Longer stay in Europe-Eating out

Not a specific answer in terms of euros, but one way to reduce the amount spent eating out is to have your main meal in the early afternoon since lunches are usually less than dinners. And loading up at breakfast also helps.

That’s what we do Tammy, we eat a protein heavy breakfast then eat our main meal around 3-4:00. If we are having a special dinner, such as one with a show (fado in Lisbon), we will have a snack for lunch. Maybe gelato or share some street food.
If our hotel room has a refrigerator, we will buy yogurt and maybe cheese or something at the supermarket and have a very light dinner many days. We try not to eat out everyday on a longer trip.
I bring 2 travel sets of cutlery and some paper plates/napkins for these impromptu meals. It worked really well for us when we spent 12 days in Paris.
Maybe someone who has been on a trip as long as yours has better ideas. The longest trip we took before this one (2 months) was 6 weeks.
The only city we ever stayed in without a fridge in the room was London, and we stayed in 2 different Hilton’s. I was surprised.

The longest I've been has been 6 weeks also. I eat heavy at breakfast, especially if it's at the hotel, then might get a small pastry or snack late morning or early afternoon, then have a heavier meal around 4-6 pm. And I usually don't have a fridge although even when I do, I don't cook. I get takeaway or cheese or something like that to keep for quick meals. I do like to cook, just not on vacation. :-)

But there are times when I do want to go out for a nice dinner, so the above could change. For just me, I would say I average $50-60 a day; sometimes less and sometimes more.

I budget about $50/day for food. I'm not a foodie and don't care for fancy restaurants. This budget has worked well for me, even without an included breakfast (although that really helps lower costs even more).

Better than nothing is the Big Mac index. Not that you have to eat Big Mac but I suspect that there is some coorelation to eating in general. https://www.statista.com/statistics/274326/big-mac-index-global-prices-for-a-big-mac/

For instance if the number for the US is $5.69 and not eating Big Macs you might expect to pay twice that much, $11.38 then in Hungary where the index is $3.9 lunch might cost you $7.80 (outside the tourist zones).

Okay sort of a nutty way of figuring it, but your list goes from relatively cheap places like Hungary and Greece to moderate places like Czech Republic to somewhat expensive places like Austria so there is no one answer.

Here is another source and before someone screams the data is too slight, checking it against my hometown in Europe vs my home town in Texas, its not far off. For an order of magnatude, its not bad. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Hungary&city1=San+Antonio%2C+TX&city2=Budapest&tracking=getDispatchComparison

But the truth is you get to choose what you pay by what and where you eat. In Austria get out of the tourist areas and eat pizza. Make up for it with better meals in Athens and Budapest. Istanbul is fairly cheap too if you get out of the tourist spots.

I am terrible. I have basically quit budgeting food. I did for years and figured €30/day but that is not enough any more.

Like others, I either eat breakfast at my hotel or get stuff for breakfast. Coffee alone could kill a budget at a restaurant. Then I normally eat one meal a day somewhere (usually on the early side but not always).

I’d say my budget averages $50/day. Sometimes that is split between 2 meals and sometimes it’s a nice meal for my only meal out.

Unlike you, with longer stays I really prefer an apartment. I can bring home leftovers and have them later or have soup warmed up in the microwave - or cake. Ha! Plus space.

And with long trips (this one is 6 weeks and my last was 8 weeks), even though I really dislike cooking (home or travel), sometimes I am tired or just tired of restaurants and will eat from a grocery store. That’s when it’s nice to have a small kitchen facility and snacking stuff.

In France, Austria and Germany the topic of eating can be dealt with in numerous ways.

There are lots of markets of varying kinds, and numerous ethnic eateries, which I decided to try this time, staying 79 consecutive days in Schengen, especially the Turkish doner places, ie, for semi-fast food, lots of North African eateries in France with decent prices and portions and , especially in France and Germany this time over last summer more Japanese eateries of various types.

If you want fast food at times, there are the local fast food chains so Burger King and McD can be avoided, should that be your choice, also Asian fast food places.

I always take breakfast in the hotel, sometimes it's better relative to price value than in other hotels of the same rating, 2-3 star.

2 of you ? My wife and I probably averaged $50 per day total on our 2 week trip in Germany last fall. Where we didn’t have the breakfast included we were in an apartment and had cereal and eggs for breakfast.

I have to admit I don't budget for this item. I just spend what I need to spend. That said, it is usually a simple breakfast at a hotel,
lunch is a sandwich or similar from a corner market, and a modest dinner. Sitting in restaurants isn't an important part of the trip for me. I think I usually spend less than $30/ day. At the other end of the spectrum, I think foodies who also love a nice drink might want to budget $75 per person per day. More if we are talking Switzerland or Norway, less is Italy.

