Cucinovo

Cucinovo is a recipe and kitchen-planning platform for home cooks and restaurant operators. It suits people who want costs and quantities to carry through from recipes into shopping or event plans. The free household tier is generous on recipe volume; restaurant tools cost more, especially when a business needs several locations.

Overview

Cucinovo connects recipe organization with per-portion costing, shopping lists and planning for weekly meals or catering events. Its appeal is strongest when a kitchen needs more than a recipe archive: nested components can contribute to dish costs, and planned quantities can adjust to the number of servings. Household users and restaurant teams have distinct plans, so the right fit depends on both the work and the operating scale.

Key features

Recipe costs can be calculated by portion or batch, including costs rolled up from nested sub-recipes. That is useful for kitchens that prepare components in advance and need those costs reflected in finished dishes. Yield scaling, ingredient price updates and menu profitability extend the cost-control scope, though the plan breakdown does not assign these capabilities to particular tiers.

Shopping lists aggregate ingredients across recipes and combine quantities, which is practical when planning several dishes together. Weekly meal planning and catering event planning adjust quantities and costs to the planned servings. Bulk CSV import and export can help move recipe and ingredient data between systems; users can also export a machine-readable JSON copy of their supplied data.

Restaurant plans include unlimited team members and role-based access for Owners, Admins, Managers, Chefs and Viewers. The optional Gmail connection sends email through a user's own inbox; Cucinovo says OAuth tokens are encrypted with AES-256-GCM. Its stated safeguards also include TLS in transit, encryption at rest, bcrypt password hashing, HTTP-only JWT cookies, CSRF protection and CSP nonces. Cucinovo says it complies with GDPR, with EU-region hosting including production workloads in Frankfurt and Helsinki. Users can delete accounts, although some records may be retained when legally required.

Pricing

The Free plan costs €0.00 per free and is billed Free forever. It covers one household and one user, with unlimited recipes, ingredients and categories, plus shopping lists, sub-recipes, grocery lists and import/export. It is a substantial starting point for a solo household, but it lacks the meal planner and cost-per-portion feature that appear on Plus.

Plus costs €7/month billed annually, or €9/mo, and allows five users. It adds meal planning, cost per portion, a loss calculator and family sharing. This is the household choice for shared planning and cost awareness; the five-user cap matters for larger groups.

Starter costs €24/month billed annually, or €29/mo, for one restaurant location. It includes unlimited team members and unlimited recipes, ingredients and categories, making it the lower-cost restaurant entry point. Pro costs €66/month billed annually, or €79/mo, and includes one location, with up to five extra locations at €29/mo each. Pro adds purchase orders, event planning, supplier information, a loss calculator, labor cost and time, and import/export. Its extra operational tools make it the stronger choice for restaurants that need event workflows or purchasing, while the additional location charge can add up for expanding groups.

Enterprise has custom pricing, unlimited locations by contract, unlimited team members, cooking mode and recipe approvals. Restaurant plans offer a 14-day trial with full Pro access and no credit card required; after it ends, customers choose Starter or Pro to continue. The trial gives a temporary view of Pro rather than a continuing free restaurant tier.

Platforms

Cucinovo runs on the web. That keeps the stated platform choice straightforward, but it is not a fit for buyers who require a listed native mobile or desktop app.

Who it's for

Home cooks get a genuinely useful free recipe base, while households that need shared access, meal planning or portion costs have a clear step up in Plus. Restaurants can bring unlimited staff into Starter, then move to Pro for purchasing, event planning and labor tools. Multi-location groups should compare Pro's per-location charge with Enterprise's contract pricing. Cucinovo is less compelling for a household satisfied with a recipe archive alone if it does not need Plus's paid planning and costing features, or for organizations that need more platform options.

Pros and cons

Pro: Free supports unlimited recipes, ingredients and categories for a single household, avoiding a recipe-count ceiling for solo use.

Pro: Nested sub-recipe costing and combined shopping quantities link preparation work to both costs and purchasing.

Pro: Restaurant plans allow unlimited team members and role-based access, useful for kitchens with distinct responsibilities.

Con: Plus limits household access to five users, and restaurant features such as purchase orders and event planning require the higher-priced Pro tier.

Con: Pro's extra locations cost €29/mo each, so multi-location use adds recurring expense beyond the base plan.

Con: The stated platform is web only, which rules it out for buyers requiring a native app.

Alternatives

Cilurzo Foodcost is worth comparing for buyers seeking a free modular starting point; its Lite plan offers one module's core features, with volume limits, and Foodcost is included with Pro and Ultimate rather than stated as included in Lite.

Galley is a candidate for teams that want broad platform coverage and an SMB plan starting at $99/month with recipes, menus and costing, simplified onboarding and no long contracts.

Melba by FoodMeUp is an alternative for buyers considering per-user or API pricing; its listed Core additional-user plan is €15 excl. tax / user / month and its API Simple plan is €49 excl. tax / month.

Ratatool is another paid web option, with an ESSAI tier capped at four recipes and 15 ingredients, without a subscription or credit card.

Final Menu offers a free tier capped at 10 recipes, with basic recipe costing, manual price entry and suggested menu prices; consider it if that narrower free costing scope is sufficient.

Optimum Control is a paid alternative with Android, iOS and Windows platform support and a listed OC Mobile plan at $25 / month.

reciProfity is a paid alternative whose Starter plan is $49/mo. and limited to 10 recipes.

Chefy is another freemium web alternative, with a free Core plan for a first venue that includes costing and recipes, bulk product import, wastage recording, real-time costing updates and team access.

For category comparisons, see Restaurant Recipe Costing Software and Restaurant Recipe Management Software.

Verdict

Cucinovo is a strong match for households that want a free, uncapped recipe collection or for restaurant kitchens that need recipes, costs, shopping and planning in one system. Its clearest reason to choose is the connection between nested recipes, costing and quantity-aware planning; its clearest reason to look elsewhere is the cost of stepping into restaurant operations and adding locations, alongside its web-only platform.