La Pâtisserie Rococo review

La Pâtisserie Rococo Preview

A grand festival is being held in the gardens of Versailles. Players represent various pastry shops that are looking to make an impression with their culinary creations. Hire the best staff, decorate your creations to stand out, and outdo your opponents in La Pâtisserie Rococo, a new game from the design team who brought you Rococo Deluxe.

Yes Chef!

Players begin with a standard staff that come in two different classes. Assistants are able to handle the menial tasks in the kitchen. They’ll gather flour, eggs, and butter which are going to be the base for almost everything you bake. They’ll also pick up other ingredients that can be used to create delicious pastries for the nobles. Pastry Chefs are going to handle the decoration of the dishes and hiring of staff for the kitchen.

La Pâtisserie Rococo - drafting bakers

Each round is going to start with drafting of two new staff members that will be added to your kitchen. Two trays are passed around the table with new chefs that are available for that round. I really enjoyed this double drafting mechanic with baking trays that hold the cards coming from both directions. Each round, the new staff picks will be better than the round before.

How you build out your staff matters because you need a variety of Assistants and Pastry Chefs, each one having an ability or perk tied to it that you’ll benefit from. You’re curating a staff that will be used each round, trying to find balance in their abilities and positions. Even if you have some regrets from the drafting phase, the remaining staff cards are placed on the board to hire during the round.

La Pâtisserie Rococo - hiring bakers

Top-notch Ingredients

In La Pâtisserie Rococo, players track basic ingredient levels, add recipes that can be baked, gather special ingredients, and make final preparations to their baked goods. After dishes are baked, Pastry Chefs can add decorations to them, increasing their appeal, overall value, and giving your kitchen an income bonus.

Once baked goods are ready, you’ve got to decide if they are going to be presented to the judges or sold to earn more money, resupplying your kitchen. This is the balancing act that La Pâtisserie Rococo presents. Players need to bring something special to the judges, but the money can be tight, leaving you with few resources to bake with.

La Pâtisserie Rococo - player board

Players spend most of the round in the “perform action” phase where there are nine actions that can be taken by their staff. I found myself often preparing for the next round of the game because I was always trying to do too many things. Taking on a simple recipe, baking, then selling it, will often give you the money you need to stock the kitchen to make something really impressive in the next round.

I really enjoyed how each action was broken down in the rulebook and easy to digest. La Pâtisserie Rococo is complex but digestible because of how each of the actions are defined.

La Pâtisserie Rococo - ingredients

Only the Best

On the central board, tables offer bonuses when they present their dish on specific locations. You also have to consider who’s controlling that table since players get additional points for having area majorities on the various tables. Ties are broken by the player who has the dish closest to the bonus icon at the end of the table.

La Pâtisserie Rococo - judges tables

The game has a tension to it as pastries begin to come from the different players kitchens. While your opponents are fulfilling recipes, you’re never quite sure where they will go. Once players start to drop their creations on the judges table, there’s a pressure to jump into the competition.

At the end of each round, players will collect income. This is based on the base income, bonus income from successful decorations, and income from any hosts that you’ve added to the yellow table on the central board. After four rounds of competition, the player with the most prestige is declared the winner.

La Pâtisserie Rococo - host table

Final Thoughts

La Pâtisserie Rococo was originally titled Cookie Champion back in early 2024. The visual design of the game at that time felt disconnected with the pedigree of what Eagle-Gryphon is known for. Thankfully, the team overhauled the visuals and tied it back to it’s Rococo era roots. The final product is a more refined and visually appealing experience.

While I’ve never played the original Rococo, I was immediately drawn into the baking competition theme. The games core mechanics are rooted in the highly-rated Rococo Deluxe, but this game is far more accessible for a more casual audience. This is still a heavy weight game, but with a play time of around 90-minutes, it’s a game that will hit the table more often than some of the heaviest games in the Eagle-Gryphon game catalog.

La Pâtisserie Rococo - decorations

This unique take on deck-building, the baking competition theme, and the polished mechanics all come together nicely. If any of this sounds like it would connect with your family or gaming group, you should absolutely check out La Pâtisserie Rococo when it releases on January 16, 2025 on Kickstarter.

Visit the La Pâtisserie Rococo Kickstarter campaign to learn more.

A prototype of the game was provided for this coverage. Components and rules covered in this preview are not finalized. Read more about our preview policies at One Board Family.

Ryan Gutowski

I'm a huge fan of strategy games and pretty much anything that involves "city building". My love of board games goes back to my childhood and passion for building relationships with others.

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