Team Chef

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The one member of the Five-Man Band who is most often shown cooking. May or may not be the only member who can cook, but is usually the absolute best cook in the team. May be, but not necessarily, a chef by profession. May be viewed as more important than The Hero or the Team Mom if separated from the team with either or both of those two, but this occurs only in more comical situations. Hilarity Ensues if this character is also a Lethal Chef.

May express friendship for his teammates in a non-romantic form of Through His Stomach.

Often overlaps with other character archetypes, with more humorous variations including the Big Guy and the Trickster.

Compare Supreme Chef.

Examples of Team Chef include:

Anime and Manga

• Chang/006 from Cyborg 009. The anime version is a professional chef. And he loves using his fire-breathing power in the kitchen. This was so important to the team that the 2001 anime dedicated a whole episode to him and his cooking's impact on the group.
• Brock from Pokémon. Even humans find his Pokémon fodder quite appetizing. Even without his flirtatious exploits, this is the reason Brock is on the team after Tracey got his Greyhound ticket. Ash, being the major battler, isn't as keen on cooking as Brock, Misty doesn't like dredging up thoughts of her irresponsible sisters (that, and the one notorious incident had her getting carried away), Dawn's skills as a Coordinator (failures aside) as well as her budget don't leave much room for culinary discipline (though to be fair she compresses it well), and the less said about May's cooking, the better.
  • There's also a really good reason he fell into the job so well, which he manages to put into amazingly tactful terms:

May: Your mom must be a really good cook just like you, huh Brock? Brock: You know, she's more of a "get out and see the world" type, and not into that domestic thing. I can't remember the last time I had any of her cooking. Max: So why do you think you turned out to be such a super good chef? Brock: Well... guess everybody's gotta eat.

• • And now Cilan of Best Wishes is picking up the slack after Brock's permanently Put on a Bus. It helps that he came from a Gym which doubled as a café.
• Diamond from Pokémon Special. He doesn't showcase his abilites very much and is more often seen eating, but he is very good at making high quality Poffins with difficult berry combinations. He also baked a pie to lift Platinum's spirits as he firmly believes that good food makes people happy. Earlier in the story he made tea and Old Gateau for her as well.
• Sanji is a gourmet chef as well as a very decent fighter, which is important considering the nature of many of his pirate crewmates. He fights using only his legs so that he can protect his "chef's hands". And Heaven help you if you either dislike his table service or leave your meal unfinished.
• Mao from Chuuka Ichiban is a variation. In a Cooking Duel show where almost every main character and antagonist is a master chef, he is far and away the best of the lot. He's also the one who most often solves problems with his cooking as his lack of the complicated ancestral techniques most of his opponents bring to the arena forces him to pick up a talent for improvisation. He does have a superhuman sense of taste and eidetic recall of ingredients on his side, however.
• Ranma ½: Kasumi Tendō is the lifeline for her (mostly) halfwit extended family. Of the others, one is a Lethal Chef, one is too busy making money and the others just eat a lot.
• Tenchi Muyo!! Sasami. Enough said.
• Love Hina: Shinobu is the resident chef at the Hinata Apartments despite being one of the youngest.
• Hidamari Sketch: Similarly, Hiro cooks for the residents of the Sunshine Apartments. It doesn't help her weight watching at all...
• Fruits Basket: Tohru's arrival saves Yuki, Kyo and Shigure from a lifetime of takeout (not to mention being swamped by dirty dishes).
• Hayate for the Wolkenritter in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which almost gave the rookies a heart attack when they saw their Commander reprise that role during their trip to earth in the first Sound Stage of StrikerS
• Makoto a.k.a. Jupiter in Sailor Moon, and she is actually good. She has to be, though, as her parents are dead and she lives alone. (How she supports herself is left unstated.)
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: Shinji isn't explicitly stated as the only main character who can cook, but Fan Fiction likes to imply that. Of course, the only kitchen we see is "Chez Katsuragi", and she's definitely a Cordon Bleugh Chef with shades of Lethal Chef.
• Akito is a secondary chef and a back-up mecha pilot in Martian Successor Nadesico but as he is the main character we see more of him than head chef Ms. How Mei, so he appears to be more the Team Chef than she does.
• Mahou Sensei Negima! has Konoka, Chizuru and Satsuki. Also, Nagi Springfield's old team the Ala Rubra had Eishun (Konoka's father, interestingly).
• Arata of Iono the Fanatics, who joined Iono's harem after she mistook the Sobame (Concubine) audition for a Sobaya (Soba chef) audition.
• Sai Saici, the Neo Chinese fighter from G Gundam.
• Kaoru's close friend Tae Sekihara, in Rurouni Kenshin. In fact, she has her own restaurant.
  • Same goes to her twin sister Sae.
• Goei, Hakufu's Hot Mom in Ikki Tousen.
• Kana from Kanamemo, replacing Yume—much to the delight of the rest of the team.
• Reeves from Kurogane Communication.
• Darker than Black: Hei. Badass superpowered Anti-Hero ninja assassin Of Doom. And, according to the Omake, really, really good cook.
• In Junjou Romantica, Misaki is frequently seen cooking and is probably the only character who can cook, with Usami and Shinobu's incompetence reaching Lethal Chef proportions. (His sister-in-law comments that she feels shy about serving him dinner, since he's a better cook than she is...)
• From Yotsunoha, Nono is the official Team Chef, making food to feed her friends including Yuzuki.
• Inuyasha: Kagome often cooks for her friends, and brought snacks from her own time. The only one not properly appreciative is Inu-Yasha, whose palate was ruined by over a century of having to live on whatever he could. Ramen and daikon radishes are all that he appreciates.
• Hakkai in Saiyuki
• Jet Black of Cowboy Bebop, Spike and Faye are too lazy to cook.
• Rey of Saint Beast loves to cook and always takes control of the kitchen.

