TravelingNomads

When you are in Edinburgh, walk toward the direction of Leith. About halfway there, you'll come across a movie theater that has a few restaurants on the bottom floor. There's one there that was very inexpensive and the food is fine. I think it was the first one. As others have mentioned, we found the food to be very inexpensive throughout Ireland and the UK. They set up fresh vegetable/fruit stands in different locations and there were several convenience stores and grocery stores that had pre-made food for only 2-3 pounds/euros. The food tastes so much better there imo. Even something as simple as a tomato or butter tastes very different. If you're looking to budget, just make sure that you are bringing all of the electronics (converters, chargers, etc.) that you'll possibly need. Also, try to use a CC that doesn't charge international fees vs your bank account which will likely charge you a fee.

VivoPerLei

+1

M&S and Waitrose both have excellent fresh sandwiches and prepared meals. In fact, our local branches will often mark the sandwiches down considerably if it is getting late in the afternoon. If the OP has a microwave in his room the frozen ready meals are good value also.

Can also recommend restaurants if given an area and a budget

Analise

I switch between M&S for the quick sandwich/drink lunch and Sainsbury which is often less expensive than M&S.

I budget £35/day not including breakfast which is included with my hotel. £4-5 for lunch, £20-25 for dinner and the rest for tea/coffee/snack during the day.

VivoPerLei

Depending on where someone is staying in London, I often recommend opting out of the (usually) overpriced hotel breakfast. One can often walk out of their hotel and find a plethora of places nearby offering breakfast for £6 or so, saving £9 to £10 on the hotel's price.

By opting out, I mean selecting the unbundled (without breakfast) option at time of reservation, if offered.

CDTraveler

We just came back from 15 days in the UK and I have to strongly disagree with the above statement.

Outside London most food costs were close to what I'd pay in the US.

In London, meals (except for grocery take-aways) were usually 50% more than what I pay in Philadelphia or DC, sometimes approaching double, and that's not fancy restaurants.

For a casual lunch or dinner, compare Nando's Peri-peri Chicken. Their prices:Locally we go to a place that serves a comparable chicken dish with 2 sides for $9 - less than the UK price for the chicken without sides.

You might not think much of Nando's as fine food, but there's a lot of them, making it a convenient choice for visitors, and it's good about handling allergies.

For a visitor, it's challenging to select a pub for one of the much vaunted "pub meals" - some of them literally reek of stale beer as you walk past, which isn't appealing, at least to us.

Beverages are far costlier/ounce in the UK. If we ordered a soda in a restaurant, what we usually got was a slim glass with entirely too much ice and maybe 6 ounces of soda for £2.50 to £3.50 (about $3.25 to $4.50).

Order water with a meal, and unless you clearly specify tap water, it will appear on the bill, often between £2 and £4. Never seen that stunt in the US - if you want specialty water, you have to ask for it, it isn't assumed and charged to the bill without your consent.

Simple tapas meal in London: £80 for 2.

A Sunday roast lunch in London cost about £90/$118 for 2, before leaving a tip, and no beverages. Sunday buffet brunch in this area, *** or maybe **** place, no more than $35 pp.

A much simpler Sunday roast lunch in York cost £9.95 pp and was quite decent for the price.

Manchester: a pizza lunch was also pricier than the US version, and portions enter into it again. Rather than ordering the pizza by size, it came single portion sized, at between £8 and £12 per pizza. In the Philly area, I'd pay about $15 for a pizza big enough for 2 people.

One bargain option we liked from the market take-away departments were the salads. Several times we picked up nice ready-made salads which included greens, veg and a protein, for a change from all the starch served at breakfast.

lhrsfo

I wonder to what extent this is a case of tourists not really knowing where to go whereas locals know where to go.

Here are some hard numbers. Typical good meal in London comes to circa £50-60 per head incl half a bottle of wine, tax and service. This would be well over $100 per head in the Bay Area. Typical main courses there are $35, excluding tax and service (so add 30% to that). In London they are typically £25 including tax but excluding service (so add 12.5% to that). A bottle of house wine in London is about £20 with the same additions versus around $40 in SF.

When it comes to ready meals to be microwaved in a hotel room, the price differences are less stark but still exist. All the major supermarkets in the UK will have a huge range, varying from ultra cheap to very fancy, whereas the US supermarkets have only a handful of choices. One choice that is absolutely in common is Chicken Tikka Masala. Trader Joe's in the Bay Area charges $5.95 (not sure if tax is added). In a UK supermarket this will be about £3.50.

I cannot speak for Philadelphia but London is massively cheaper than the Bay Area and NYC - perhaps more equivalent locations.

beachmouse

If you're a Starbucks person, you can use the USA app to pay for purchases in most UK locations at a non-horrible exchange rate. (I usually have something of a balance on mine from assorted Get Paid to programs like Swagbucks)

Yes, I feel vaguely guilty for not hitting something like a Costa and going with the American chain borg, but when the Starbucks was effectively free...

Gets you breakfast or a tea and cake break after the first 8 miles of walking during the day.

CDTraveler

Exactly, and as a Bay Area native, I say that, with the exception of SF, $100 per head for a meal in the Bay Area is a clear case of not knowing where to go. I'm in Pennsylvania now, but still go home often enough to know.

They're not hard numbers without a source, they're speculation, but whatever...

I have recent receipts showing my costs.

