These are the five best cooking and food toys you need to set up a great play kitchen!

The first play kitchen set we purchased for our little girl was a toy food set. She was about a year and a half and her vocabulary was just really starting to take off at the time.

We had originally bought the set for Christmas, but couldn’t wait that long (it was October!), so I opened it up one day and showed her.

She was over-the-moon excited.

Her favorite piece was the tomato. She carried that thing around everywhere.

Elena spent hours doing all kinds of imaginative play: cooking, eating, grocery shopping, feeding her stuffed animals (or me!). We didn’t even have a play kitchen at the time because the food set was enough!

These 5 toys are good quality, fun, adorable, and durable kitchen and food sets that will grow with your toddler.

Check out our Timeless Toy Buying Guide to find out how to pick toys that your toddler will play with for years to come.

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5 Play Kitchen and Food Toy Sets for Imaginative and Open-Ended Play

 1. Melissa & Doug Food Groups Toy Food Set

This is a perfect starter set for those looking to build a play kitchen.

We got this for our daughter when she was about 18 months old. One year later, and it’s still going strong!

I find that whole food toys are perfect for introducing kitchen imaginative play to toddlers.

What I love about the Melissa & Doug toy food set is that

• is solid wood,
• has good paint detail (realistic, yet cute),
• is the perfect size for little hands, and
• it won’t lose their shape like cheap plastic sets do.

I like this best over some of the other M&D food sets because it offers the most variety and the most opportunities to engage with and teach your child through play.

Not only can you teach your child the names of the foods, you can teach colors, food groups, where food comes from, food combination names (sandwich, hamburger, etc.), and meal times.

What’s In This Set

The set includes:

This is a fantastic, durable starter set for a play kitchen at a great price.

2. iPlay, iLearn Cutting & Cooking Toy Food Set

I just love the brilliant colors, true-to-life detail, and the unique foods in this set.

The main difference between this and the Melissa & Doug set is that you can cut these apart! The food pieces are held together by magnets, which are a vast improvement over the Velcro-type cutting toy foods in that they are both strong and silent.

The option to cut adds another layer of realism to pretend cooking, which is what makes this a long-lasting and timeless toy.

You and your toddler can test out new recipes and create colorful meals together. There is a good distribution of food group types, both healthy and fun (the little head on a stick is ice cream), which provides good opportunities for teaching about a balanced meal.

Little ones will love cutting their foods alongside grownups in the kitchen. This is a great way for them to practice fine motor skills and also work on matching and problem solving as they will have to put the pieces back together correctly to recreate the whole food.

As your toddler grows, you can use these pieces to teach counting and even fractions! Eek!

Complete your play kitchen set with this matching wooden cooking and serving set also from iPlay, iLearn.

What’s in This Set

The product page includes sizes of each piece, so you can decide if it is appropriate for your little one.

Set includes:

3. Melissa & Doug Stainless Steel Pots and Pans

No play kitchen is complete without tot-sized pots and pans. These stainless steel ones are made to last and can hold up nicely to some banging on the floor (though the same can’t be said about the floor!)

What’s in This Set

You get a colander, two long-handled pots, a soup pot, one interchangeable lid, a nice little storage rack (not pictured for some reason), and a couple of wood utensils.

4. Plan Toys Tea Set

Take a tea (or coffee!) break with this dainty, natural rubber wood tea set. I cannot get over how cute the little wooden tea bags and stirring spoons are! There’s also a couple little sugar cubes (again, not pictured, ugh!) that are presumably hiding in the sugar bowl.

You should know that the teapot is hollow, but the spout is not, so don’t expect to be pouring real tea out of it. Probably not a good idea to give toddlers real tea anyway 🙂

I like the natural wood design for both boys and girls to play together. This set has a classic, timeless feel to it, so it could be passed down from generation to generation!

What’s in This Set

• 2 tea cups and saucers
• 1 tea pot with lid
• 1 sugar bowl with lid and 2 tiny sugar cubes
• 2 wooden tea bags
• 2 stirring spoons
• 1 cream pitcher

5. Brew and Serve Coffee Maker Set

More of a coffee drinker? Check out this adorable coffee maker set HERE.

I love that this set comes with an order form. Laminate it and add a dry erase marker, and you have an instant pretend coffee shop.

6. Grill N’Fill BBQ Playset

This grilling play set includes veggies, meat, and skewers so kids can grill up their own kabobs, right on the barbecue.

All the pieces can be stored away in the included box which doubles as the barbecue. I’m always so excited when toys come with their own storage solutions, and that’s exactly why this BBQ set is on my list of kitchen and food toys!

7. Hape My Creative Cookery Club Kid’s Wooden Play Kitchen

If you want an all-in-one, quality, sustainable wood play kitchen set for under $100, this is the one for you. It’s a compact, solid wood kitchenette with sink, stove, oven, cabinet, and utensil rack. PLUS it includes utensils, pots and pans, dishes, and a few foods. Oh, and salt and pepper shakers. Don’t forget the salt and pepper shakers.

It drives me crazy when things don’t match, and with an all-in-one set like this, everything definitely matches! Hape is a terrific German brand that ethically produces wooden toys. We have other things made by them that we love, so you can’t go wrong with this kitchen set: it’s refreshingly simple, and you can get a matching pop up toaster and coffee maker!

What’s in This Set

The kitchenette features a sink, hanging utensil rack, stovetop with knobs, oven with oven rack, a cabinet with one shelf that you could use as a “mini fridge.”

Another Play Kitchen Option

Now, if you are really looking for a kitchen set to impress, this Melissa & Doug Wooden Chef’s Kitchen is the one you want.

You get a stove, microwave with spinning plate, oven, sink, fridge, freezer, lots of shelf space, and working ice dispenser! The detail on this kitchen is magnificent, down to the trendy herringbone backsplash.

It is pricey, but if you have a budding chef on your hands and are looking for a very realistic option, the Melissa & Doug kitchen is a solid choice.

Are you having trouble deciding which toy to get? Read this guide on buying toys for every age to help you figure out which will provide the most value for your family.

For more gift ideas, try our guide to dolls and stuffed animals, puzzles and other problem-solving toys, musical toys and instruments, or best building toys.

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