Fanfiction

• Cheney in The Tainted Grimoire.

Films -- Animation

• "Cookie" Farnsworth from Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Not exactly a Lethal Chef, but his "cuisine" isn't the most attractive.
• Long John Silver from Disney's Treasure Planet, the movie being an adaptation of Treasure Island.
• For someone who possibly doesn't even need to eat, Genie in Aladdin summons a whole lot of food, including a roomful of baklava. He also manages to impress the Sultan with his cooking skills (not that it's hard to impress the sultan) and in the series once conjured a large sandwich on his head and said, "Hey Al! Lunch is on me!"
• Kung Fu Panda: Po cooks for the furious five and the rest of the dojo members. He's the main character, though...

Literature

• Long John Silver from any version of Treasure Island.
• Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings, being a rather homey type.
• Iggy from Maximum Ride, making the both the best food, and the best Explosives. Lethal Chef indeed.
• The Eighth Doctor in the Doctor Who Expanded Universe. One character notes that he has an "almost maternal urge" to feed people, and he occasionally acts like a bit of a Single-Issue Wonk on the topic of things like parsley sauce. Not only does he express affection by cooking for people, he also manages to be a Jerkass via cooking. However, one of his companions is at least capable of throwing together non-lethal meals.
• Bistèque of the French Kid Detective novels Les Six Compagnons filled this role in the titular team.
• In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when Harry, Ron and Hermione are starting to get on each other's nerves after roaming Britain for a while, Ron complains about Hermione's cooking and she demands to know why she's the one who always ends up doing to cooking anyway.
• Leo from The Heroes of Olympus is this thanks to his fire-powers which he can use to start a cooking fire and his Utility Belt that can break out ingredients when he needs them.
• Gong Su from Temeraire. He was originally a dragon chef hired on to cook for Temeraire, but crept into the role of cooking for Temeraire's human crewmen as well by virtue of being the only one on the crew who's any good at it.