The amount you can spend on eating out varies so much depending on the quality of restaurant and location that it’s more helpful to have a budget in mind and then cut your cloth accordingly. That way you can have some nicer meals and some quicker, more basic ones to balance your overall budget. There isn’t one amount that will be right. If I’m on a typical holiday I want to eat nice food every night, but when I’ve done longer trips it becomes a bit tiresome to sit in a restaurant every evening and sometimes I’ll just have a sandwich or snack on the go.

Saying that, I don’t think you’ll be able to do it for less than €100 a day for 2 people which is over €10,000 for the trip you have planned on food alone.

100 euro in Budapest would feed 2 people 2 meals very well. 70 euro would work if you stay off the tourist path and eat what the locals eat.

Below is a moderate (not cheap) local way of eating in Budapest for which there are literally hundreds of similar options. This one works out to about $60 plus tip and service charges so let’s say $67, which is about 61 euro. That means with a 70 euro budget, on the second day you can spend 79 euro and kick it up a notch and still be doing about 70 euro a day. Do two more moderate days and the third day can be 4 or 5 star.

Lunch at Pizza Me for two is about $25
45 cm pizza for two is about $20.
Soft drinks are about $5.

Dinner at Lecsó Magyaros Étterem for two (a fine local place introduced to me by a very nice RS couple) is about $35
Bakony pork loin wild mushrooms in paprika sauce, with sour cream is about $12
Venison stew with blueberry jam is about $12
Couple of side dishes is about $5
Two local beers are about $6

I like dishes I wouldn't bother to prepare at home but don't care about fancy service or surroundings, and my beverage of choice is water (almost never free in Europe). On my current trip I've been to Budapest, Vienna, Milan and Venice (as well as other smaller places), and my average dinner has probably cost roughly $35. Budapest has better-priced, interesting options than the other cities I mentioned. By planning more of your special meals in places like Budapest and Istanbul you can lower your costs a bit.

It is true that having your main meal at lunch also often saves money.

I wouldn't want to have two real restaurant meals on the same day. That would be too much food, and many perfectly decent European restaurants aren't air conditioned. On a hot day, eating something casual in my air-conditioned hotel room is more attractive than sweating out a 90+ minute meal in a sweltering restaurant. (The local smokers congregate at the outdoor tables.)

Be aware of local cover-charge policies. I'm paying cover charges between €2.50 and €4.00 in Italy this year. Between the cover charge and the cost of water, I'm spending about €7 before I order any food. By far the easiest way to save money on food is to step into a restaurant only once a day.

Hotels charge a pretty penny for breakfast. I opt out if doing so saves much money, which it usually does.

Thank you all for the replies. I like the idea of having a big breakfast and then a later lunch/early dinner with maybe a snack in between. Also, picnics for dinner.

We keep our food budget down by buying take away items from local grocery stores. This can be a picnic lunch on the go or a evening feast in the room. There are lots of options - salads, sandwiches, sushi, bowls, pasta, tapas. We each have a set of reusable plastic utensils that have their own little cases. We also have collapsible cups, which are great when enjoying a bottle of wine.

More often than not, we don't get breakfast included at our hotel. There is usually a kettle or coffee machine in the room, so the beverage part is taken care of. The day before, we pick up pastries or yogurt. (If our room doesn't have a fridge, we ask reception to keep the yogurt in their fridge, or we request a bucket of ice to stick it in.) Sometimes, we'll buy a loaf of bread and dip slices in olive oil. (My husband loves his EVOO, so we always buy a bottle at the start of each trip.) We stay stocked up with fruit and nuts to fill out the rest of breakfast.

In Turkey (including Istanbul) there are small, casual restaurants called "lokanta" which traditionally serve warm, home-cooked meals inexpensively for local workers. (The "milk bar" in Poland is a similar concept.)

It's hard to search for these because they may not have "lokanta" in the name. I happened on the "Ilkbahar Izgara" lokanta in a non-descript alley near my Istanbul hotel. It didn't look like much, but the tables in the alley were filled with locals. You can point and choose your items from the hot glass case and they bring it to your table.

My lunch of Kofte (Turkish meatballs) with 3 sides and a coke was 230 TL / $6.77.

There was a high end version in the same neighborhood called "Karaköy Lokantası." And Michelin lists one called "Lokanta 1741" which "serves Turkish culinary classics, some dating back to 1741, with a modern twist." So don't be fooled by the name.

You'll usually recognize them by a very small storefront with a window that looks in to a server behind the glass case of hot items.

Similar lunches at a normal restaurant in a tourist area cost me $15-$18.