Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 7 - "The Serene Squall"
Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) got to use his culinary skills in Cadet Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) found it it's an honor to be invited to dinner at the Captain's quarters, where Pike personally cooks for his guests. In Strange New Worlds episode 7, Pike even cooked for the pirate crew of the Serene Squall as part of his gambit to steal their pirate ship.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Captain Sisko broke several important molds. He was the only Captain leading a Star Trek series who was also a widower and a father. Ben's own father, Joseph Sisko (Brock Peters), was a gourmet chef who owned a Cajun and Creole restaurant in New Orleans. Whenever Ben and Jake (Cirroc Lofton) visited Earth, they always dropped by Sisko's Creole Kitchen and Jake even had to work there while his father tended to his Starfleet duties. Back on Deep Space Nine, Captain Sisko regularly invited his crew to his quarters and prepared meals for them using actual food. Ben was the rare Starfleet Officer who preferred to cook from scratch rather than rely on food replicators. For an entire era of Star Trek, Captain Sisko's chef skills helped him stand out as other Captains normally didn't cook. A rare instance otherwise was Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) preparing Ktarian eggs in the Nexus in Star Trek Generations.
Related: Strange New Worlds Has An Amazing DS9 Sisko Easter Egg
When the USS Enterprise was hijacked in Strange New Worlds episode 7, "The Serene Squall," Captain Pike relied on his culinary abilities to save himself and his crew. Pike and his people were taken prisoner aboard the Serene Squall while Captain Angel (Jesse James Keitel), who posed as ex-Starfleet Counselor Dr. Aspen, commandeered the Starship Enterprise. Pike was brought before the Serene Squall's Captain Remy (Michael Hough), who is an Orion, but Chris quickly deduced that the pirate crew loathed Remy's cooking. Seeing his opening, Pike negotiated to let him cook for the pirates in exchange for discussing the possibility of turning over the Enterprise's computer codes. But what Pike really did was win over the pirates with his cooking to buy time to exact his real plan: start a mutiny so the Enterprise's crew could take control of the Serene Squall's bridge.
Pike's clever gambit turned out to be something Captain Sisko never got to do on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Sisko often cooked for his crew and family but he never used his skills as a chef to put one over on his many enemies. Ironically, Gul Dukat (Marc Alaimo) actually cooked for Sisko, his arch-rival. In the DS9 season 6 episode, "Waltz," Sisko was injured and Dukat cooked for him as part of his plot to explain his side of the Bajoran Occupation, where the insane Dukat saw himself as the unappreciated friend and savior of the Bajoran people. For Sisko, tasting his cooking was reserved for those who he truly cared for.
Thus far, Strange New Worlds hasn't specified what Pike's culinary specialties are. He cooked some kind of stew for the crew of the Serene Squall and ribs were the main entree at the dinner party Pike hosted in Strange New Worlds episode 2, "Children of the Comet." Whereas on DS9, Captain Sisko cooked a mean jambalaya and he also enjoyed making Hungarian food like chicken paprikash, but only when he was in a good mood. The fact that both Captain Pike and Captain Sisko can cook make them more relatable and interesting as people, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds brilliantly made Pike's abilities as a chef the key to him saving the Enterprise and his crew from swarthy space pirates.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams Thursdays on Paramount+.