41 Common Restaurant Phrases & Collocations | Advanced English Vocabulary

How often do you feel like the things that should be simple in English are

never really that simple. For example,

going to a coffee shop to order a coffee or going to a restaurant.

I know when I first moved abroad,

it was those everyday interactions that should be easy that

caused the most anxiety. When I would sit at a cafe to order lunch,

my face would flush or turn red and my hands got sweaty.

Does that ever happen to you? If you don't already know,

I'm Annemarie with Speak Confident English,

everything I do here is designed to help you get the confidence you want for

your life and work in English,

like going to a restaurant so that you no longer have to stress or feel

anxious about those simple everyday things. Instead,

you can just enjoy them.

And that is exactly the goal for today's Confident English lesson on 41

common phrases and collocations to use at a restaurant in English. Now,

if you're new to my Speak Confident English channel, first of all, welcome.

I love that you're here. And secondly,

that word collocations may be new to you.

So let's talk about it for a moment.

A collocation is a group of words that English speakers use together

naturally. Let me give you an example.

What do you say when you meet someone for the very first time in English?

You say, nice to meet you.

You don't say joy to meet you. Why not?

Joy to meet you has the same meaning as nice to meet you,

but it just doesn't sound right. It's not what we say.

Those words don't go together.

And that's exactly what a collocation is. By the end of this lesson today,

you'll have a variety of common phrases and collocations that English

speakers naturally use at restaurants so that you can do the same with

confidence.

[Inaudible].

All right. I hope that you have some paper and a pencil or pen ready for today

because we have a lot of phrases and collocations to learn in this lesson.

You'll learn what you need to successfully make a reservation,

greet others at a restaurant, inquire about the menu order,

what you want, express frustration, or make a complaint.

If you need to respond to the question, how is everything,

which you will hear a lot at a restaurant in English.

And finally what to say when you're ready to finish your meal and make the

payment.

So let's get started right away with that first step of asking for a table or

making a reservation. Of course, most of the time,

these days we do it online, which takes away that pressure and anxiety,

but there are still some restaurants that prefer or even require

reservations to be made by phone. So when that is your situation,

here are a few ways to make your reservation. First,

when you make that phone call, you can simply state your wish.

I'd like to book a table for three,

or I'd like to book a table for three people.

A common alternative is I would like to reserve a table for three

when making a reservation. If you want to make it just a bit more polite,

you could turn it into a polite request with may I book a table for

three,

or could I make a reservation for three in those last two examples,

did you notice that I used modals? I used may and could.

Modals are those words such as may, could, would, should,

and might when we use modals,

we automatically increase the level of formality and politeness in our

speech. After the reservation has been made,

and you first arrive at the restaurant,

you may wonder what exactly you should say after arriving and how

to ask about your reservation. And it's very simple. First,

we always start with a greeting because that is a form of politeness.

And then you can ask about the reservation. Here's how to do that. Hello?

I have a reservation under Annemarie Fowler, or hi,

I have a table booked under Annemarie Fowler.

Pay attention to the collocations I'm using here and the preposition under

to have a reservation under the name of Annemarie Fowler,

or to have a table booked under someone's name. Now,

if you arrive at a restaurant and you've not made a reservation in advance,

you can follow a similar structure, start with a greeting,

and then simply ask if there's a table available, for example. Hi,

do you have any tables free at the moment or hello,

are there any tables available for three right now?

Once you're at your table and start to review the menu,

you may have some questions you'd like to ask about the menu,

or you may even want to ask about some recommendations in this section.

We're also going to highlight some examples of contractions.

We use contractions are used in everyday conversation in English.

They make our speech sound more natural.

So I want you to pay attention to how I ask some of these questions and listen

carefully. For those examples of contractions. First,

let's look at three different ways.

We can ask for a recommendation or maybe find out what's popular at the

restaurant or whether they have any specials. Number one,

what are today's specials? What are today's specials?

Listen carefully to how I'm saying, what are today's specials?

What are, what are today's specials?

Do you notice that those two words, what are, are blended.

They're contracted. What are today's specials?

What are today's specials?

A second question you can ask is what do you recommend?

This is a perfect question to ask if the chef is particularly well known,

or if you want to discover something that this restaurant is well-known for.

And a third question you can ask to find out what's popular or recommended is,

do you have any house specials again?

How special is something that the chef or restaurant is particularly well known

for? In addition to asking for recommendations,

it's also very common to ask what is included with an item when you're ready to

order, for example,

does this burger come with a side of fries or does this salmon come with a side

of vegetables? Does this come with a salad on the side?

Anything that comes with the main item on the menu is considered a side

or a side dish. And of course, just like asking about a side dish,

you might also want to know how a particular dishes made or what

ingredients are in it. And you can ask in two simple ways,

first you could ask what's in, what's in the pasta salad,

what's in the salmon dish or option number two,

what's the lemon mousse made with. And notice again,

here that I'm using a contraction.

I'm not saying what is the lemon mousse made with?

I'm using what's what's the lemon mousse made with?

Once you've had all your questions answered, it's time to order,

and we have multiple ways to order from a restaurant in English in this

section. Again, I want you to pay attention to what you hear me say,

because again, I'll be using some contractions or examples of blended speech.

Here are four ways. English speakers,

often order at a restaurant first may have, uh, may I have a burger,

please listen carefully to how I say have, uh,

may have, uh, may have, uh, may have a burger. I'd like,

uh, I like, uh, I'd like a salad. I'll have, uh,

I'll have a salad. And could I get the, could I get the salmon?

If you're at a more casual restaurant you can also use, can I get, uh,

can I get a burger listen carefully to the pronunciation? Can I get, uh,

can I get a burger or I'll get,

I'll get the salmon when you're ordering.

