London and Paris Dinners

[Ringo73]

Long-time listener, first time caller. For our upcoming London/Paris trip I had a few questions about our free nights in London and Paris:

1. Is it recommended we have dinner reservations made in advance of the trip?
2. What are your restaurant recommendations for a family of 4 in London and Paris? We have two fairly adventurous sons when it comes to trying new foods.

Thank you!

 

[Woodview]

Question ( 1 ) No

Question ( 2 ) There are Thousands of eating places in both London & Paris

So any recommendations would be a waste of time .

Best bet is to find your hotel on google earth or google maps & then find eating places near by.

Best bet of all is to have Dinner in the hotel that you are staying in .

 

[sayhello]

Question ( 1 ) No

Have you ever taken the London/Paris ABD? How would you know whether it's a good idea during the ABD or not?

Sayhello

 

[sayhello]

Long-time listener, first time caller. For our upcoming London/Paris trip I had a few questions about our free nights in London and Paris:

1. Is it recommended we have dinner reservations made in advance of the trip?
2. What are your restaurant recommendations for a family of 4 in London and Paris? We have two fairly adventurous sons when it comes to trying new foods.

Thank you!

It's really hard to know about reservations. If there's somewhere you *really* want to go, then I'd say go for it, as long as it's not a reservation you'd have to pay for if for some reason you end up having to miss it. You can try calling ABD to see if they have an idea of what time your OYO meals would be. Otherwise, you can rely on the Adventure Guides to give you great suggestions on places to go for any of the OYO meals.

I don't know if you're familiar with Nando's Peri Peri, but it's an excellent place for a more casual dinner (no reservation required). It's South African flame-grilled chicken, served with your choice of amazing sauces and an interesting variety of sides. VERY addictive! They are all over London. There are a few here in the States, but none anywhere near where I am. I highly recommend it!

https://www.nandos.co.uk/

Sayhello

 

[Rapunzellover]

Question ( 1 ) No

Question ( 2 ) There are Thousands of eating places in both London & Paris

So any recommendations would be a waste of time .

Best bet is to find your hotel on google earth or google maps & then find eating places near by.

Best bet of all is to have Dinner in the hotel that you are staying in .

You will eat at the hotels for meals as a group, so you won't want to follow this last piece of advice. The hotel restaurants are kinda meh anyhow, and overpriced.

There's lots of great places near both the Landmark and Hilton Paris Opera. Most of these won't necessitate ressies, but you might have to wait, depending. The Paris Opera is near Galleries Layfeyette, a huge mall with lots of easy food options. If you are planning dinner at a special place, get ressies. And if you are going at any special time, get ressies for any place you absolutely want to go to.

Tea or something special would necesaitate ressies also.

Just came back from a NOLA trip over Easter where I wouldn't have eaten any place I wanted to without ressies. So I'd say it doesn't hurt. Most open table ressies can be canceled anytime anyway, so unless you're penalized for no showing or canceling, it doesn't hurt to plan ahead and you can change it.

 

[aggiedog]

When traveling, we frequently ask the hotel front desk, or concierge, where they recommend near by, and ask them to make reservations for us. I've not had a bad meal yet using this method.

 

[BadPinkTink]

I used to live in London. London is very multi cultural and has a huge range of food options.

The hotel you are staying at, while convenient, will most likely serve European / UK style mid range or fine dining. While this is fine for many people, it could be over priced and have a limited choice in foo style.

The first thing you need to decide is to you want to stay within walking distance of your hotel or are you comfortable taking public transport or a black cab.

Staying walking distance will limit your choice while taking public transport or a black cab will really open up so many possibilities.

If you are staying walking distance, open Google Maps and see whats available.

If you are taking public transport or a black cab, then you need to decide on food style and budget.

London has some amazing food choices, but you will have to travel to various areas. There are food markets, various types of ethnic cuisine from Chinese and Eastern to Indian and Caribbean / African. Theres a huge amount of fine dining, mid range and street food. Theres the chains like Nandos, Hard Rock Cafe, and European style chains , theres independent restaurants.

 

[pjacobi]

Nothing could be more British than popping into your local Pub and ordering the fish and chips with mushy peas and a pint of London Pride! The right Pub is the place where you're the only American.


-Paul

 

[Woodview]

Have you ever taken the London/Paris ABD? How would you know whether it's a good idea during the ABD or not?

Sayhello

With over 45 years of travelling over Europe & staying in many hotels & campsites I should know
a thing or two about how things work / happen in both London & Paris

Travelling from Cork ( Ireland ) by car Ferry , in my own car ( with steering wheel on the Right hand side

, with 4 children & wife , & Towing a Fold up tent

Their Favorite Theme Parks then were De Efteling & Toverland & Kalkar & then Parc Astrix & Disneyland Paris

Now we fly from Ireland to Europe & Hire a car & stay in Hotels

Also for 20 years we visited Florida ( Had a Home There ) & Also Seattle & into Canada ( Vancouver

So when person asks for advice I try to give them good advice from a European person

 

[sayhello]

With over 45 years of travelling over Europe & staying in many hotels & campsites I should know
a thing or two about how things work / happen in both London & Paris

Travelling from Cork ( Ireland ) by car Ferry , in my own car ( with steering wheel on the Right hand side

, with 4 children & wife , & Towing a Fold up tent

Their Favorite Theme Parks then were De Efteling & Toverland & Kalkar & then Parc Astrix & Disneyland Paris

Now we fly from Ireland to Europe & Hire a car & stay in Hotels

Also for 20 years we visited Florida ( Had a Home There ) & Also Seattle & into Canada ( Vancouver

So when person asks for advice I try to give them good advice from a European person

You didn't say that. You answered her question about the London/Paris ABD as if you had knowledge of the London/Paris ABD. If you are not actually answering the question that is being asked, then you need to specify that.

