The series is set mainly at Totsuki Saryo Culinary Institute, an elite culinary school located in Tokyo, Japan, which only a handful of students graduate each year. Its students mostly come from Totsuki's junior high school, but transfers are taken provided they pass the entrance exam. The campus is a wide-ranging resort with many research societies (clubs); cooking classrooms, and large arenas used for competitions. Housing varies, but the most affordable is the Polaris Dormitory, where characters have to impress the dorm matron with a dish in order to secure residence. Totsuki also runs a chain of resort hotels; with the biggest being the Totsuki resort; run by Gin Dojima, which is visited during the course of Soma's first year at Totsuki.
The top student chefs occupy seats on the Council of Ten Masters. Students can initiate a shokugeki with any other student or alumni; a cooking fight with stipulations on the line. Battles fought in this way could be for cooking utensils, research society facilities, council membership, or even expulsion from the school.
