Enjoying food and drink in a German restaurant is a great way to immerse yourself in the language and culture. After you’ve browsed the menu, having a few useful German restaurant vocabulary phrases can make your time eating out a bit more special and memorable.
In this blog post, we’ll cover some essential language to help you dine out in Austria, Germany or Switzerland. Listen to the podcast to get some more insight into the pronunciation of these new words!
German restaurant vocabulary: expressing how hungry or thirsty you are
Before you order, you might want to express how hungry or thirsty you are. To do that, you can use the following phrases:
- Hunger haben to be hungry or literally “to have hunger”.
- Durst haben, “to have thirst” or to be thirsty.
If you want to say that someone else in your party with you has a rumbling tummy you would say:
- Sie/Er hat Hunger she/he is hungry. It is a matter of conjugating the verb haben depending on who you are talking about when you’re eating out. It’s the same again for expressing someone else’s thirst:
- Sie/Wir haben Durst They/We are thirsty.
Ordering and enjoying your food at the restaurant
When you’re ready to order, here are some phrases to help you: Ich hätte gern(e)… I would like. This is a polite way to order food or drinks. It literally means “I would like to have…”. For example:
- Ich hätte gern(e) dasVanilleeis. I would like the vanilla ice cream.
Once the food arrives, you can wish everyone a good meal using this important German restaurant vocabulary: Guten Appetit! Enjoy your meal! You may also hear Mahlzeit! in Austria or southern Germany.
If you’re having a drink, it’s common to toast by saying Prost! Cheers!
What to choose from the menu?
Here are some popular flavours you may see when ordering desserts or drinks:
- die Vanille vanilla If you were putting it into a sentence to order your dessert, it might go something like this: Ich hätte gern(e) das Vanilleeis. I would like the vanilla ice cream.
- die Erdbeere strawberry If you fancied an ice cream of that flavour, you could say: Ich hätte gern(e) das Erdbeereis. I would like the strawberry ice cream.
- die Schokolade chocolate If this flavour is your favourite for a dessert you might order: Ich hätte gern(e) die Schokoladentorte. I would like the chocolate cake.
Sample conversation in a restaurant
Let’s imagine you’re at a restaurant and ready to order:
- Server: Was möchten Sie bestellen?
- You: Ich hätte gern die Erdbeertorte und ein Glas Wasser, bitter.
- Server: Kommt sofort. Guten Appetit!
- You: Danke! Prost!
In this conversation, did you work out what was ordered? And what customary greetings were used?
We hope practising this German restaurant vocabulary helps you build confidence for when you’re ordering in a German restaurant. Whether you’re enjoying food or drinks, knowing these phrases will make eating out a more memorable experience when you can put your learning into practice.
You already know your way around eating out, but how about finding a hotel or communicating a problem with your room? Can you explain the situation in German? In case you need a hand with that, don’t miss out on the blog post and episode where we give you some useful phrases for a hotel stay in a German-speaking country!
