Blog → How to Order Like a Local Abroad
You just sat down at a restaurant in Barcelona. The menu is in four languages. There are photos of every dish. A guy outside waved you in with promises of "best paella in the city." Your sangria costs 14 euros.
You are in a tourist trap.
And the worst part? Three blocks away, a family-run bodega is serving the same paella — made with sofrito that has been simmering since 6 a.m. — for less than half the price. The locals eating there did not find it on TripAdvisor. They found it the same way locals everywhere find great food: by knowing the unwritten rules that separate real restaurants from performance dining.
Here is the thing that stings. The average international traveler spends $142 per day on food, according to 2025 Mastercard Travel Industry data. Travelers who eat like locals? They spend $68-$84. That is not just savings — it is a fundamentally different experience. Better ingredients, real recipes, and meals that actually tell you something about the place you are visiting.
But wait — it gets worse before it gets better.
Tourist restaurants do not just charge more. They serve worse food. A 2024 survey by the European Consumer Organisation found that 67% of restaurants in major tourist zones use pre-made or frozen ingredients, compared to just 12% of neighborhood restaurants in the same cities. You are literally paying double for food that came out of a freezer.
Ready to fix that? These 19 rules will transform how you eat abroad — starting with your very next trip.
This is the single most reliable rule in international dining. The restaurants directly adjacent to the Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower, or Times Square exist to capture foot traffic, not to earn repeat customers. Their business model is volume, not quality.
Three blocks is the magic number. That is far enough to escape the tourist pricing zone but close enough that you are still in a walkable, safe neighborhood. In cities like Rome, the price of a pasta dish drops by 40-55% within a five-minute walk from major monuments, according to price-tracking data from The Fork.
One language? Excellent — you have probably found a local spot. Two languages (local plus English)? Still promising. Four or more languages with photos? Walk away. Multilingual menus with glossy photos are the international sign of a tourist-oriented restaurant.
The exception: countries like Switzerland or Belgium where multiple languages are natively spoken. Context matters.
A handwritten daily special — especially one written only in the local language — is one of the strongest signals that a restaurant cooks with fresh, market-driven ingredients. It means the chef went to the market that morning and built a dish around what looked good.
In France, the plat du jour is almost always the best value and the freshest option. In Spain, the menú del día (a multi-course lunch set) is one of the greatest dining bargains in Europe: a full meal with bread, drink, and dessert for 10-15 euros in most cities.
If someone is standing outside a restaurant trying to physically pull you in, that restaurant does not need to rely on the quality of its food. This is universal — from the Plaka district in Athens to Khao San Road in Bangkok. Good restaurants have lines, not salespeople.
Filter reviews by language. A restaurant with 200 five-star English reviews might be a tourist machine. But one with 400 reviews in Italian, with an average of 4.3 stars? That is where locals actually eat. The slight imperfection of the rating is itself a signal of authenticity — locals are harder to impress.
This is similar to how reading menus strategically helps you eat better at home — the same analytical skills apply abroad.
You do not need to be fluent. You need five phrases:
Memorize these in the local language before you arrive. Servers respond completely differently when you make even the smallest effort. A 2025 Booking.com survey found that travelers who used basic local phrases rated their dining experiences 34% higher than those who relied entirely on English.
Look around the restaurant. If eight out of ten tables have the same dish, that is the dish the restaurant is known for. This is not about being a copycat — it is about respecting the kitchen's specialty.
In a ramen shop in Tokyo, the most-ordered bowl is the one the chef has spent years perfecting. In a taquería in Mexico City, the taco that every regular orders is the one made with the best-sourced ingredients. Trust the crowd.
Every region has a dish that you cannot get anywhere else — or at least cannot get as well anywhere else. Ordering pad thai in Bangkok, ceviche in Lima, or wiener schnitzel in Vienna is not being basic. It is being smart. These dishes exist as regional specialties because the local supply chain, technique, and tradition have optimized them over generations.
If you are interested in understanding how regional food traditions shape what restaurants serve, our guide on cuisines worth trying for the first time covers the gateway dishes for ten major cuisines.
Asking for substitutions at a local restaurant abroad is like asking a jazz musician to play the notes in a different order. The dish exists in its current form for a reason. The chef balanced those flavors intentionally.
Allergies are always the exception — communicate those clearly. But "can I get the carbonara with chicken instead of guanciale" will get you a very different reaction in Rome than it would in an American Italian chain.
If the menu features rabbit in Sicily, guinea pig in Peru, or horse in Japan — and locals are eating it — consider ordering it. These are not exotic novelties. They are ingredients with centuries of culinary tradition behind them. Some of the most memorable meals of your life will come from dishes you almost did not order.
Lunch at noon in Spain marks you as a tourist immediately — locals eat at 2:00 p.m. or later. Dinner in Rome starts at 8:30 p.m. at the earliest. In many Asian countries, street food peaks between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m.
Eating at local mealtimes is not just cultural respect. It is practical: the food is freshest, the kitchen is in full rhythm, and you are more likely to get a table at popular spots because tourists have already eaten and left.
Here is a rough guide to dinner times in popular destinations:
Every great food city has a central market. Barcelona has La Boqueria. Tokyo has Tsukiji (now Toyosu for wholesale, Tsukiji outer market for eating). Mexico City has Mercado de San Juan. Istanbul has the Spice Bazaar.
