Dave the Diver Bancho Grill Recipes: All Dishes Listed

Dave the Diver Bancho Grill recipes look like Bancho Sushi's menu with a new coat of paint until you actually open it for service and nobody walks in. That's not a bug. MINTROCKET director Jaeho Hwang confirmed in an interview with Automaton West that the jungle DLC's restaurant was built around a deliberate inversion: no regular customers exist. Every diner is a villager, and if Dave doesn't go recruit them, the grill sits empty.

This guide covers every recipe confirmed across community trackers, what ingredients and unlock methods each one needs, and the specific ways the service loop differs from Bancho Sushi.

TL;DR: Bancho Grill starts with three free recipes (Papaya Salad, Coconut, Mango Shake) and unlocks 40+ Grilled Fish dishes automatically as you catch new species. Deeper recipes require Artisan's Flame, a separate currency from Doni spent purely on research. The core mechanical shift from Bancho Sushi: free isometric movement instead of a single service lane, a skewer timing mini-game, and villagers-only customers that Dave has to actively recruit.

What is Bancho Grill? (quick answer)

Bancho Grill is the jungle DLC's restaurant mechanic, built on the same service-loop foundation as Bancho Sushi but redesigned around villager customers instead of walk-in traffic. You cook skewers with a timing-based mini-game, research new dishes with a separate currency called Artisan's Flame, and staff the kitchen with recruitable NPCs tied to story and side content.

Key takeaways

• Three free recipes at the start: Papaya Salad, Coconut, Mango Shake
• 40+ Grilled Fish dishes auto-unlock the first time you catch each species
• Artisan's Flame is a separate currency from Doni, spent only on recipe research
• No regular customers by design; every diner is a villager Dave has to recruit
• At least 9 confirmed staff members across story and side-mission unlocks
• One recipe (Walking Catfish Tom Yum) has a documentation conflict on its unlock condition; flagged below rather than guessed at

Free recipes: what you start with

Three dishes need no unlock at all: Papaya Salad, Coconut, and Mango Shake. These exist to keep the grill functional from minute one, before you've caught a single jungle fish or spent any Artisan's Flame. They're also your fallback when a service rush outpaces your ingredient stock for anything more specific.

Grilled Fish: the automatic unlock system

This is the recipe category that does most of the menu's heavy lifting. Nearly every catchable jungle fish species unlocks its own Grilled version automatically the first time you land it; no separate research cost, no villager rank requirement. Confirmed named examples include Grilled Kissing Gourami, Grilled Black Piranha, and Grilled Electric Eel, with broader species groups (tilapia, gourami, discus, piranha, eel, caiman, salmon, perch, bass, catfish) all following the same pattern, plus prehistoric species like Orthoceras and Ammonite once you reach the Lakebed Sea zone.

The practical effect: your menu grows just by fishing normally. You don't need to farm ingredients separately for the Grilled tier the way you do for the research recipes below.

Bancho Grill operates out of Utara Village, and the villagers wandering here are the same pool of NPCs the restaurant's customer and staffing systems draw from.

GODEEPER: For the full species list this system draws from, including which zone each fish lives in, the jungle fish guide breaks it down by location. Dave the Diver Jungle DLC: All Fish Guide by Zone →

Ingredient-based recipes: what you collect

A step above the automatic Grilled tier, these two dishes need specific ingredients gathered in advance rather than just catching one fish:

• Steamed Tilapia with Calamansi: Tilapia, Lemongrass, Calamansi
• Steamed Tricolor Discus: three each of Red, Brown, and Blue Discus, plus Coconut Milk

The Tricolor Discus dish is the pricier of the two to prep, since it needs nine total discus fish across three color variants before you can plate it once.

Artisan's Flame research recipes: the deep menu

This is where Bancho Grill's real depth lives, and it's gated behind Artisan's Flame rather than Doni. Most of these cost a single flame; one confirmed exception costs two.

1 Artisan's Flame:

• Bamboo Shoot Soup: Bamboo Shoot x3, Egg, King Oyster Mushroom
• Banana Flower Salad: Calamansi x5, Banana Flower, Cilantro
• Piraiba Catfish Soup: Piraiba Catfish x3, Lemongrass, Tamarind
• Sweet and Sour Pork: Raw Meat x3, Coconut Milk, Cassava, Tamarind
• Steamed Bluegill with Herbs: Bluegill x4, Lemongrass, Water Chestnut
• Walking Catfish Tom Yum: Walking Catfish x3, Lemongrass, Thai Chili (see the note below on a documentation conflict for this one)

2 Artisan's Flame:

• Black Caiman Taco: Black Caiman, Cilantro, Calamansi

Note on Walking Catfish Tom Yum: community sources disagree on whether this recipe also requires reaching Monkey Rank with a specific villager before it unlocks, or whether it's a plain 1-flame research recipe with no rank gate. I couldn't resolve which is correct from available sources, so if you're chasing this one specifically, check your in-game research menu rather than assuming either version.

Villager rank-up recipes

Two dishes require both Artisan's Flame research and reaching a specific villager rank before they unlock:

• Sweet and Sour Gourami
• Piranha Head Soup

Both are tied to Bird-of-Paradise rank plus 1 Artisan's Flame. This is a smaller category than the base research tier, but it's the mechanism that ties menu depth to your relationship progress with specific villagers rather than just ingredient farming.

