To consume shop-bought food and drink in a hotel?

[Alcemeg]

Four nights at a nice French hotel where we feel a bit out of place (other guests a bit snooty). Dinner in the restaurant here is a very hushed and formal affair -- not inclined to repeat the experience. It's also very rich food, served slowly, so you go to bed feeling as though you've swallowed a tub of cement. It's hard to sleep after that little lot.

Our room has a little terrace overlooking the hills. Our preference is to grab our own food and drink from a supermarket when out exploring during the day and stash it in an ice box so we can do our own thing when we get back to our room. But is this a bad thing? Is it rude to the hosts?

YANBU = Go ahead, relax and enjoy your terrace views while scoffing a big fat sarnie washed down with local wine

YABU = Only eat and drink your own stuff secretly in your room with the curtains drawn, or in a layby on the way back from the shops

It sounds so snooty there, OP! And correcting your French…. you may have been a bit informal, but who is the paying guest?

Here in Germany it is absolutely normal to say good morning on entering the breakfast room, it would be a little impolite not to, especially if it is small.

There's no kettle or tea/coffee in the room. And not many tea bags at breakfast: I have been topping them up with my own (they favour fruit/herb infusions here, so a breakfast brew is like gold dust!).

Is "bouffer" really rude then?! It's one of those words (like "vachement" or "chouette") that I was really pleased with myself for picking up, 40 years ago when I was last here, and thought was just casual but inoffensive? Has the meaning subtly changed over the past half-century, or was it always rude and I never realised?! I should add that it was just me and the bloke when I said it. DH had popped out, and we were the first guests in the restaurant. So if it now means oral sex, that might explain the upward movement of his eyebrows 😲

I don't want to make conversation over breakfast, but I do find it odd sitting in a small room with strangers who don't even acknowledge each other's presence! It's like being on the tube to work 🙄

I realised last night that some of my anxiety about consuming non-hotel food and drink on the premises might come from an incident years ago. I was really skint and my colleagues got fed up of me never being able to join them for lunch in a local pub. I gave in to pressure one lunchtime, and ate a little sandwich under the table while they did their thing with the menu. At some point the pub landlord spotted what I was doing and really yelled at me. It was so humiliating that I slunk out immediately with my tail between my legs.

I thought if that can happen in a pub with a lunch menu, what can happen in a hotel with a posh restaurant? I am so relieved to have had the encouragement and reassurance on here! thank you!

A restaurant is different op

You wouldn't be able to take your own food into the hotel restaurant either but a room is different.

Oh totally go ahead and do it!! It's cheaper than hotel prices and a French balcony picnic sounds delightful!

I would be getting a good bottle of French red wine, crusty bread, Brie, Camembert, grapes, maybe some continental meat type stuff.

Aaaand now I'm hungry 😋

I do this when I stay in hotels for work, I hate sitting in a restaurant on my own! The last one, the breakfast was so awful, I had a just eat delivery, I’d given my phone number and said I’d meet in the car park, they however went to reception and the receptionist called me, nothing was said, the atmosphere was a little frosty

You’ve paid for the room, do as you please. We’ve done this so many times before.

So you're absolutely entitled to eat your own food in your hotel room, but eating sandwiches in a pub which serves meals is a no-no.

I'm still embarrassed by our experience in the Lake District. We'd brought our own sandwiches but stopped at a pub.BIL who is tight asked a young foreign employee if we could eat our own food. He said yes, but then pub owner came out to remonstrate ( quite rightly I thought) and BIL argued with him, rather than apologising.

Also my general impression of the French is that they are less understanding of people trying to speak their language. I'd stick firmly to school book wording from now on.

So jealous you're abroad. Waiting nail bitingly for DS PCR results for Tenerife.

In an hotel, you have paid for the room, it is yours for the duration of your stay.

In a pub, they provide tables and chairs to eat and drink things sold on the premises. Very different!

You've paid for the room, you can do whatever you want in it! This will include being allowed to eat your own food - you do not have to rely on the hotel's catering, and it would be very strange, even impolite, of them to suggest that you do!

Your contract with the hotel is for a room, which you pay for. There isn’t any obligation to eat in the restaurant. Just don’t make a mess.

@SuperSange

You're in a hotel, you're not obliged to use the restaurant. A balcony picnic sounds lovely!

This. Nothing better than eating and not having to wash up / clear up your crumbs afterwards. We rarely eat hotel food when we stay in a hotel, we get our own (breakfast is usually the only meal we eat from the hotel)

The pub is comepltely different if they serve food of course you cant bring your own in and start eating it!

@whynotwhatknot

The pub is comepltely different if they serve food of course you cant bring your own in and start eating it!

I know, I got talked into it by my colleagues at who just thought I was being a mad bag lady! Never again! 🐖

I've ordered deliveroo to my hotel quite a few times. The last place we were in was pretty swish and for some reason I felt compelled to ask if that was okay and they said they'd give the room a call so I could come collect it when it arrived

I love supermarket food on holiday, it feels like I’m surviving in a foreign clime.

I have a favourite hotel in the UK we stay at when on hols and the food is amazing and so is the beer but it's SOOOO EXPENSIVE so we do put money in their tills for a night or two then have a room picnic on another night!

@Fraine

I love supermarket food on holiday, it feels like I’m surviving in a foreign clime.

I misread that as a foreign crime!! My guilt complex dies hard 😂

We've had the most magnificent evening with gorgeous food and wine, enjoying our terrace and views.

THANK YOU EVERYONE!

I'm just hoping someone will educate me on the French. We're in France for another 10 days and I don't want to put my foot in it again!
x

Completely missing the point but am very jealous of op being in a French Hotel having a delicious balcony picnic. Am so missing French hotels.