Live-Action TV

• Most Starships in Star Trek have a replicator in the galley that produces cooked food, but Voyager, having to conserve energy, has Neelix as an actual chef. Unfortunately for the crew, he is also a Cordon Bleugh Chef (he's not bad per se, but as an alien his tastes are quite different from the mostly human crew).
• Enterprise has a chef, simply 'Chef', because replicators were still quite crude at the time. This chef is never shown but often referred to. This is made fun of in the final episode where a character assumes the role of the chef in a simulation of the Enterprise, allowing the chef to be "shown" but as the other character playing his role.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‍'‍s very own Captain Sisko cooks (but only when he feels like it), having been tasked to many duties at his father's restaurant as a boy. It is implied that his cooking is rather good (but one would suspect you basically have to be a friend or family to get a taste).
• Monica in Friends.
• James May on Top Gear, who seems to be the only one of the three with any interest in cooking.
• Andy Botwin on Weeds, who even gets hired as a caterer on a porn set.
• Johnny "Drama" Chase on Entourage, who buys a condo just for the kitchen, and who is more upset than E when E's french press coffeemaker gets broken.
• Eliot Spencer from Leverage is the Team Chef, combining it well with Lethal Chef, culminating in killing a man with an appetizer (maybe).
• Lily on How I Met Your Mother.
• Buffy Summers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer reveals her talents as a cook by making a surprisingly good Thanksgiving dinner.
• Corporal LeBeau in Hogan's Heroes is the resident chef, and either cooks as part of the current plans or just for dinner.
• Genta/ShinkenGold from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger is the one we see doing most of the cooking aside from Mako/ShinkenPink the resident Lethal Chef. The rest of the Shikengers are the most frequent customers at his sushi cart. He actually is pretty boring cook, as many say his sushi is bland but edible enough, he dreams of getting two Michelin stars; and his curry rice is excellent but he wants to be a sushi seller alone.
  • Don/GokaiGreen from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger goes a step beyond with this trope and actually keeps his teammates' dietary information on hand, so that he can suitably alter their portions based on their needs. When Gai/GokaiSilver is added to the crew, he joins Don in this role and even improves on the recipes he's written.
• Much from Robin Hood - not that anyone ever appreciated it.

Video Games

• Hai Yo from Suikoden II may not be the only character who can cook, but his is the only cooking that is significant in gameplay.
• Penelo in Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings. For some reason. Over the course of the game, her cooking improves to the point of actually being quite good.
• In Tales of Symphonia, three members of the total party excel at cooking: Genis, Regal, and Sheena. As he is introduced first Genis is treat as the Team Chef at the beginning of the game but Regal is the one who gets a small cooking themed side quest and a chefs outfit to go with it. The party also has one Lethal Chef, Genis' older sister Raine.
• Lowen in Fire Emblem 7, also the local Big Eater. And Oscar in FE 9.
• Jam Kuradoberi from Guilty Gear, who fights to fulfill her dream to be the best chef in the world.
• Elzam von Branstein from Super Robot Wars is this through virtue of being a Supreme Chef, though most on-screen instances occur when he's still cooking for the enemy team. When it comes time for him to don a Paper-Thin Disguise to compliment his official Heel Face Turn, he uses the moniker Ratsel Feinschmecker, which means "Mystery Gourmet" in German. It doesn't exactly help to hide his identity.
• Disgaea: Hanako from the second game and Mr. Champloo from the third.

Web Comics

• Girl Genius: Chef from Master Payne's Traveling Heterodyne Show. Most of his cooking is used in the humourous, ballistic context, but he proves to be adept at knocking together meals for consumption too.
• Though he does not often cook for his team, Belkar shows a master chef's prowess when called upon to do so.

Web Original

• In JLA Watchtower and the DC Nation spin off, there are several: Joan Garrick and Matilda "Ma" Hunkle (JSA), Tara "Green Shield" Strong (Outsiders), and Aurora "Fauna" Andersen for the Titans. Green Shield credits cooking with her fascination with chemistry. Fauna takes it on because she is more comfortable in a kitchen than in a cape.

Western Animation

• Bender from Futurama—another Lethal Chef (literally, if you have a second helping).
• Teen Titans: While all the main characters are shown cooking something at some point, Cyborg is the one shown cooking for the Teen Titians gang most often. Robin usually cooks for himself, no one else wants to eat Beast Boy's vegetarian food or Starfire's alien food, and the less said about Raven's cooking, the better.
• Monterrey Jack from Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. Mind you, whatever he cooks is bound to have cheese in it. The other Rangers don't let Dale cook, and Gadget's cooking apparently tastes like machine oil.
• In Alvin and The Chipmunks, Theodore and Eleanor are usually the ones seen cooking. Though we rarely get any indication that they're cooking food for anyone other than themselves.
• Junko in Storm Hawks is the one most often shown cooking, although Piper can cook too. Mostly because Junko is a Lethal Chef, which makes for more humour.