Group Meals

For an easy on-the-go meal in Amsterdam, take them to a frituur. Go with the delicious pindasaus (peanut sauce) on the fries.

You had best take them to buffet type restaurants, it seems to me. Why not just google same for each city. In Paris and London, much depends on where you will be staying, since they are such large cities. parisbymouth.com might be helpful for Paris. I would not want to be in the same restaurant as you when you arrive with 20 students.

You might also want to ask your question on the TripAdvisor.com travel forums http://www.tripadvisor.com/ForumHome - specifically the forum for each of those cities. I believe this issue has been raised and discussed on the London Forum and I expect that's also true of the forums for the other 3 cities.

I was hoping for some helpful input.

Wagamama in London is our favorite for low-cost tasty dinners. But finding seating for 20 at once could be tricky.

Buffet style meals are not common in France, you will struggle to find buffets in Paris, and smaller places will not be able to accomadate 20 of you at once .. so suggest you now look at a few chains, some are quite reasonalbe, decent type food.. Hippomutous, Leon Bruxelles are two that will likely work. I also suggest you focus on some picnic lunches, you and kids pick up sandwich and drinks at a place like Pauls and head to a park to eat.. its a very local authentic thing to do so its not just about being cheap or accomadating your larger group. You can google for all the locations on those places , mark them on your map,then coordinate they will the areas you will siteseeing in each day. Good luck,I know I sure as ehll would take 20 kids anywhere i didn't know like the back of my hand.

I think I agree with Michael. Less than 90 days out and don't know where the group is going to eat. I would worry a little bit about the over all planning. But on the other hand, this is now Steves got started so maybe the next generation is being groomed.

We've taken 40+ university students to dinner in all of these cities and found that emailing the restaurants in advance for a reservation worked very well. We reserved some restaurants months in advance and some we booked a few weeks out. In London we stayed in the Bloomsbury area and went to My Old Dutch and Wagamamas. In Paris we've been to Nos Ancetres Les Gaulois. In Amsterdam we had dinner at Die Port van Cleve restaurant, check out the beautiful bar next door. In Salzburg we had dinner at St Peter Stiftskeller. Most of the time we worked off of a set menu that fit our budget. We traveled for 4 months at a time and usually the students could have their own food experiences but sometimes we booked group dinners.

The Printemps department store in Paris has a buffet restaurant. It is always very busy so the students would have to sit wherever they can find a free place, i.e., probably not together.

Stanley The restaurant search pages on Trip Advisor let you search by $$$, area and there is an option for large groups. I would spend some time there for each city - these kids should be able to have a regular restaurant experience in their travels and not relegated to fast food. I did a quick search for Paris and came up with 24 that can do large groups in the 2 lower price ranges. Have a ball!

I should clarify from my earlier post. We had reservations at all of the mentioned restaurants except Wagamamas. I doubt that they take reservations and it doesn't lend itself to conversing at a group dinner with long bench style seating. However our students LOVED Wagamamas and ate there every chance they had. There are several locations in London and there is also one in Amsterdam.

In London, 1) the previously mentioned Wagamamas (noodles). They do take group bookings. Wagamama 2) Belgo Centraal near Covent Garden takes large groups. Belgo Centraal 3) Browns Restaurant takes groups. It is a chain ... brasserie style Browns 4) Masala Zone - They take group resevations by phone. It is a chain (Indian) with reasonably priced food. Masala Zone There are many other places that will take a group reservation. You might try checking timeout.com for restaurants. In Amsterdam, you may want to look for an Indonesian restaurant that does a rijsttafel ... good for groups.

Paris: try Restaurant Bouillon Chartier in the middle of Paris, a huge, historic dining hall. You can still see the little boxes on the wall where the regulars used to store their reusable cloth napkins. Restaurant Le Commerce is the same type but in the 15th. The old restaurant Polidor is fun, has a toilet the students won't forget and was in Midnight in Paris. They have a back room which accommodates groups. Brasserie l'Europeen across from Gare de Lyon. You don't have to resort to chains (those first two are probably owned by stockholders by now), but can find some traditional restaurants. Good luck.

Hi, Another possibility as regards to going to buffet type meals in London, try London Chinatown. I saw that type of buffet at various prices.

In London I recommend Pizza Express. Inexpensive but good. They have locations all over London, and you can eat in or get several pizzas to go. (They call it "take away".) I'd buy several pizzas and head for the nearest park for a sit on the grass picnic. Not fancy, but I bet they will enjoy it. You can enjoy the scenery and people watching while you eat.

I appreciate all the comments
We'll be staying just off Warwick Way near Victoria station.

Stanley, how old are the students?

Perhaps if you emailed or called the hotels in which you are staying in those countries, they could make suggestions for restaurants close to the hotel that would accomodate your group. I have always found the front desk of hotels to be very helpgul in suggesting restaurants and securing reservations.

London is probably the easiest. We did several pizza places. They were everywhere and it was easy to deal with them just eat a litte "off" (early works better) In Paris we actually took over a cafe and that worked great. It was nice outside so the inside was empty and they basically gave us a "section" and a very nice waiter :) Also we had a meal at Hippopatomus (I know I spelled that wrong, it's a chain and they can deal with a big group) Generally if you are willing to break them up it's not a problem. I would just have my group sit in groups of 4, 6 whatever and tell the wait staff to bring all the bills to me. Now you can't eat right at "prime time" but since we Americans tend to like to eat early it worked. If you want "fine dining" I can't help. I quickly realized that would be a waste. My girls were best with food they recognized and was 'easy' LOL! The biggest shock to them was when the Coke bill exceeded the food bill in Paris. (I had warned them that refills weren't free, but they had to see it to see how it added up!)

Visit some of the great street markets, especially in Paris and London, scoop up a variety of yummy stuff, find a park and share!!