Top and tail for cooking - that’s fine (7)
I believe the answer is:
capital
'fine' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'top and tail for cooking' is the wordplay.
'top' becomes 'cap' (both can mean to beat or outdo).
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'for cooking' indicates anagramming the letters (letters prepared or cooked into a new form).
'tail' is an anagram of 'ital'.
'cap'+'ital'='CAPITAL'
'that's' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for capital that I've seen before include "Topping" , "Most important city" , "Chief; excellent" , "Upper case city" , "Block" .)