Guild Wars 2: Unlocking Ascended Cooking - Shopping List

In 41 minutes I'll be cook 500. So, in the meantime, I can write a post on what you need to unlock it yourself. I'm not gonna go into the details on how to level up to 500 the fastest or the cheapest, but this should help you get started and get an overview of what you need.

Divide And Conquer The Quest

Reaching a cooking level of 500 requires you to first reach level 425. After this Seimur - the cook who loves to add bloodstone dust to literally anything - will want to try your cooking at your home instance. This requires you to craft a specific item for him. This item will probably get you to level 435 or so. Next up, we have five quest lines for each race: Human, Norn, Charr, Asura, and Sylvari. For each of these, you need to craft three typical foods from each of those. After doing that you need to do stuff to improve your cooking. The human questline will have you improve your oven. This requires 3x Heat Stones and 5x Bloodstone Bricks. The Norn quest requires you to create cook utensils, which costs 5x Deldrimor Steel Ingots, 5x Dragonite Ingots and 1x Spiritwood Plank. The Charr one will unlock new meat drops to improve the quality of your meat by learning a new technique. This requires an event to be done and killing the corresponding enemies. For the Asura's, you will need to buy items that in total cost 15 gold. You will need to have done the Charr's before or buy the respective meat in the trading post. Lastly, through the Sylvari's, you will unlock the seed drops that are required to craft the ascended herbs. All you have to do here is gathering herbs until you get the varietal herb seeds, then craft a portable composter using 4x Spiritwood Plank and 1x Elonian Leather Square. Completing all these quest lines adds another 50 levels (10 levels for each) to your cook. With cooking 485 the last recipes, specifically the Bottle of Simple Syrup (1x Bag of Sugar and 1x Jug of Water), gives about one level per craft.

Summing The Materials Up

Here's the sum of what you will need:

• Craft at maximum 25 dishes which reward experience and you have the most materials off.
• Craft a Chef's Tasting Platter
• Craft a Bowl of Snow Truffle Soup
• Craft a Sesame-Roasted Dinner
• Craft a Sage-Stuffed Poultry
• Craft a Filet of Rosemary-Roasted Meat
• Craft a Bowl of Artichoke Soup
• Craft a Bowl of Poultry Tarragon Pasta
• Craft a Bowl of Spicy Meat Chili
• Craft a Plate of Lemongrass Poultry
• Craft a Plate of Fire Flank Steak
• Craft a Bowl of Roasted Lotus Root
• Craft a Flatbread
• Craft a Chocolate Omnomberry Cake
• Craft a Bowl of Tropical Mousse
• Craft a Bowl of Truffle Sautee
• Craft an Omnomberry Ghost
• 5x Deldrimor Steel Ingots
• 5x Dragonite Ingot
• 5x Spiritwood Plank
• 1x Elonian Leather Square
• 15 Gold
• Items that are worth 15 more levels

Splitting each dish down into its ingredients we get this list:

1x Artichoke 1x Asparagus Spear 8x Bags of Flour 1x Bag of Starch 6x Bags of Sugar 4x Bay Leaves 1x Bell Pepper 5x Black Peppercorns 1x Bottle of Rice Wine 3x Bottles of Soy Sauce 1x Bowl of Sour Cream 1x Butternut Squash 12x Carrots 10x Cassava Roots 2x Cayenne Peppers 2x Celery Stalks 1x Cheese Wedge 3x Chili Peppers 2x Chocolate Bars 1x Coconut 1x Cumin 4x Eggs

1x Eggplant 2x Ghost Peppers 3x Ginger Root 6x Glasses of Buttermilk 9x Heads of Garlic 3x Jars of Vegetable Oil 11x Jugs of Water 2x Lemongrass 1x Lime 1x Lotus Root 1x Mango 1x Milling Basin 5x Milling Stones 1x Mushroom 5x Omnomberries 18x Onions 1x Orange 2x Orrian Truffles 2x Packets of Baking Powder 11x Packets of Salt 2x Packets of Yeast

1x Passion Fruit 5x Pieces of Candy Corn 1x Portobello Mushroom 1x Potato 1x Rice Ball 4x Rosemary Sprigs 4x Sage Leaves 1x Sesame Seed 2x Shallots 8x Slabs of Poultry Meat 5x Slabs of Red Meat 4x Snow Truffles 10x Sticks of Butter 1x Tarragon Leaf 5x Thyme Leaves 4x Vanilla Bean 1x Yam 5x Deldrimor Steel Ingots 5x Dragonite Ingot 5x Spiritwood Plank 1x Elonian Leather Square 15 Gold

That concludes unlocking ascended cooking as well as reaching cooking 500.

Ascended Seeds

While I did mention that Bottle of Simple Syrup is a cheap way to get the last 15 levels. I would advise you to actually salvage foods you have crafted as well as lower-level food to get the Extracts of Nourishment. Use these to craft the Exquisite Extract of Nourishment. This can be used to craft the seeds for your home instance, which will also increase your crafting potentially.