Have a bite in Bratislava (lunch in or out?)
A few days after our arrival to Bratislava, having started our new jobs, we were wondering if we needed to cook our lunch or we could eat some place out in Bratislava.
Most of the restaurants and pubs offer daily lunch menus, the price is usually between 3.50 and 5.00 euro but of course it can get higher than that. A daily menu usually includes a soup (polievka) and a main dish.
Tipping in Slovakia
There are no firm rules regarding tipping in Slovakia. As far as a lunch menu goes people just round up the amount but if you have the exact amount it is fine too. For other meals out it is customary to leave some tip if you liked the food and service, but there is no rule on how much. Based on my observation that is up to 10%.
Serving staff during lunch time
The serving staff is usually concerned with getting your food fast but they will not go out of their way to smile and suggest things. This applies usually during the lunch time. Their main concern is to serve as many people as possible because there are instances where people are waiting in line to get a table. But since things are moving fast the wait is usually not long.
Lunch in
It is also common for people to cook at home and bring their lunch to the office. Most of the companies have kitchen areas or relax areas where you can enjoy your cooked meal. Based on our observation Mondays are very strong with lots of people with cooked lunch. Moving towards Friday the bunch disperse. That’s because traditional Slovaks cook weekend meals in the family circle. Slovaks are generally very close to their families and spend time with each other whenever possible.
I should mention that cooking at home and bringing the lunch is not limited to Slovaks. There are plenty of foreigners who prefer this too, at least on certain days. The infrastructure can be another reason why some prefer to have lunch in our out.
Lunch time, the peak hour
Coming from Romania where the lunch starts after 12 at the earliest I was a bit surprised to see that people go for lunch at 11:30. I realized only later that it is because many start the day really early, either because they live outside of Bratislava and they commute or they have kids that need to be taken to school/kindergarten. Other just have a habit 🙂 One that I could develop too 🙂 No, not the morning thing – although life proved me wrong so many times before – I mean the early lunch!
In order to eat the lunch that you want you can check websites with updated daily menu of restaurants. You can see what is available based on your location. Most restaurants provide updates on a weekly basis so on Monday you can see what they offer on Friday.
Below you have some example of such site:
https://www.zomato.com/cs/bratislava
Enjoy your meal!
Dobrou chut!
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