I'm writing this review with the expectation that you know what the series is about already, but if I were to describe the appeal in brief:

Skill based mastery through cooking dishes = pure personal satisfaction in an incredibly satisfying and tasty package.

I love this series, but burnt out pretty hard of CSD 2 which made me stay away from 3 for a good few years.

I think the first two games are still very good, but they both have entirely different parts I don't quite like. With CSD 1, you never needed to go out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself so it was just grinding out the same foods until you got really good at it. With 2, the grow a restaurant part of the game is deemphasized in favor of an arcadey a list of levels. 2 also removes any strategy and player freedom too since you're just forced to use the level's menus in the C4H mode which is the main content of the game.

CSD 3 is pretty much the perfect sequel to me in a series I love, it literally addressees everything I thought was just okay or bad with the game's formula and fixed it into something awesome. It's super rare that a game series that perfectly iterates upon the previous entries in the series, but for me, but CSD 3 managed to do that.

I don't want to give too many of the gameplay surprises away here, but the game somewhat takes the best parts of both 1 and 2 and put them together, while introducing new things to keep the pace of the game interesting and throw different, non-grindy challenges at you, while still giving you freedom in figuring out how you personally want to tackle them.

As per co-op, I 100%ed this game in 2 player co-op. Mind you, co-op mode makes this game exponentially easier to handle, and the co-op gameplay doesn't emphasize co-op too much beyond just having an extra player to help. Still, one of the better co-op experiences I've had in games despite the game not being entirely designed around that. You still have to coordinate something or else you might step on each other's toes, though the game might become too easy for some folks, which you can still choose to challenge yourself through picking a harder menu!

Yup, we're cooked

I have played this game for a significant amount of time now, and I have played my fair share of cooking games, time management games, Burger Shop, Diner Dash, Overcooked etc, and this is the first of the CSD games I have tried and I love it! Beautiful chaos and an actual challenge on every level. I'm one of these people who have to play a level over and over until I get a Gold Medal and this is the perfect game for me. Fast-paced, difficult and SATISFYING. It's really good fun if you're looking for a harder time-management game which can also be made chill at the click of a button. I really love the typing aspect of putting together combos and learning each dish and method, it scratches an itch that I didn't know I needed scratching. Awesome stuff.