Dining Prices in London
 

I hope one of you could please help me out. I know the US Dollar is not strong against the Pound. I've heard that food pricing is ridiculous in London. Could one of you please tell me some approx meal costs (either in Pounds or USD)? Not looking for 4* restaurants, but something decent. Thanks!

Could someone tell me what some approximate meal costs are in New York? The answer is that the figures will be similar in London. You can spend $7 to $200 per person for a decent meal. Sorry, don't mean to be difficult, but it is true.

In 10 nights in London in June our dinner prices for two including a glass of wine or two each averaged right at 45 pounds (or $90). We ate at good places mainly in Covent Garden/theatre district. That's almost identical to our average in New York at similar restaurants in the theatre district.
Names of the restaurants where we ate?
Joe Allen, Maggie Jones, Covent Garden Grill, The Wolesley, Salieri, Bank, Pasta Brown, Boheme, Brasserie, and The Forge.

If we had tried we could have done less, or if we wanted to splurge we could have done much more.

Oh, and before someone says "expect to pay the same amount in pounds that you'd pay in dollars at home", therefore making it double in cost -- I say NONSENSE. No way would those meals have averaged $45 for the two of us with wine at similar restaurants at home!

You can spend £ or ££££ in London.

In my recent trip, the cheapest meal I had was £6 for lunch (I had a soup, bread and lemonade) to £90 for dinner (tasting menu at a 2* Michelin restaurant).

Other examples:
£ 23 for dinner at Belgo Centraal (1 beer, 1 mussel pot, 1 dessert)
£ 13 for a 2-course Prix Fixe lunch at Boulevard Brasserie
£ 13 for dinner in Chinatown
£ 30 for dinner at Tom's Kitchen (1 beer, 1 entree, 1 dessert)

All above prices are for 1 person.

As mentioned previously, dining in London is similar to what you'd experience dining in New York. My person experience is to double anything you'd expect in the US. I went earlier this year and their PPP (purchasing power parity) is higher than that of the U.S. Basically this means that if you were to go to McDonald's (hopefully you dine slightly better) and a BigMac were $3, it would be nearly 3 Pounds in London as well (or just over $6). In a week I don't recall ever spending less than 30 pounds ($60) for two. We spent the majority of our time in the Theater District (Leicester Square) and there were many nice and reasonably priced (for London's standards) restaurants. I'd plan to pay around 20 pounds a person for each meal and a bit more for nicer dining. **Do be warned, no free refills and ask for extra ice on the side (they give very little ice with sodas)!! Also a service charge is often automatically added to the bill, so check before you tip.

What do you spend at home? What do restaurants cost there?? Just as hard to answer for London. In my own neighborhood there are places where I can get a full cooked breakfast for $4 or huge sandwiches for $5, and a fine dining steak house w/ a massive wine cellar where you are lucky to get out for $100 per person.

Same will go for London - you will spend what you can afford - there will be places that fit whatever your budget is.

Since the exchange rate plummeted because of the extremely weak dollar, we have been focusing on buying take-out food in London and preparing our own meals. We love Pret a Manger sandwiches, the smoked salmon at Marks and Spencer among other things, the Duchy Originals products available at Waitrose among other things and now there is even a Whole Foods in London almost next door to the Kensington tube station. We picnic on fruit salads and the above items washed down with wonderful English tea, and frankly, it's a lot less expensive than eating at any restaurants I know about.

I know I haven't answered your question about restaurants, but I have described another approach. When the dollar becomes strong again, if it ever does, then I am sure I will answer differently!

I have been in London when the £ was $1.45, and when it was $2.47. Much better and much worse than it is right now. In all cases, I could find restaurants that fit in my budget. Not that self-catering/picnics/take out sandwiches aren't a good idea for meals on the run. Just that even the current exchange rates don't mean you are limited to take outs.

I get sandwiches at Pret and M&S too - but a steady diet of take out sarnies isn't my idea of a great holiday.

In general, the pubs I went to for meals generally ran about £7.95 give or take a £, not counting drinks.

"I've heard that food pricing is ridiculous in London"

Balderdash. But an awful lot of the information people give each other is really ridiculous

Whoever's telling you this is a fool, and you really should take anything else they tell you with a HUGE pinch of salt.

Well, to be fair, it *can* be ridiculous, particularly in places where tourists are known to congregate - as pretty well everywhere.

But it doesn't *have* to be, if you shop around.

It is understandable when someone's Aunt Betty and Uncle Bob who live in Peoria and eat out once a week at a splurge place like Outback or Olive Garden, go to London and book a dinner at The Ivey as they were instructed to do, that they scream the prices are ridiculous.

I'm always amazed at the people who eat at cheap chains at home who travel and eat at nice restaurants and then say how expensive it was. Duh? Those same type restaurants are often that expensive at home too.

By the same token, meals at Disneyworld are ridiculous, too. Shop at tourist traps, pay tourist trap prices.

