Frankly, it only takes that long if you're really bad or really inexperienced at cooking. I frequently have dinner on the table (spaghetti and meatballs, Japanese curry, flank steak or chicken tacos) for my family of six with 30-40 minutes of total time invested, prep to cleanup. Even my most elaborate recipes (bibimbap and baked ziti) require about an hour of total time investment. My simpler recipes (instant pot carnitas, slow cooker shaker steak) take less than 20 minutes, usually because a kitchen device is doing the hard or time consuming work.

There were times in my life when these meals would have required twice as much time to execute, but repetition and experience (and necessity, given the busy evening schedule during my kids' soccer season) have led to these timings.

Ethan (mentioned above) has a series of fun videos where he races a Doordash driver (or a friend doing the same thing) to see if he can prepare a similar meal in his home kitchen before the order arrives. He usually finishes a bit earlier than the restaurant order, and I wouldn't say he rushes his cooking.

Lots of subjective variables, of course. Do you enjoy cooking? Are you productive at home while waiting for your delivery order? Is time spent in a restaurant relaxing? Do you count driving to/from the restaurant as part of the "work" of the meal? Don't you still have to clean up after a delivery order?

There is an economic side to cooking if you don't optimize and there is a lot of content out there that helps you optimize. Excluding eating, I spend 30 minutes cooking and washing each day

Suggestion: Learn to make use of a slow cooker and pressure cooker and/or instant pot. You can cut a lot of hands-on time using these tools.

FWIW: I cook multiple meals (often borderline gourmet / better than any local restaurant) for my family of 5 and it doesn't take this many hours. The more experience you gain, the faster your prep. Combining ready ingredients (I'll use that boxed pho broth rather than making from scratch / I'll start with a canned marinara rather than scratch) and being able to reconstitute leftovers can go a long way toward only having to do a major cooking event every-other or every-three days.

Buy a home wok burner, a wok and a rice cooker. There's an entire genre of cooking built around making things in 10 minutes. Chinese, Thai, Indian food.

Western home stoves are underpowered compared to the typical asian home stove. So western recipes are designed for slow western stoves.

Once you use a wok for the first time you realize you've been using the stove equivalent of a car that can only go 30mph all your life.

Nonsense, my wife whips up a delicious meal in under 30 minutes with everything included. Most days we use disposable sal leaf plates so she just tosses the pans in the dishwasher and we’re done.

Agreed. My wife is some kind of wizard in the kitchen. Most meals about 30 minutes, though some dishes might push an hour depending. Better than any restaurant I've been to - completely spoiled.

Sal Leaf Plates, I didn't know that existed, this might make a hUGE difference.

What are you cooking that it takes 2 hours of prep and cleanup?

Cook in bulk and eventually can also be more efficient.