You might also want something extra on the side.

We're going to go back to the same language we used.

When asking about what comes with an item, for example,

you might say I'd like the salmon with a salad on the side,

or I'd like a salad with the dressing on the side.

I'd like a burger with a side of fries.

And when you would like to order one thing in place of another,

or to substitute another, you can simply,

can I substitute a salad for the fries?

What you're asking is can I have a side salad instead of the fries?

Here's another example. Can I substitute a side of vegetables for the fries?

Here's another way to say it.

Can I substitute the fries with a side of vegetables? Again,

your preference is to have a side of vegetables. Okay.

So we've covered making a reservation, arriving at the restaurant,

inquiring about the menu and ordering.

There are just a few things left to cover.

We want to talk about expressing frustration or making a complaint.

If it's necessary, how to respond to the common question,

how is everything?

And then finally what to say when you're ready to finish the meal and make your

payment. So let's talk about what to say when things go wrong,

maybe your food arrives late, or it's not prepared the way you expected.

How do you express that frustration?

We're going to focus on two common scenarios. First, what to say,

when something isn't prepared, the way you expected,

and maybe you'd like to get it remade or order something else.

And the second scenario is what to say when you've been waiting an

extra long time for your food.

So first what to say and how to ask for something to be remade,

you can start with a simple and polite, excuse me. Excuse me.

This dish isn't prepared the way I expected it to be. Could I have it remade?

Or could I order something different when you use that request?

It's very likely that someone will ask you what exactly doesn't

meet your expectations.

So you want to be prepared to talk about the fact that maybe there's a spice in

the dish that you weren't prepared for,

or maybe the meal wasn't cooked the way you anticipated.

And it's just not what you want.

So you'd like to have it remade or order something different.

Here's another example, excuse me.

I asked for no cilantro in this dish, but there's a lot in my food.

Could I have it remade. And now scenario number two,

if you've been waiting a particularly long time for your food,

here's a very simple way to express that frustration and ask when you

can expect it to arrive, excuse me, we ordered our food sometime ago,

or we ordered our drinks sometime ago.

Will the food be much longer or will it be much longer?

Although it doesn't happen often from time to time,

you may wait so long for your food that you no longer have time to

stay at the restaurant and enjoy it.

Maybe you're just on a quick lunch break and you have a meeting to get to,

or maybe you're going to a movie after dinner. So you're pressed for time.

In that situation, you can ask for your food to go. For example,

excuse me. I'm running late. Have to get to a meeting.

Could I get my food to go instead?

Or could I get everything packaged to go instead?

And now let's move on to how to respond to the most common question.

You're going to hear at a restaurant and you will hear it multiple times at a

restaurant, particularly in the United States, you will hear how is everything,

how is everything you will hear at least two or three times throughout your

meal? And when you do, here's what you can say.

Everything's delicious. Thank you. Everything's great. Thanks.

We're enjoying our meal. Thank you. It's great. Thanks. Now,

in addition to hearing,

how is everything you might also hear how's everything tasting or are

you happy with your meal?

You might also wonder why you'll hear this question so many times. And for us,

it's simply a form of politeness at a restaurant.

They want to make sure that you're satisfied and they will ask you multiple

times to make sure that you are, when you hear those questions.

There are also opportune moments to request something else.

Maybe you'd like a substitute or something on the side.

Maybe you'd like another drink. Those are perfect opportunities to ask for that.

And finally,

to finish our lesson on 41 common phrases and collocations to use

at a restaurant in English.

Let's talk about what to say when you've finished your meal and you're ready to

pay first. If you're in the United States,

it's very likely that you will not be able to finish all

of your dinner or your lunch. The portions here are particularly large.

So you might want to ask for something to go.

If you can't eat everything,

you'll have some leftovers and you can ask,

could I box up the leftovers or could I get the rest to go?

And when you're ready to pay, you can ask, may I get the check please?

Or may I get the bill, please? Could we get the check?

Please notice I'm going back to using those modals may and

could to make a polite request.

If you're having lunch or dinner with multiple people,

and everyone wants to pay separately. When you're asking for the check,

you could also ask for it to be made separate. For example,

we'd like separate bills please.

Or could we get separate checks and a more casual way to ask this

is, could we split the check? Could we split the bill?

And lastly, once you've paid the bill, if you do it by credit or debit card,

you can easily include the tip on the receipt,

sign your name and you're finished. However, if you pay with cash,

you can leave money on the table and to let the staff know that it's a

tip, you can simply say, keep the change. And with that,

you have everything you need to know to successfully go to a restaurant and

order in English without any anxiety or fear.

I absolutely recommend that you select a few key phrases that are most

useful to you and practice saying them multiple times.

If you've been following me for awhile, you know,

that the key to remembering vocabulary and feeling

comfortable with it is repetitive practice.

So let's talk a little bit about some of the key phrases that you want to

remember. I have a couple of challenge questions for you. Number one,

is there a new phrase or collocation that you've learned today in this lesson

that you've never heard before? Or maybe you have heard it,

but you were never really sure what it meant or how it was used. If so,

I would love to hear about it and I'd like you to use it in an example sentence,

you can share your sentence with me in the comments below. Number two,

are there other phrases or collocations you've heard before for

ordering at a restaurant or going to a coffee shop that you're curious about?

If you'd like to ask me a question,

you can always do that in the comment section below.

If this lesson today was helpful to you, I would love to know.

And you can tell me in one very simple way,

simply give it a thumbs up here on YouTube. And while you're at it,

make sure that you subscribe to the Speak Confident English channel.

So you never miss one of my Confident English lessons.

Thank you so much for joining me. And I look forward to seeing you next time.