Stingray Sashimi Cold Noodles
Stingray Meat - 3
Buckwheat - 3
Egg - 1
Level - 10
Coins - 1,591
Taste - 331
Servings - 9

Eggplant Soba Dyaki
Buckwheat - 2
Eggplant - 2
Carrot - 1
Miso - 1
Level - 10
Coins - 1,572
Taste - 236
Servings - 9

Spear Squid Soba Futomaki
Spear Squid - 3
Buckwheat - 2
Egg - 1
Carrot - 1
Level - 10
Coins - 1,572
Taste - 292
Servings - 9

Warm Atlantic Mackerel Soba
Atlantic Mackerel - 3
Buckwheat - 2
Seaweed - 1
Soy Sauce - 1
Level - 10
Coins - 1,572
Taste - 260
Servings - 9

In short I call it one of the best dishes as you can start the game, unlock it real fast, have enough ingredients caught in the wild to both serve and upgrade it. Then once it get's to level 6/7 you can start transitioning to building late game dishes, and you'll have enough money to get to the late game zones to do this.

There are 4 new dishes with the Yakuza DLC. I'll let you know when I got them maxed out.

Also to comment on the below comments. I feel "The best" is about practicality, which is why I would insist that Stellate Puffer Nicogori should be on the list.

As in a practical sense, you get it much much earlier than anything else. And you can start stockpiling all the ingredients for it day 1. Of course it sucks at level 10 against other level 10 dishes, but at level 6/7 in the early game, it will allow you to generate more than enough money to do all the missions every dive and have no trouble progressing due to lack of Idiver upgrades. If one of the main complaints I got when I made a guide for money in Dave The Diver was all the dishes I had were too late game to help players starting out, this is the answer to that critique.

The Best Dishes section to me, is written to be a very strong baseline of dishes and personal favorites to help guide you through the many, many fun recipes that become available as you progress. So, it may not always perfectly reflect specific metrics for profit. This guide is a just nice cheat sheet to have as you explore and become familiar with the cooking/diving process. I'm sure the guide and everyone else could benefit, if I considered adjusting some sections for min/maxers that just want the no nonsense top 10 for each game stage.

@50yoGamer I'm glad you've found this guide useful and I appreciate any and all discussions on it. Going right into it, single serve dishes are vital to the early game. You simply don't have the Cooksta rating to really benefit from higher serving dishes yet and will be blocked by ingredients or depth requirement as well. I don't feel my guide would be complete if I excluded the early game. Not only that, its in my quick tips section too, I feel single-ingredient dishes very clutch in creating a balanced menu that isn't just 1 dish type. Variety is king!

So the point I’m making is that if we are basing "the best" on profit vs. ingredient count, many of these recipes are difficult to max out. It takes far more grinding to fully upgrade Dried Stingray compared to Three-Colored Squid Roast. Not to mention how easy it is to farm Three-Colored Squid Roast and Dumbo Takoyaki simultaneously since they both come from the same area—Glacia Passage. Cuttlefish spawn in abundance and are extremely easy to farm.

Ingredient acquisition and sustainability should be key factors when determining the best dishes, not just raw numbers.

Anyway, great guide—I appreciate your time and effort!

Deep Fish Tempura and Roasted Capelin are solid choices, but with only 7 servings each, they don’t outperform the three above. Roasted Capelin has another issue—Black Coral grows slowly, making it better suited for Seasoned Waptia Fiendensis, which is essential for Shrimp and Cucumber parties. Because of this, Roasted Capelin isn’t ideal as an everyday menu item. Similarly, Cookie Cutter Sharks only spawn in one location and are not guaranteed to appear, while the Deep Fish ingredient pool is split across multiple maps.

Dried Stingray is also underwhelming. At first glance, it seems similar to Three-Colored Squid Roast—both serve 12 and only require Salt, with the rest of the ingredients sustainable from the fish farm. However, the problem with stingrays is their inconsistent spawn rates. Marbled Electric Ray Sushi is particularly rare, at least in my experience, making it an unreliable choice.

In comparison, if we are only considering the best recipes based on efficiency and profit—not playstyle—why would you ever choose sushi over other recipes? If "best" refers to the most efficient use of ingredients and profit generation, sushi simply doesn’t compare.

My best recipes: Crimson Fish Roll, Dumbo Takoyaki, Three-Colored Squid Roast.

These recipes make far better use of procured ingredients. For example, 1 Salt and 1 Mayonnaise can serve 9 to 12 customers, whereas sushi ingredients are used on a 1-to-1 basis. Additionally, all three dishes generate more money than any sushi dish listed as "the best."

This is an amazing guide, and it’s clear you put a lot of time and effort into creating it. I do have some constructive criticism regarding the best dishes. I don’t believe any sushi dish can be considered one of the best due to their single-serving nature, whereas other dishes provide 7–12 servings per batch of ingredients. Multi-ingredient sushi is even worse. The only exception is Skewered Cucumbers, as it is sustainable through the farm. There's little reason to farm Sea Toads for just a $50 profit.

While Special Fried Shrimp Sushi sells for $1,406, making it a $400+ profit over Skewered Cucumbers, the extra ingredients required don’t justify the gain. Using 1 Rice and 1 Olive Oil would be far more efficient in other dishes.

The Stellate Puffer Nicogori is not one of the best dishes in the game. Sushi dishes serve only one person per batch of ingredients, making them inefficient compared to multi-serving dishes. When factoring in ingredient procurement, it becomes even less economical. Earning only 666 per serving despite the required ingredients is not a good return, making it neither efficient nor cost-effective.

While it is a decent recipe when first unlocked, it is quickly outclassed by the recipe Tropical Fish Sushi Set, which becomes available a few days later and is significantly better.