Nivalis Nights Recipes & Menu Guide: Unlocks, Prices, Rot

By Mirela Constantin · Updated October 4, 2026

You start knowing one dish, chicken noodle soup. Banor, your inherited cook, makes the point on day one: “if we’re gonna survive, we need recipes and we need them now.”

Ways to learn recipes

1. Talk to people. Vendors (greengrocers, bakers) and other restaurant owners can give you recipes. Some refuse at first. Nola Berg tells you to warm people up with a bit of banter before asking; asking straight out marks you as a rookie.
2. Eat at other restaurants. Sit down like any customer and wait to be served. The tutorial says this can teach a dish. Players disagree on how often it works: one learned insect pizza this way, another ate at many places for 50 days without a single recipe.
3. Collectable menu cards. Bright papers on crates and benches. See collectibles.
4. Quests. Several reward recipes.
5. Venue levels. Levelling a venue unlocks dishes. Ramen Noir at level 2 unlocked accordion potatoes in one playthrough.

How the menu screen works

• Price. Each item has a price slider. Higher venue levels raise the price multiplier (level 2 gives 1.2×).
• Menu size. Higher levels allow more items (level 2 allows five).
• District tags. The statistics on the venue monitor show what the district likes. Meridian Market: noodles, mushroom, meat. Central Canyon: very spicy, dessert, noodles (from one player’s second venue).
• Exclusivity. How special your menu is. Each district wants a minimum average; Meridian Market wants 2 out of 5. Above that, higher exclusivity lifts reviews and what customers will pay.
• Customer types. The statistics break down who eats there. The noodle bar crowd is about half workers, who like beer. Central Canyon skews to elite customers.

Custom recipes

The cog icon on a recipe opens customisation. You can swap ingredients and change cooking methods:

• Grilling adds about 20% exclusivity.
• Pan-frying on the stove adds about 10% heat and 10% exclusivity, and a pan is less than half the price of a grill and takes no counter space.
• Swapping in a different fish or meat changes exclusivity too.

Use it to make dishes share ingredients. One player swapped the beef in a cheeseburger for the pork belly already used in tonkotsu ramen, and the cheese for the blue cheese in another dish, cutting two ingredients from the shopping list. A changed recipe changes at every venue.

Equipment

Each dish needs certain machines: a cooker, a food processor, a blender, a grill, a drinks machine. If you cannot afford a machine, do not add dishes that need it yet. Two cooks need two of each machine they share. Players found the cheapest kitchen equipment on the second floor of the Hive Mall early on, and an appliance vendor later that needs Trading level 8 and starts at a 20% discount.

“What do kitchen ranges do?” Ranges (cookers) are the stoves your cooks use for boiled and pan-cooked steps. Pans sit on them.

Storage and spoilage

• Ingredients go in cabinets (dry) or fridges and freezers (chilled). Most venues have some storage; buy more cabinets, shelves, fridges and freezers to expand it.
• Spoilage is fast. Chicken and fish last a day or two. Fish spoils just as fast in a fridge.
• Since Update #2 (October 2), cooks use older ingredients first. That cuts rotten food, but reviews can mark meals down for freshness. Before the patch they took fresh stock first and ageing stock rotted.
• Decorative furniture that has a storage value now counts toward venue storage (Update #2). The Kitchen Buffet holds 100 normal and 50 refrigerated slots.
• Spoiled ingredients may spread rot to others, according to one guide.

What to do with rotten food

Put it in a composter (sold by a vendor inside the Docks seed shop), or sell it to a vendor for 0 lims. Either way, clear it out. A fridge full of rotten food is a common reason a venue stops serving or a manager stops restocking.

Storage that pays for itself

From a Chinese-language guide: the industrial refrigerated cabinet from the furniture vendor at the Hive Mall gives 100 chilled slots for a little over 400 lims; the advanced freezer from the Hive Mall appliance vendor gives 200 slots for slightly less but takes twice the floor space. In a small kitchen the first is the better buy.

Rush hour menus

Some players change the menu around rush hours: quick, high-volume dishes for lunch, high-margin dishes for dinner. It is optional, but the menu can be edited from the J journal without walking to the venue.