There's only a couple of recipes you need the chopping board to make. The reward for reaching level 6 and collecting all the utensils along the way unlocks the chopping boards. You'll need a 3 star fridge to make anything that takes over 4 hours to make leveling up easier. The restaurant didn't take me all that long to clean up, maybe a day per room using 10 Sims and I wasn't in a hurry anyway. I didn't like having to take them off their usual tasks accumulating life points, though.