I wish we could turn off Auto Chef, but as of now no, But I don't know about if you are forced to get auto chef as soon as you collect all of the Auto Chef tokens.
Did you complete the last milestone level? Because if you don't, your golden saucers you earned in the same trial of style event will be taken back from you.
In the latest update, the venues download super fast because you should have already downloaded them, but in your case try getting closer to the internet source or try going somewhere else with internet and see if it will work.
Here is a picture As you can see, downloading either stops at Medieval Dines or Bavaria Fest at it still says no internet connection found even though my wifi is on! I can't download other venues when its stuck on Medieval Dines!