[AA] Sims try to cook for themselves in hotels even when a chef is assigned

Happening to me as well!

Yes! I want guests to only eat, and never to cook. There needs to be an "eat" option that doesn't include cooking. And I agree that the "serve food" option could work better. 

New vanilla test game. No mods. No CC.

Sent my Sim to the premade Romantic Competition Getaway. Saw the same problem. All the "guest" attempting to cook. Eventually everyone got something to eat, but it was pure chaos. 

It might help if the "hosts" prepared food, put out on the table and called everyone to the meal... but, they just put the food down and start preparing another meal. 

I don't know if it would work to lock "guests" out of kitchens. Probably not, since the hosts just put the food down and start cooking again. But, playing as the "host" you could at least "drag" the food to a table that the "guests" could access. Playing as a "guest," "dragging" doesn't seem possible.

It seems like they just reused the existing system for pushing Sims to eat/cook on Community Lots. And that system was already glitchy. We've had problems before where Park visitors kept cooking and cooking and cooking and cooking. 

Maybe locking the kitchen and only using banquet tables for the guests would be a workaround. Don't know. So far, I've only played as "guest."

Me too. Sims should not be able to cook if their action assigned is "eat".

Same here, ZERO cc and mods. And I don't understand why there is so much cook option. Like breakfast, dinner, eating, cooking, it's all the same or almost. Even serving dinner (maybe that's the bug)

Are the two interactions set for the same timeslot? I'm pretty sure that if there isn't a meal already available when the timeslot begins, that's what triggers the "eat" interaction to force Sims to cook, but if there's food prepared beforehand it doesn't. This is just what I've noticed from watching others play the pack on stream as I don't own it. But in theory, if you tell the chefs to cook at say 5:00 AM, the guests won't start cooking when it's their time to "eat" at 8:00 AM? Maybe?

"Eat" activity should not force Sims to cook. Other one (Have breakfast, etc.) will trigger them to cook. It's in description. You probably set schedule wrong. Can you share a screenshot maybe?

Also "Serve food" is bugged, it barely works. Same as painting...

I deleted breakfast, dinner actions on my schedule. Now it looks like they have free time for the whole day (which is not correct, in my opinion). Guests now have only Eat action, but if they hungry, they still go cooking for themselves, not waiting for chef to cook (which is also not correct). Maybe, chef should cook while guests entertain themselves in their free time (now it’s the whole day according to schedule). But in this case, chef should wake up at 4 am and prepare food. 

UPD: I set chef to cook at 4 am, and the main activity for this time is Cook. Guests still should sleep. The chef in my game just didn’t wake up. Started cooking at 7 am when guests should eat.

I've noticed this too. I think they really need to revisit the way that the cooking interactions work, as well as the main interaction of the time slot vs. the role interactions for a time slot. I am still trying to learn what will get people on the lot fed at the right time with the least amount of friction. I've basically learned that having the main interaction be have lunch, have dinner, etc., is unusable because it means that everyone is trying to cook at once and no one is finishing what they start. I've tried assigning the main activity as free time/self-care and giving the hosts the serve meal role, but sometimes the hosts prioritize self-care/free time instead of cooking a meal. Maybe if there was a main activity of "do your role task" that would make things easier for meal time.