Cooking
Equipment - You'll need lots of fishies, cooking gauntlets and probably some grapes and jugs of water.
Lvl 1-99
Method 1 Lvls 1-40 - For these first lvls, I'd really suggests fishing your own fish and cooking them. It doesn't take long, and it will get you good fishing exp. This is what I did to start out cooking.
Method 2 Lvls 20-40 - You could just buy fish from other people [trout/salmon]. This would be the only other known method to me and I don't really recommend it. But it could be faster if your not interested in fishing.
XP: 90k xp/hr - GP: 0 gp/hr
Method 1 Lvls 40-70/86: Lobsters - Ok for these lvls, a great option would be buying lobsters. Lobsters are great xp and should be cooked all the way to 70 cooking. Once you hit 70, wines become the number one option. If you do not want to do wines, you can cook lobsters all the way up to lvl 86, when monkfish become better. With cooking gauntlets, obtained during family crest, you stop burning lobsters at 66.
XP: 150k xp/hr - GP: -70k gp/hr
Method 2 Lvls 45-70: Swordfish - Swordfish are a viable option as well. They are cheaper if you can get ahold of them but they are usually hard to buy/sell. So if you're good with the market, I'd recommend swordfish instead of lobsters.
XP: 180k xp/hr - GP: -57k gp/hr
Method 3 Lvls 40-55: Salmon/Trout - You may burn a lot of lobsters at lvl 40, so it's always a great option to buy and cook trout and salmon. This is good up until level 55 or so. An easy way to get raw salmon/trout is to go to f2p Varrock. There is almost always someone selling large amounts of them. That or use the G.E.
XP: 90k xp/hr - GP: 0 gp/hr
Method 1 Lvls 70ish-99: Wines - Very few people know how fast of exp wine making gives you. You can get up to 450k xp per hour! NO KIDDING. You make wine with grapes and jugs of water. They give you 200 exp each! Wines can "go bad", which is like burning a fish, but they stop going bad at a very low level. For now, though, I'd recommend starting these around level 70. THIS IS ONLY IF YOU MAKE 350+ CASH PER HOUR. This is an expensive method, but also a very quick one. It's more efficient for you to do these over lobsters or monkfish ONLY if you make over 350k per hours. NOTE: You can not buy jugs of water from the shantay pass anymore because they have a low limit. You have to slowly buy them in the ge. Also, grapes are much more expensive than they used to be so making wines is pretty expensive now. However, you can now sell wines back to the ge so it is not 100% loss.
XP: 400k xp/hr - GP: -1.3M gp/hr
Method 2 Lvls 86-90/94: Monkfish - Monkfish are a good alternative if you don't have a ton of cash. At 90 you stop burning them [even without cooking gauntlets since they don't affect monkfish] and you don't lose very much money buying/selling. At 90 cooking, sharks probably are best if you can gain like 400+ per hour [money], although you will still burn a few with cooking gauntlets. If you don't want to trade off a bit of money for the fast exp of sharks, then wait until level 94, when you stop burning them altogether.
XP: 180k xp/hr - GP: -75K gp/hr
Method 2 Lvls 90/94-99: Sharks - Sharks are now the 2nd best method to 99. I actually would not recommend this method under any circumstances for efficiencies purpose over wines, but they are a bit more relaxing to do I suppose. You'll end up losing a little bit of money because they sell more raw then cooked, but it's still extremely fast xp and you won't burn any at lvl 94 with cooking gauntlets. If you don't want to do the wines method, I would suggest starting these around level 90 over monkfish, but you'll burn some, resulting in some more money loss.
XP: 250k xp/hr - GP: 100K gp/hr
Method 2 Lvls 93-99: Rocktails - Rocktails can be started at level 93. You do not stop burning them until level 99 with cooking gauntlets, but they are good experience if you have trouble getting the materials for wines.
XP: 250k xp/hr - GP: 100K gp/hr
Tip - If you ever cook mass amounts of fish, the best place to cook them is the rogues den (under the bar in Burthorpe). There is an everlasting fire 2 spaces from the bank, making this an obvious choice for cooks. If you've completed the Varrock Achievement Diary, there's a stove located a few spaces away from a bank in the cooking guild. You won't burn things quite as much here, so it'd be a great idea if you were cooking sharks around level 90 to try this area out.
Speed - Cooking is a very fast skill, ranking a 10 for speed. It isn't the fastest skill but it is definitely up there. With the ability to get 400k+ xp per hour with wines, it's no wonder more than 50 people (probably more than that now) have maxed out their cooking xp.
Uses - Good if you want to get your total exp up, and also is a very important skill in quests.
Method 2 (probably a mistake on method number) Lvls 90/94-99: Sharks - Sharks are now the 2nd best method to 99. I actually would not recommend this method under any circumstances for efficiencies purpose over wines, but they are a bit more relaxing to do I suppose. You'll end up losing a little bit of money because they sell more raw then cooked, but it's still extremely fast xp and you won't burn any at lvl 94 with cooking gauntlets. If you don't want to do the wines method, I would suggest starting these around level 90 over monkfish, but you'll burn some, resulting in some more money loss.
XP: 250k xp/hr - GP: 100K gp/hr
Method 2 Lvls 93-99: Rocktails - Rocktails can be started at level 93. You do not stop burning them until level 99 with cooking gauntlets, but they are good experience if you have trouble getting the materials for wines.
XP: 250k xp/hr - GP: 100K gp/hr