VIP recipe: Stir-fried Crocodile Tail

Stir-fried Crocodile Tail (Black Caiman Tail, Thai Chili x2, Palm Sugar) is tied to unlocking Bonita as a VIP customer. It's the closest thing Bancho Grill has to an endgame showpiece dish, both in ingredient cost and in the relationship progress required to access it.

What's honestly still unconfirmed

Community trackers reference additional research recipes and villager-gated dishes beyond what's listed here, but neither of two independent research passes for this guide could produce a verified, sourced name for all of them. I'd rather tell you that upfront than pad the list with something I can't back up. If your in-game research menu shows a recipe not covered above, that's expected: this represents what's been confirmed across multiple sources, not a claim that the menu is fully documented anywhere.

How Bancho Grill differs from Bancho Sushi

The recipe list is only half the story. The service loop itself changed in ways that matter more to your daily play pattern than any single dish:

The base game's Bancho Sushi (shown here) runs on one long counter lane. Bancho Grill throws that layout out entirely.

Movement. Bancho Sushi kept Dave on a single horizontal service lane. Bancho Grill opens up free movement across a full isometric floor, which changes how you route between grill stations, prep counters, and seated customers during a rush.

The skewer mini-loop. Grill skewer orders run on a pick-cook-serve cycle with a timing element: choose an ingredient, cook it, wait for a green marker to hit, then serve before it burns. Ingredient choice directly affects the Doni payout, so faster reflexes translate into better service income, not just faster throughput.

Currency split. Doni is your general spendable jungle economy money. Artisan's Flame is separate and exists purely to unlock new recipes through research. You can be Doni-rich and flame-poor, or vice versa, and the two don't substitute for each other.

The customer model, reversed. This is the biggest structural change, and it's confirmed by the director directly: Bancho Grill has no regular walk-in customers. Every diner is a villager. Unless Dave actively recruits them, service stays nearly empty except for a small handful of defaults. It reframes the restaurant from "manage a queue" to "go get your customers first."

Staff: who you can hire

At least 9 staff members are confirmed across community sources: Yasuto, Martin Tweed, Rover, Om Nom, Charlie Bonnet III, William Longbottom, Mita, Udo, and Sato. Individual recruitment conditions weren't itemized consistently across sources; expect a mix of story progression and side-mission completion depending on the specific staff member, and treat any single villager's unlock path as something to confirm in-game rather than assume from this list.

GODEEPER: Bonita's VIP unlock ties into broader jungle DLC quest content covered in the tips guide, including gear priorities that make the harder catches (Black Caiman especially) more manageable. Dave the Diver Jungle DLC Tips Guide →

Common mistakes

Farming ingredients for research recipes before checking if a Grilled version already exists. Since Grilled Fish dishes unlock automatically per species, you may already have menu coverage for a fish before spending Artisan's Flame on something else entirely.

Hoarding Artisan's Flame instead of spending it on the 1-flame recipes early. Since most of the deep menu costs just 1 flame, and only Black Caiman Taco is confirmed at 2, there's little reason to save up for a bigger purchase that may not exist.

Assuming Bancho Grill works like Bancho Sushi's queue system. The villagers-only customer model means an empty dining room isn't a sign something's broken; it means you haven't gone out and recruited anyone yet.

Skipping villager rank-up progress because it feels disconnected from cooking. Sweet and Sour Gourami and Piranha Head Soup are both locked behind Bird-of-Paradise rank specifically, so relationship progress and menu depth are more linked than they first appear.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Bancho Grill in Dave the Diver? The jungle DLC's restaurant, replacing Bancho Sushi's role. Its defining feature: no regular customers exist, only villagers Dave has to actively recruit.

How is Bancho Grill different from Bancho Sushi? Free isometric movement instead of a single service lane, a skewer cook-and-serve timing mini-game, a Doni/Artisan's Flame currency split, and a villagers-only customer model instead of walk-in traffic.

What are the free Bancho Grill recipes with no unlock requirement? Papaya Salad, Coconut, and Mango Shake. Nearly every jungle fish also unlocks an automatic Grilled dish the first time you catch it.

What does Artisan's Flame do in Dave the Diver? It's a separate currency from Doni, spent specifically on researching new Bancho Grill recipes. Most research dishes cost 1 flame; Black Caiman Taco is confirmed at 2.

How many staff can work at Bancho Grill? At least 9 confirmed: Yasuto, Martin Tweed, Rover, Om Nom, Charlie Bonnet III, William Longbottom, Mita, Udo, and Sato, recruited through a mix of story and side-mission progress.

Why doesn't Bancho Grill have regular customers? MINTROCKET director Jaeho Hwang confirmed in an Automaton West interview that this was intentional: a deliberate inversion of the base game's restaurant flow, requiring Dave to recruit diners rather than wait for them.

Related Reading

• Dave the Diver Jungle DLC: All Fish Guide by Zone: every confirmed species feeding into the Grilled Fish recipe tier, organized by zone.
• Dave the Diver Jungle DLC Tips Guide: gear priorities and broader DLC systems beyond the kitchen.
• Beastro Flavor Guide: Cooking Combat: another cooking-driven indie mechanic if the ingredient-to-dish loop here is what you're after.

References

• DAVE THE DIVER on Steam: base game store page, 1868140
• DAVE THE DIVER: In the Jungle Content Pack on Steam: DLC store page, $9.99, launched June 18, 2026
• Dave the Diver Jungle DLC official launch trailer: MINTROCKET official YouTube