Part 3 - Restaurants
Everyone has their own favourite method for booking a vacation.
Whether you are heading south to an all-inclusive resort or to spend a week in Las Vegas, there are online booking sites and in-person travel enters that are always willing and able to assist.
What if you are looking at a multi-city getaway? Or even a multi-country or multi-continent vacation?
There are many travel experts out there to assist with your bookings. I have arranged many similar travel plans with agents and on my own and I have developed my own foolproof system.
I am currently finalizing a trip to South Africa. It is a company sponsored trip, but we always like to add on a minimum of 1 week to every overseas adventure to allow ourselves time to explore on our own.
This is Part 3 of a 3-part series - Starting with the flight bookings and ending in restaurant bookings to create a seamless vacation package.
Now that the flights and accommodations are booked, I can start to look at restaurant reservations.
Surprised?
Some people may prefer to just rely on a hotel concierge or a friend’s recommendation for restaurants but since food and wine are two of my passions, I don’t want to guess or rely on a “popular choice”.
A hotel concierge is a great resource for a suggestion for a quick bite near the hotel, but since their ultimate goal is to please as many people as possible, they usually suggest a tourist favourite or a very large restaurant that can handle last-minute reservations.
Unless your friends eat exactly how you do, I would only suggest this selection route if you are nervous about trying something new or different.
Wouldn’t it be more fun to chat with your friends about a new place you found on your own?
I don’t suggest pre-booking all restaurant visits in advance, but making an overall plan of when and where I want to eat will make it easier to fit in my favourite choices. Some Michelin-starred restaurants have a set window of when they allow reservations. Many other fine dining establishments are closed on Sundays and Mondays or only allow lunch reservations on certain days.
I start my dining plan again by referring to my calendar as to when we are arriving in the city and which meals we need to plan.
If we are arriving later in the evening, I usually assume that we eat in transit or at the hotel’s restaurant or with room service if need be.
Early morning arrivals mean we will most likely want an early lunch reservation.
If I plan a late afternoon of tapas or cocktails, I make a note that I will want a later dinner time.
I don’t usually plan breakfasts in advance unless there is a particular place I want to visit and will make a calendar entry as a reminder only. (Anywhere that is popular for breakfast usually doesn't require advance reservations unless you are booking a fancy brunch date.)
Now that I know how many lunches and dinners I need to arrange, I start my online research for the most noted and best-reviewed restaurants and chefs in the area where we are staying.
Wondering how I find these restaurants?
I am a fan of Opentable for North American restaurants and some other countries where available. (I also love that I get to collect points towards future dining.)
I also peruse through foodandwine.com, tripadvisor.ca and general Google searches looking for local blogs and media pages that rank their restaurants.
Unless the restaurant is on my “bucket list” to visit, I rarely book any place that is farther than a 15-20 minute taxi ride from the hotel. I prefer restaurants that are less than 10 minutes away - or even better - we can walk to easily from the hotel.
Once I have the list of restaurants I hope to visit, I review the menus for lunch and dinner options and check on overall pricing - of their food AND their wine (if available to view online).
For each city throughout the trip, I usually allow one fine dining or Michelin-starred dinner reservation.
If there are several of such options available, I will allow myself to book my second choice for a lunch (or brunch) one day so I can experience the restaurant without paying a dinner’s price.
After my favourite choices are booked, I leave a lunch or two open for last-minute, on-the-spot decisions while we are there. I also sometimes leave a mid-week dinner reservation open for a last-minute choice and allow a waiter or restaurant manager we meet along the way to steer us to THEIR favourite place.
Psst...Waiters are a GREAT resource for where to eat. Many have worked at several places throughout the city and eat where the food is best but away from tourists.
With the restaurant reservations complete, the only thing left to research is any shopping or sight-seeing that I want to squeeze in.
If you make note of the neighbourhoods where you will be shopping or sightseeing, you can then easily ask waiters or sales staff while you're shopping on suggestions for lunch, afternoon tea or just a quiet afternoon tipple. 😉
FINAL THOUGHT!...
For those who have the time...another suggestion is to keep yourself organized is to use Google Maps to create a CUSTOM map for each city you are visiting. You can add in addresses of each hotel, restaurant, bars and other sites of interest with fun icons that you can access with wifi from anywhere in the world.
