Language in use

French for food and cooking

Ordering, cooking, praising: the language around food, from the recipe to the bill.

Why this field

Food matters a great deal in the French-speaking world, and many kitchen words have made their way into English. Understanding recipes, menus and table talk means understanding a large part of everyday life.

Recipes are also an ideal way to learn: short sentences, clear verbs, and at the end you can see whether you understood.

Sentences to say aloud

The label says where a sentence belongs. The speaker next to it reads it aloud.

1. Qu’est-ce que vous me conseillez comme plat ?Which dish would you recommend?

   polite

2. Je vais prendre le plat du jour.I’ll have the dish of the day.

   neutral Ordering with the futur proche is polite and neutral.

3. La viande, à point, s’il vous plaît.The meat medium, please.

   neutral The levels: saignant (rare), à point (medium), bien cuit (well done).

4. C’est fait maison ?Is it home-made?

   neutral

5. Bon appétit !Enjoy your meal!

   neutral

6. Tu peux me passer le sel ?Can you pass me the salt?

   casual

7. Il faut faire revenir les oignons dans un peu de beurre.Brown the onions in a little butter.

   neutral faire revenir means "to brown, to fry gently".

8. Laisse mijoter à feu doux pendant une heure.Let it simmer over a low heat for an hour.

   casual

9. On mange à quelle heure ?What time are we eating?

   casual The question word at the end: typical of spoken French.

   In everyday life, rather: À quelle heure est-ce qu’on mange ?

10. C’était délicieux, merci beaucoup.That was delicious, thank you very much.

    neutral

What matters here

• Recipes are often written in the infinitive or in the imperative with vous: Éplucher les pommes. / Épluchez les pommes.
• Quantities need the partitive article: du beurre, de la farine — but after an amount only de: un peu de beurre.
• When ordering, Je vais prendre… is neutral and polite; Je veux… sounds demanding.

Try it yourself

Read the meaning, say the sentence aloud in French, then open it to compare.

1. Which dish would you recommend?

   Qu’est-ce que vous me conseillez comme plat ?

2. The meat medium, please.

   La viande, à point, s’il vous plaît.

3. Enjoy your meal!

   Bon appétit !

4. Brown the onions in a little butter.

   Il faut faire revenir les oignons dans un peu de beurre.

More fields

Every sentence on this page was written for EveryLingua. There are no quotations from films, series, books or songs here, and no titles or names of artists — the page shows how people talk in this field, not what somebody once said.