canteen in Monster Hunter World:
- Meal Effects
- Ingredient Effects
- Food Skills
Pretty ambiguous, huh?
The first two are quite straightforward, dealing with health/stamina buffs and attack/defense buffs, respectively. It’s that last canteen buff that needs the most explaining. The canteen’s Food Skills take a bit more planning, but really come into their own when used with a specific plan.
The Canteen — Meal Effects
These are what you’re probably looking at when your eyes start watering over the Chef’s Choice Platter. That’s what gives you the extra health and stamina, as well as boosting Palico health.
It’s a huge bonus, and you should always make sure you have your health and stamina boosted to that level — but remember that you can do all of that with consumables as well. If you’ve got a healthy, consistent flow of Max Potions and Mega Nutrients from your regular harvests between missions, you’ll have a fallback plan as well as canteen buffs.
The Canteen — Ingredient Effects
These are the bonuses you get from what type of ingredients you include in the meal. These are things like Attack Up and Defence Up. The basic rule here is:
- Meat increases your attack
- Fish increases your defence
- Vegetables increase your elemental resistances
In Monster Hunter World‘s canteen, it takes two of a kind to raise your bonus. Two meats will get you Attack Up (S), another two will get you Attack Up (M), and a final two will give you the coveted Attack Up (L). It doesn’t matter what kind of meat. For Ingredient Effects, it also doesn’t matter if it’s fresh.
The Canteen — Food Skills
These are trickier, and a lot more specific. You’ll see these at the bottom of the in-game window. These canteen skills here depend on the specific ingredients you’ve selected (as well as there being some random daily skills available), and there’s a chance to activate them depending on how many fresh ingredients you’re using. A full plate of fresh ingredients is a 100% chance to land your Food Skills.
What’s important to know here is that each ingredient belongs to a category. Those are Courage, Resilience, Vigor, Acumen, Artillery, Perception, and Fortune. You’ll get a different bonus if you include two, four, or six of each type. Going for a more expensive Food Skill does NOT automatically include the cheaper ones.
This means more is not always better. If you’re targetting a specific Food Skill, you may just want to toss two of a particular ingredient into the canteen. We’ll include a table at the bottom of this post with all of the effects.
Fresh Prawns of Bel Air
Going for the Chef’s Choice Platter lets the canteen randomise your bonuses. Not only can the Meowscular Chef waste your fresh ingredients, sometimes these Food Skills are actually detrimental. In the case of the daily skill Felyne Provoker, which “increases the likelihood of being targeted,” you might be worse off.
These daily skills will randomly populate your Food Skills window, but using more custom ingredients will replace those in the order of middle, then top, then bottom.
If you want to ensure that you activate Food Skills, you can always use a voucher from the arena which will guarantee it. You won’t even need fresh ingredients.
Don’t forget to save the meals that help out your particular build in your canteen’s Favourite Platters.
Beer in Monster Hunter World
Before we get into the nitty gritty of what each ingredient does, let’s talk about beer.
There are some special buffs you can only get from a good pale ale, although Monster Hunter World does warn you to not drink too much of it.
The Fat Felyne skill increases the amount of zeni you get from each quest, though we’ve not once experienced a lack of zeni. But it’s there if you need it.
Once you unlock all of the beers, you’ll also have access to a skill that increases your quest rewards called Lucky Cat. Very handy if you’re grinding out a few investigations to target specific rewards.
Similarly, there’s a Felyne Carver skill that increases the number of times you can carve after slaying a monster. It should go without saying, but don’t target this skill if you’re trapping.
Beer does not, however, give you any Ingredient Effects. If you’re feeling capable, beer is a canteen-based risk/reward buff to consider.
Ingredients for Food Skills
Here we’ll list the specific effects for each type of ingredient you can use in the Monster Hunter World canteen, for reference.
| Type | Skill Name | Quantity | Buff Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Courage | Felyne Polisher | 2x | Often Speeds up Sharpening Time. |
| Felyne Rider | 4x | Makes it easier to mount monster. | |
| Felyne Slugger | 6x | Makes it easier to stun monsters. | |
| Resillience | Felyne Acrobat | 2x | Allows the hunter to recover quickly when sent flying. |
| Felyne Feet | 4x | Prevents you from getting knocked on your butt. | |
| Felyne Moxie | 6x | Prevents fainting one time when damage taken exceeds your remaining health. | |
| Vigor | Felyne Riser (Hi) | 2x | Greatly extends the invulnerability period when getting up. |
| Felyne Black Belt | 4x | Reduces stamina depletion when evading, blocking, or doing certain other actions. | |
| Felyne Heroics | 6x | Grealty increases attack when health is dangerously low. | |
| Acumen | Felyne Groomer | 2x | Halves the effect duration of Defense Down and speeds up blight recovery. |
| Felyne Medic | 4x | Increases health recovery from items. | |
| Felyne Specialist | 6x | Increases the potency of abnormal status attacks. | |
| Artillery | Felyne Sharpshooter | 2x | Increases the power of normal shots (Normal S) and normal arrows. |
| Felyne Bombardier | 4x | Increases ballista, sticky ammo, and gunlance shell damage. | |
| Felyne Pyro | 6x | Upgrades Large Barrel Bombs to Mega Barrel Bombs. | |
| Perception | Felyne Iron Carver | 2x | Prevents knockbacks while carving. |
| Felyne Exchanger | 4x | Increases the number of research points you receive at the end of a quest. | |
| Felyne Carver (Hi) | 6x | Often increases the number of times you can carve | |
| Fortune | Felyne Harvester | 2x | Reduces the time between gathering point respawns. |
| Felyne Fat Cat | 4x | Increases the amount of zenny you receive at the end of a quest. | |
| Lucky Cat | 6x | Sometimes increases the number of reward items received at the end of a quest. |