Sayhello

 

[SirDuff]

You didn't say that. You answered her question about the London/Paris ABD as if you had knowledge of the London/Paris ABD. If you are not actually answering the question that is being asked, then you need to specify that.

Sayhello

I don’t actually agree with the PP’s advice (with few exceptions, I‘d never suggest that the best option is the hotel restaurant) but the question is about restaurants during free times. This is general Paris/London activities, not sure how experience on the London/Paris ABD tour changes things (with the exception if the PP had suggested a restaurant that the tour goes to).

Many questions do require specific knowledge of the tour, but I don’t see how this one does.

 

[Woodview]

ou didn't say that. You answered her question about the London/Paris ABD as if you had knowledge of the London/Paris ABD. If you are not actually answering the question that is being asked, then you need to specify that.

Sayhello

In Post 1 there is no mention of ABD

 

[teruterubouzu]

This advice isn't ABD-specific, but I find the Eater maps to be really helpful when I'm looking for interesting restaurants in a city that isn't familiar to me.

https://london.eater.com/maps

They don't have a full fledged site for Paris, but they do have a guide.

https://www.eater.com/2016/10/19/13237044/the-eater-guide-to-paris

I hope you have a great trip!

 

[hilarys]

This is a great question - because of how the ABDs run you really don't have the same flexibility to make your own plans even during on your own time - you should always build in some flexibility. We did this tour back in 2017 so my info is not recent but speaks to how the ABD runs. In London I would not worry about making any reservations for the on your own evening because the timing can really very. We got back into the City very late as the bus was stuck in traffic. We had not made a dinner reservation, but would likely have had to change them around if we did. There was one family that had booked the theater for that night and it was really tight for them. The guides and hotel concierge were both good sources of options for places to go that would not need reservations - both close by or withing a Tube/tax ride depending on what you are looking for. In Paris we wanted to plan a dinner with a former work colleague which would require a reservation. We planned it for the day when we had the entire afternoon and evening free so that traffic delays etc (we had the schedule thrown off on our Versailles day as well due to traffic) would not impact it. On top of that I checked in with our guides the day before to make sure they did not think there would be conflicts.

The hotel in Paris for the ABD is definitely not one that I would recommend eating at - nothing special. We did enjoy the London hotel restaurant including having high tea there on our pre-trip afternoon.

Pre and post days I would definitely look into making plans ahead of time or just ask the concierge for tips.

This was a really fun trip with lots of great stops - enjoy!

 

[sayhello]

I don’t actually agree with the PP’s advice (with few exceptions, I‘d never suggest that the best option is the hotel restaurant) but the question is about restaurants during free times. This is general Paris/London activities, not sure how experience on the London/Paris ABD tour changes things (with the exception if the PP had suggested a restaurant that the tour goes to).

Many questions do require specific knowledge of the tour, but I don’t see how this one does.

I had a whole reply I was working on, but then @hilarys posted, and I suggest you look at her post for the answer to your question.

Sayhello

 

[Grifdog22]

Just back from this ABD trip. Many places in both countries remain closed, and others are reopening. Time for things is not as it seems - which is why they will not give you a lot of information on when you are "free." We found the ABD guides to have some very limited recommendations for eating, and the few reservations we had we cancelled as we either would not be back in time or we were back much earlier. Our hotel was the intercontinental which is very convenient to many places to eat - our favorite was not on the recommended list - the Rose and Crown pub about a block from the hotel. We very comfortably rode the tube throughout London - so we could feed the birds on the steps of St. Paul, visit the muffin shop on Drury Lane, and have tea (must bring with you) at a fountain in Regent's Park.

I will say the food on this trip was fantastic. The best meals were the ones that were on the "substituted" agenda - but in Paris we found ourselves skipping our OYO time just to further explore the food in the city. We were set free in the Latin quarter, where we did not want to leave. Walking by the places, reviewing the menus, etc. was a great deal of fun.

 

[jimmymc]

You don't need a reservation to eat well in those cities, but in Paris especially it might help. At nicer restaurants in France, they open for dinner at 7, tables will be filled by 7:15, and that is the one seating of the night.

I haven't had the best luck with food in London, so no specific recommendations. Go to a pub at least once. In Paris, I would recommend going to the 2nd Arr., which is the district just north of the Louvre. There are hundreds of smaller restaurants, lounges, and tapas bars that you can usually walk in, and they have all kinds of food from around the world. For more traditional French food, a decent place is La Stella on Ave. Victor Hugo. Maybe avoid it if you don't like fish, since their specialty is cold seafood towers. But they also have some classics like steak and pork.

Paris has been the opposite of London; every random restaurant I've tried was great. If it's not a chain, you'll probably have a good meal. Tripadvisor is my preferred site for reviews.