Gaming

Great Taste of Pharloom Quest Guide

September 11, 2025 - By admin

While you’re playing Hollow Knight: Silksong, having fun thrashing the halls of the Citadel, and exploring the Choral Chambers, you’ll eventually come across this massive, abandoned dining hall. This is home to a very old man, just trying to serve his master.

This is the ever-loyal Mergwin, and you’re going to get very familiar with the route to get to him in a bit, as you will need to return here a couple of times. He gives you a quest to find ingredients for his master, and we need to do just that.

This is the Great Taste of Pharloom quest, which will task you with exploring all around the kingdom and will reward you with some sweet Pale Oil. While this may sound straightforward, several factors complicate the process and make it less simple than it should be.

I’ll be walking you through every step of the way, though, from the things you’ll need to do before you can even think of getting some of these ingredients, to the locations of every item you’ll need, and a quick way to deal with all the challenges on the way there.

Pre-Requisites

Before we begin, here are a few things you’ll need to do if you haven’t already. Given you’re already on the top left of the Citadel, you’ve likely done everything here, but if you’re confused about why something didn’t work, you probably haven’t done one of these.

Mossberry Stew

This is the easiest one of all. The hint that Mergwin gives mentions it’s a Druidic recipe, so head to the Druid in Mosshome, ask for just a drop of soup, and she will happily provide. You can go bring this back now, but there’s no time limit, so we can just continue.

Vintage Nectar

We’re looking for some rather old, all-ages-appropriate glasses of battery acid, and the only guy serving stuff anywhere near that strong is at the Halfway House in Greymoor, so that’s where we’re heading. As a note, put on your combat gear, and don’t question why.

Speak to Creige, and he will offer to let you buy the Vintage Nectar for 480 Rosaries. That is quite a steep price, so I hope you’ve got deep pockets. Once you get down there, you can slash some rats, then get to the bottom, where you can try to grab your bottle.

Unfortunately, ants do love juice, so they’ll come after you. This fight isn’t too hard at this point in the game, and you should be aware that they only spawn one wave; you just need to clear out the whole cellar. Once you’re done, the bottle is yours, and you can head out.

Courier’s Rasher

This is the big one. While finding the Couriers in Bellhart is easy, delivering the package is not. We have a full guide detailing exactly how to go about this, so I’ll just give you the short of it.

They like their meat drippy, which means it will expire in around five minutes. It will also expire much faster if you take any damage, and you need to bring it all the way from Bellhart to Mergwin in the Citadel within that time, with no fast travel.

I’ve attached a video to showcase my route through things, which takes the bottom of Shellwood through four room transitions before heading up, platforming through Blasted Steps, and taking the Spa through the Citadel to reach Mergwin with 3 hits to spare.

Before attempting this, you should equip yourself with the Silkspeed Anklets for obvious reasons, and with the Weavelight, so you always have some silk to keep running or grappling to victory.

Crustnut

If you have visited the Sands of Karak before, you already know it’s a pretty precarious location, and getting the Crustnut is no laughing matter, despite how stupid that item name is. You’ll need to come in from the left, or go up past the Thief’s den in the Blasted Steps, either way.

When you’ve arrived in that tall, vertical drop in the dead center of the entire area, head to the middle-most room on the left, above Shakra’s usual location and below the path to Coral Tower. Here, you’ll need to contend with a ton of spikes, so bring a long, sharp weapon crest.

With some smart grappling usage and the sensibility to not touch the oddly alluring, pretty red spikes, you should be able to make your way to the left and grab that crusty nut. We’ve only got one thing left to grab, now.

Pickled Muckmaggot

The fight with Disgraced Chef Lugoli in Silksong.

Simultaneously, the most difficult and one of the simplest ones to get, you obtain a Pickled Muckmaggot by heading to Sinner’s Road, to the right of where all the cages are on the map, and use your wings to soar up to an area you couldn’t reach previously.

This will start the fight with the Disgraced Chef Lugoli, which we also happen to have a full guide on. The fight is pretty hard, even this late in the game, so I’d recommend stocking your favorite crest, using tools like Sting Shards for crowd control, and having the Parry as your silk skill.

The parry move isn’t too hard to get at this point, just making you trek through The Mist, play your needolin to some butterflies, and fight a very feisty woman. It helps a ton here, though, since Lugoli’s choreographs give you tons of time to react, but not much leniency in moving.

Once you’ve slain her, you should come out of the battle with a nice, Pickled Muckmaggot. Now that all the pieces are in place, we can finally head all the way back to the Citadel to meet with Mergwin and get our Pale Oil.

Getting an Upgrade

A prompt to Sharpen your Needle for 500 Rosaries in Silksong.

Once you give the final ingredient to Mergwin, his master will promptly come out to devour his meal, and you’ll see that beautiful, delectable pale oil be freed from its chassis. Now, there’s only one thing left to do.

Head to Bellhart, grab 500 Rosaries because you definitely haven’t spent enough already, and go up to that second home up top. This third nail upgrade makes the final fights a massive bit easier, and almost makes delivering the Rasher feel worth it. Almost.