These markets are not just for shopping. The small restaurants and stalls inside and around them serve some of the best food in the city — prepared with ingredients that were sourced that same morning. A meal at a market stall in Oaxaca will cost $3-5 and rival anything at a $50 restaurant.
Ordering a Coca-Cola in a Parisian bistro is fine — but you are missing the point. The house wine at a French restaurant costs less than a soda at a tourist spot, and it is chosen specifically to complement the food. In Japan, try the house sake. In Mexico, go for agua fresca. In Turkey, drink ayran with your kebab.
Local beverages are almost always cheaper than imported alternatives, and they are designed to pair with the local cuisine. A $2 glass of vinho verde in Porto will make your grilled sardines sing in a way that a $6 beer never will.
Many of the world's best food cultures are built around shared eating: tapas in Spain, mezze in the Middle East, banchan in Korea, antipasti in Italy. Ordering multiple small dishes lets you try more of the menu, discover unexpected favorites, and eat the way locals actually eat.
This approach also protects you from ordering a single dish you do not like and being stuck with it. With four or five small plates on the table, one miss is no big deal.
Put TripAdvisor down. The person standing in front of you — the server — knows the menu better than any review site. Ask them what is good today. Ask them what they eat when they are off shift. Ask what is popular with regulars.
This does two things: it gets you better food, and it creates a human connection that often leads to better service, extra recommendations, and the kind of insider knowledge that no app can provide.
This rule originated with Anthony Bourdain, and it holds true worldwide. Most fish markets are closed on Sunday. That means Monday's "fresh" seafood is actually Saturday's catch. In coastal cities where fishing is daily, this rule relaxes — but in landlocked cities or places where markets follow a weekly schedule, it is gospel.
If a restaurant in Bangkok offers hamburgers alongside pad thai, the hamburgers exist for tourists who are afraid to try the local food. The kitchen's energy and expertise is focused on Thai food — the burger is an afterthought made with ingredients that are not locally optimal.
This rule applies everywhere. Order Japanese food in Japan. Order Italian food in Italy. The one exception: colonial fusion cuisines where multiple traditions have merged organically over centuries, like Peruvian-Japanese nikkei or Malaysian-Indian mamak.
In some countries, restaurants show tourists a different (more expensive) menu than locals receive. This is documented in parts of Southeast Asia, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. If prices seem dramatically different from what guidebooks suggest, politely ask to see the menu in the local language. In many cases, the local-language menu has items and prices that the English menu does not.
Also watch for: cover charges not mentioned until the bill arrives (common in Italy — coperto — though this is legal and standard, not a scam), automatic "service included" charges that are added on top of the expected tip, and bread or appetizers that appear unbidden at your table and turn out to cost 5-10 euros each.
The World Health Organization has noted that high-volume street food vendors — the ones with long lines — have some of the lowest contamination rates in the food supply chain. The logic is simple: when ingredients sell out within hours, there is no time for bacteria to grow. A pad thai from a Bangkok street cart that serves 500 plates a day is statistically safer than a reheated dish in a half-empty tourist restaurant.
Look for vendors who cook in front of you, use separate tools for raw and cooked food, and have a steady stream of local customers. These three indicators are more reliable than any hygiene certificate.
For more on evaluating restaurant food safety standards, our dedicated guide covers what to watch for both at home and abroad.
Before your next international trip, spend 30 minutes on this checklist:
That is 30 minutes of prep that will save you hundreds of dollars and transform every meal from a transaction into an experience.
The bottom line? Eating abroad is not about spending more — it is about spending smarter. The best meals in every country are hiding in plain sight, in restaurants that do not need to advertise in English, do not need greeters at the door, and do not need photos on the menu. They just need you to walk three blocks further and say yes to something unfamiliar.
Now go eat something your guidebook did not mention. That is where the real food lives.
Walk at least three blocks away from major tourist attractions. Look for restaurants where locals outnumber tourists, menus are written in the local language first, and there is no staff member outside trying to lure you in. Google Maps reviews from local-language reviewers are more reliable than English-language reviews from tourists.
In most cultures, pointing at another diner's plate and indicating you want the same is perfectly acceptable and even appreciated. In Japan, many restaurants have photo menus or plastic food displays outside for exactly this purpose. In casual restaurants across Asia, Latin America, and Southern Europe, pointing and gesturing is a normal part of ordering.
Tipping customs vary wildly by country. In Japan, tipping is considered rude. In France and Italy, service is included in the bill. In Mexico, 10-15% is standard. In the US, 18-22% is expected. Research the tipping culture of your destination before you go — over-tipping can be as awkward as under-tipping in some cultures.
Carry a card written in the local language that explains your allergies or dietary restrictions. Apps like Google Translate can help in real-time. Learn the local words for your allergens — knowing that "cacahuete" means peanut in Spanish or "arachide" means peanut in French could prevent a serious reaction. Many restaurants abroad are accommodating when you communicate clearly.
Look for vendors with high turnover — long lines mean fresh food. Choose stalls where food is cooked to order in front of you rather than pre-made and sitting out. Check that the vendor uses separate utensils for raw and cooked food. WHO data shows that the highest-volume street food vendors have the lowest contamination rates because ingredients never sit long enough to spoil.