I found great meals at places like Wagamama for lunch, less than £8 for a meal. Yes, it's more than I pay at home. But I live in Gainesville, Florida, we're not exactly a metropolis - London is.

I would expect to pay Gainesville prices if I was in a little village in the north of Scotland, or in west Ireland. Not in London :P

It's expensive, but then again, eating out all the time is expensive no matter where you do it. Try eating out every meal at home for a week, then total up your costs. Eating the same way in London will cost you more, but not double that amount (my guess would be 50% to 60% more, depending on what the exchange rate does).

I certainly agree that when people don't eat out as much back home, they perhaps would be shocked to see how much eating out every meal costs. How London becomes so expensive is that if you were to go to a chain restuarant in London, such as Garfunkels (which is essentially like a Fridays or Chili's), you'd pay just as much in pounds as you would in $ in the U.S., ie. if you'd spend $25 for two at Chili's, for practically the same thing it would cost you 25 pounds (or $50) at Garfunkels!! That's how it becomes expensive. When people travel you'd hope they'd expect to eat out nearly every meal, but what they don't expect is that every meal will cost them literally twice as much as it would in the states!

reed, I don't eat at those chain places, but I see what you mean.

I did a little checking. Garfunkels website is under construction, but I compared TGI Fridays in Boston with TGI Fridays in London.
I've priced the London ones in US dollars for ease.

Sesame chicken strips: Boston $8.99, London $11.98

Cheesey bacon cheeseburger: Boston $8.99, London $ 20.98 (I'm still trying to get over that one!)

New York Sirloin: Boston $18.75, London $25.98

I guess some Americans walk right by nice restaurants assuming they will be expensive and go to those chain places thinking they are going to be cheaper -- like they are at home, but we eat in nice restaurants in London for a fraction of those horribly inflated chain prices.

Having been in London with a family of 4 for a week in a hotel, I agree with some of the advice about avoiding expensive (and usually not very good) chain restaurants. Be adventerous. Try ethnic cuisine (Chinese, Thai, Indian), local small mom/pop restaurants, avoid tourist traps. Our hotel was charging the equivalent of $40/pp for breakfast, but we had a hot breakfast for 4 for $40 total right by the tube station. Don't be afraid to use the concierge service in your hotel if they have one. We were directed to some delicious less expensive restaurants, given the opportunity to see stacks of restaurant menus and tried ethnic cuisine we didn't even know existed (Burmese). There were also lots of airline personnel in our hotel and we quizzed them about places to eat, as they are always on a budget. Be adventerous! You will be able to find good food at reasonable prices if you make an effort. There are also travel books at Barnes & Noble that advertise restaurants. I did research in advance of our trip. Interestingly, we never went to one of those as we didn't make dining a priority and always found some place in close proximity to our other activities. Good Luck!

Here are a few more cost examples from our trip this June -

Family of five meal at Subway Sandwich shop -4 foot long subs, 1 six inch sub, 4 bags of chips, 5 regular sized fountain sodas = approx $60.00

Party of six (we payed for my Mom's dinner) dinner at the Jugged Hare Pub - 6 dinners, 5 soft drinks, 1 glass of wine = approx. $160.00

Hope this helps you with your planning.

We spent 6 days in London this summer with my family of four (husband, 15-year-old and 11-year old daughters). While we ate more casually than we would have in the states, we were still able to thoroughly enjoy our lunches and dinners. (For breakfast, we grabbed Starbucks or something on the street). It seemed that our meals for both lunch and dinner averaged $60 US (without liquor as we don't drink). We liked Belle Italia, Pizza Express, Yo Sushi, Belgo Centraal, Anchor Pub, Locale, Burger Shack, Wagamama and Giraffe - all fun, casual places with good food.

I was in London this summer for a week with my husband, my 16-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter. We live in Los Angeles, so we are used to big city US prices. London was expensive. We don't eat out at fancy places here, and we didn't try to eat out at fancy places in London. We finally decided that the numbers were generally close to being the same on the menu but with a dollar being worth two pounds, everything cost twice as much. I was fortunate enough to miss the meal at Garfunkels, which my family hated. We at Italian a couple of nights, and take-out Indian one night. If you can eat cheap for breakfast and lunch, you'll be fine for dinner. Have fun!

We just returned from a 12 day Med cruise followed by two days in Istanbul then two days in London. I tell you that because we at very well for 14 days before getting to London. We expected prices to be double the amount stated in pounds but were suprised to find that everything was so much more expensive than any port in the Mediteranian. We ate at McDonalds our first evening after long flight and train. Three cheeseburgers (just burger, not Big Macs) one fry, one water, and one med. shake cost us about $20.00. That set the tone for the rest of our stay. We were also unlucky enough to eat at Garfunkels for a cheeseburger, shephards pie and shake for about $44.00. The best deal in town was at Harrods where huge chocolate chip cookies were on 70p or $1.40 each. A bargain and great. Wished we bought more than two. London was worth it, but we were glad we only had two days at those prices.