I was commissioned to write an article about food issues in UK during this trip, so I spent quite a lot time in grocery stores comparing products, nutrients, allergens and prices and attended an industry trade show. Have you done any of that lately? If you want to compare suburb/second tier city prices to their like, food costs are close. It's harder to compare London prices for a wide variety of foods because many parts of London border on "food desert" status by being reliant on small markets with limited choice of goods making a full comparison difficult, unless you want to include stores with a full range of goods, like Harrods and their prices? The vast majority of Londoners are not shopping in supermarkets with a full range of products and price points.

Not being a consumer of microwave meals, I don't have receipts showing their cost (one reason I don't consume them is the excessively high sodium levels in UK foods, but that is for another thread...) so can not comment your claim of Chicken Tikka Masala being priced at £3.50 vs. TJ's $5.95, assuming your comparison is for like sized portions?

But that comparison isn't relevant for the millions of Americans who don't live/work/dine in those 2 cities. Aren't Tokyo and Zurich more expensive, too?

OP asked for a daily food budget for London. Sans alcohol, I would put it at minimum of £50 per person for dine in restaurants, not including breakfast, and possibly much more if you purchase alcohol.

Analise

I'm not paying for an overpriced hotel breakfast. My next trip is in 3 months and I'm paying £75/night for 5 nights including breakfast. Room alone was £70/night.

Ldnn1

I don't understand this. In London the vast majority of people shop in branded supermarkets or mini-supermarkets like Tesco Express/Metro, Sainsbury's/Sainsbury's Local, Co-op, Waitrose and increasingly Lidl. There are very few areas not within walking distance of at least one of those shops.

It's true that Tesco Express size stores don't have a 'full range', but they certainly have enough to do a very meaningful comparison of the cost of a range of daily foods.

And re Harrods, why would you suggest the need to include that when there is a proper Waitrose (along with a couple of Little Waitrose) right around the corner from it? That would be the far more sensible local comparator. Although there are no doubt plenty of Knightsbridge non-doms who think Harrods is a normal/the only place to shop.

VivoPerLei

That's a deal

User Name

I'm sorry - and I don't mean to be rude - but for the sake of the OP I'm going to have to say that your figure is utter tosh.

As has been said, you can spend as much as you like on food depending on the restaurants you choose, but it really isn't difficult for even a first-time visitor to comfortably get by on half of that (or less, at a push) without resorting to supermarket food for dinner.

Breakfast is included so no need to worry about that. Eat like a Londoner and have a sandwich and a bag of crisps (or even cheap takeaway sushi) for lunch at GBP 5-7, and then it really isn't difficult to find a nice non-extravagant sit-down dinner, minus alcohol, for GBP 18-20.

I'm a former Londoner who moved to the US 12 years ago and who visits London for work 6-8 times per year for a week each time. (I also approve expenses for several US employees to also regularly travel to London).

gkrnjlr

Yes, please recommend some restaurants! We're staying in the Southwark area.

Thanks!

lhrsfo

I'm sorry, but I think this is tosh. First off, recent receipts: would last night at Tangerine Dream at the Chelsea Physic Garden do? £55 per head for three courses plus half a bottle each, including service. Or last week at Chicama? £48 per head including service and half a bottle. Less recent in the Bay Area - I have to go back to last month. Nopa in SF came in at $95 for two courses and half a bottle, including service. Revelry in SF came in at $110 for two courses plus half a bottle, including service. And I could go on. The point is that these are all upper mid-market restaurants with similar standards of cuisine and the prices in the Bay Area are significantly higher. None of them are particularly touristy. Perhaps you don't realise that prices in the USA are quoted excluding a whole range of compulsory and semi-compulsory extra charges (tax, local health surcharges, 20% service etc.), whereas in the UK you only should add 12.5% service.

As to the London being a food desert, that's one of the most ridiculous comments I have ever read. Independent retailers (of the old, downmarket, variety at least) are almost gone nowadays, driven by the inexorable rise of the supermarkets and their Metro or Express versions. The only sector that is thriving are extremely upmarket specialty shops (Harrods is a very inferior version of such, only frequented by tourists). The vast majority of Londoners shop in one of the main supermarkets or its mini-chains. Their penetration is on a different scale from that in SF or NYC. And, if you are talking food costs in supermarkets, they are pretty well identical in and out of London. I also am not a fan of ready meals, but they can be the only choice if staying in a hotel and not wanting a restaurant meal, hence their pricing is relevant.

As to the millions of Americans who don't live in SF or NYC, I don't see the point of your statement. The OP was asking about eating out in London - the response given was that it was cheaper by and large than in the USA and 30-50% cheaper than in NYC or SF. And I cannot see how Zurich or Tokyo are relevant as the OP was not asking about them.

Finally, as to the continued references to portion sizes, I fail to see the relevance. IME, the portion sizes in the USA are gargantuan, far more than one person could or should eat. So it's wasted and thrown away. The portion sizes in the UK are large but at least manageable, so less is wasted and thrown away. But that's irrelevant when looking at the price of a meal in a restaurant.

User Name

If you're in Southwark then head nearby to the London Bridge area. The market, open in daytime, has some excellent artisan food stalls at reasonable prices. There are also some nice pubs and restaurants clustered nearby that you can browse around (day or night) - quite atmospheric too. Walkable - or a short bus ride - is the area around Liverpool St, which has also seen a renaissance in terms of hip bars and eateries. Look for Old Spitalfields Market (also good during evenings), Old Truman Brewery (not a brewery anymore but an arts and food space), Brick Lane (for superb cheap Indian food), also the lower portion of Bethnal Green Road and the funky Boxpark Shoreditch with lots of food places set in a place made out of stacked up shipping containers. All those places are a few minutes walk from one another. A really great London experience at prices often lower than the budget I quoted in my earlier post. Have a gander at Google Maps to get your bearings.