In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Raw Gourmet Meat is the strongest meat variant that you can use in all of your various recipes and dishes, allowing you to restore a much more significant number of hearts on consumption. However, because it’s the best produce in the game, it’s also one of the most difficult meats to obtain. Don’t worry, though, we’ve narrowed down all the best strategies for embracing your inner hunter and farming Raw Gourmet Meat like a pro, so follow along below for all the tips and tricks you’ll need.
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Where to Find Raw Gourmet Meat, Explained
Much like the other Meat Materials in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Raw Gourmet Meat can be obtained by hunting animals in the wilderness of Hyrule. However, as Raw Gourmet Meat is the best produce in the game, it can only be obtained by hunting large creatures, such as Wolves, Cows, Bears, and Moose.
Keeping this in mind, the best location to hunt for these animals is anywhere within the wild of the Hebra Region. This chilly Hyrule Region offers an abundance of large creatures roaming the snowy fields and mountains, making it easy to hunt large animals in repetition. Some of the creatures you can target for your hunt are Tabantha Moose, Cold-Footed Wolves, and Grizzlemaw Bears.
While hunting these large creatures sounds like an easy enough task, there are a couple of important factors you’ll want to consider when preparing for your hunting trip:
- The most important thing to consider while setting up for your big hunt, is that the Hebra Region is among the coldest locations in the game, meaning you’ll need to grant Link Cold Resistance to survive. This can be done by equipping certain armor pieces or consuming cooked dishes that provide the Cold Resistance bonus effect.
- Since you are also going to be hunting wild animals, you’re going to want to avoid startling them and having then run away. This means also equipping some Stealth Armor or consuming Stealth dishes or Elixirs can be extremely helpful. Between the wide variety of Armor, Elixirs, and recipes in the game, you shouldn’t have any problem balancing both Cold Resistance and Sneak levels simultaneously.
How to Hunt Large Animals in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Explained
Once you’ve arrived in the Hebra Region and equipped the necessary Armors or consumed the required dishes or Elixirs to increase Link’s Stealth and Cold Resistance, it’s finally time to begin your hunt. When I took part in my own Hebra Region hunting adventure, I decided to target Cold-Footed Wolves in particular, as I had often run into them travelling in small packs, which results in increased chances of Raw Gourmet Meat dropping on a successful kill.
Once you’ve decided on the creature that you’d like to target, you can get some extra guidance on searching and locating that creature with the Hyrule Compendium’s Sensor+ function if you have it. To do this, open the Purah Pad Menu by pressing the – button on your controller or Joy-con, and scroll across to the Hyrule Compendium tab. Now, scroll down and select the creature you’d like to target. In this case, you will need to have previously registered the creature in the Hyrule Compendium, and select one known to live in the Hebra Region, such as the various species mentioned earlier in this guide.
After selecting your target, close the Purah Pad menu and head out on your search. As you start searching, the Sensor+ function will scan the nearby terrain and notify you when your target creature is close to your location. In my case, I got a notification while running past a mountain that there was a Cold-Footed Wolf nearby up above, so I began climbing up this large cliff. Once I reached the top, there it was, just standing about in the snow, minding it’s own wolfish business.
Once you locate your target, you’ll need to be careful not to startle it and begin a wild pursuit. To help reduce your movement and noise, you can crouch down. Now take out your bow and line up your shot. For an easy kill, I’d recommend attaching a plain Keese Eyeball to your arrow for a guaranteed headshot, which will usually instantly kill Wolf creatures.
- Do note: If you’re attaching a Keese Eyeball, then ensure it’s a regular one and not one of the elemental variants, such as Fire Keese Eyeball or Ice Keese Eyeball, as this will affect the type of Meat that the wolf drops, turning it into Grilled Meat, or Frozen Meat.
After getting the kill on your target, it will drop one or two pieces of Meat, with a decent chance of one of these being Raw Gourmet Meat. Once you’ve picked up these drops and added them to your inventory, you can simply repeat the process to farm Raw Gourmet Meat in bulk. Easy as that!
You may also stumble across some other suitable creatures to hunt while searching for your selected target, so there’s definitely no harm in taking advantage of the opportunity and picking them off for more Raw Gourmet Meat drops.
For example, right after hunting this Cold-Footed Wolf, two Tabantha Moose came around the corner and walked right into my sights, letting me earn double the amount of Raw Gourmet Meat within just a few seconds. Make the most of every hunting opportunity while you’re out and about, especially if you have limited durations of Cold Resistance and Stealth boosts due to dish and Elixir timers.
Now that you know how to obtain Raw Gourmet Meat in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, why not put it to good use by cooking up some dishes? This will create very reliable meals that will restore a number of hearts per dish, with a variety of different recipes to choose from. Or if you’ve already got a good assortment of cooked meals using Gourmet Meat, then you can always head out and face some of the most powerful enemies in Hyrule, such as Lynels. If you’re looking at taking on these powerful beasts, then you can also check out our Lynel location guide for all the best spots find them.
About the author
