Ordering at a Restaurant in Germany

Let us learn the way of ordering at a restaurant in Germany , you will need that certainly . There are many restaurants you might find in Germany. Much like in English-speaking countries , you would more likely use the name of the restaurant than name what kind of restaurant .

• Restaurant → 🔊 Listen das Restaur’ant’ (pronounciated French)
• at (the) → 🔊 Listen beim

If you want to address the wish to eat a certain food, there are two ways :

example : “wanting to eat chinese food ” ..

1. ” 🔊 Listen Ich möchte gerne zum Chinesen . “ – literally : “I want to go to the Chinese (restaurant) “
2. “🔊 Listen Ich möchte gerne chinesisch essen (gehen) “ – literally : “I want to (go) eat Chinese (style) “

Here are some more restaurants you can find in Germany :

• Chinese food : 🔊 Listen “zum Chinesen” / “chinesisch essen”
• Japanese food : 🔊 Listen “zum Japaner” / “japanisch essen”
• American food : 🔊 Listen “zum Amerikaner” / “amerikanisch essen”
• Mexican food :🔊 Listen “zum Mexikaner” / “mexikanisch essen”
• Arabic food : 🔊 Listen “zum Araber” / “arabisch essen”
• Italian food :🔊 Listen “zum Italiener” / “italienisch essen”
• Indian food :🔊 Listen “zum Inder” / “indisch essen”
• French food :🔊 Listen “zum Franzosen” / “französich essen”
• Greek food : 🔊 Listen “zum Griechen” / “griechisch essen”
• Turkish food : 🔊 Listen “zum Türken” / “türkisch essen”

Saying How Food Tastes 

In German (as in English) there are several ways of telling how food tastes after Ordering at a Restaurant in Germany . You can do this with ‘gut’ and ‘schlecht’ to say :

• 🔊 Listen Der Cheeseburger schmeckt gut → The meal tastes good
• 🔊 Listen Der Cheeseburger schmeckt schlecht → The meal tastes bad

But this is vague . Why do you think it tastes good ? You can use the following words to more acutely describe how the cheeseburger tastes :

• delicious – lecker
• delicious – delikat (a lot more formal than lecker)
• tasty – schmackhaft
• juicy – saftig
• crunchy – knackig
• crispy – knusprig
• spicy – würzig, pikant
• stale, tasteless – fade (Austria: fad)
• salty – salzig
• oversalted – versalzen
• sweet – süß
• bitter – bitter
• sour – sauer
• creamy – cremig
• hot (in the sense of “very spicy”) – scharf
• hot (in the sense of “very warm”) – heiß
• burnt – angebrannt
• cold – kalt
• disgusting – schrecklich

“Schmecken” is a regular verb . Here is it’s conjugation :

The first and second persons really shouldn’t be used . No one is going to say , “You guys taste salty” or “I taste creamy” (at least hopefully) . So the only forms you need to know are er/sie/es schmeckt and sie (plural) schmecken .

You can use ‘schmeckt’ and ‘schmecken’ or ‘ist’ and ‘sind’ to state how the food tastes . Just use whichever one you would use in English and it’ll be correct .

Although the English meaning of schmecken is simply to taste , “Schmeckt der Cheeseburger?” can be taken in a positive way to mean “Do you like the cheeseburger?”. In other words, schmecken alone can mean to taste good.

Dieser-forms

When you say after Ordering at a Restaurant in Germany “The cheeseburger tastes good.” does not sound that specific as to which cheeseburger you are talking about . You could be talking about some other cheeseburger than the one in front of you . It just isn’t clear . Now, if you said, “This cheeseburger tastes good.”, it would be obvious that you’re talking about the cheeseburger you’re eating . ‘Dieser’ is the German translation for ‘this’: “Dieser Cheeseburger schmeckt gut.”

Dieser

It is a special adjective and changes forms in different situations : different genders and different cases . It can also mean ‘these’ when modifying a plural . Here are its forms :

Jeder

Jeder means ‘every’ . It acts exactly like ‘dieser’ in its endings , so it should be easy to remember . Here are the different forms :

Welcher

‘Welcher’ is the third of this threesome of adjectives . It means ‘which’, the seventh w-word so far (wer, was, wann, wo, warum, wie, and welcher). Its forms have the same endings as ‘dieser’.