What a French office lunch looks like to a foreign team
The first surprise is that lunch is a meal. In a Paris office, lunch is eaten sitting down, between about 12:30 and 13:30, and it has courses: a starter or salads, a main dish, cheese, a dessert. A working lunch that is a sandwich at a desk reads as a missed lunch to a French colleague, and it reads the same way to most of the international hires who chose Paris.
The formats follow from that. A lunch buffet is starters, a main dish, salads, cheese and dessert on a table where people serve themselves; it needs about forty-five minutes on site before service. An individual meal tray, the plateau repas, is the same meal in one sealed tray, for a meeting that runs through lunch. Breakfast is pastries, bread, fruit, juices and hot drinks, not eggs, and the mid-morning and mid-afternoon coffee break is an institution rather than an afterthought. Evening events start between 18:30 and 19:30.
What is included is also different from what a team from London or New York expects. The food arrives composed off site and ready to place, with disposable tableware and delivery included. There is no cooking on site and nobody from us stays on site; buffet set-up is the one on-site service, as a paid option.
Ordering in English from start to finish
The whole site exists in English, with the same catalogue, the same prices and the same ordering path. A standard menu is ordered online at the price shown. Anything else, a mixed order for a large team, a full seminar day, a reception, goes through the quote form, in English.
The proposal comes back in English within 2 hours during the day (9am to 6pm), and before noon for a request sent in the evening. It carries the menu, the price per person and the total, and it is signed electronically. The terms, the invoice and every message in between are in English too, so a head office abroad can read and file them as they are.
The invoice is issued to the legal entity that pays, in Paris or elsewhere, with its name, address and registration number. If your accounts payable process needs a purchase order number on the invoice, give it with the request. Payment is made in full when you order, by card straight away or by bank transfer within three working days when the date allows.
Net prices, and no VAT surprise
Our prices are net. VAT is not applicable under Article 293 B of the French General Tax Code, which means the figure on the page is the figure on the invoice: no tax line to add, nothing to reclaim, no gross-to-net conversion in the budget. For a finance team used to French quotes that show a price before tax and then add 10 or 20 percent, this is the detail to pass on.
The ranges, per person: office breakfast from €11.90 to €25.60; individual meal trays from €27.40 to €53.50; lunch buffets from €22.50 to €50.40; cocktail receptions from €20.30 to €57.60, depending on the number of pieces. Delivery is included across Paris and Île-de-France, with a supplement in Seine-et-Marne stated on the quote.
The minimum order is €300 per delivery. Eight trays at €33.50 come to €268 and sit below it; adding the morning's coffee break or the drinks clears the threshold with things you would have ordered anyway.
Describe the event once, in English, and receive a priced proposal within 2 hours during the day.
Get a quote in English →Vegetarian, halal and gluten-free in one order
An international team is a dietary mix by definition, and the mix is handled in one order rather than three. Every buffet includes a vegetarian option as standard. Vegetarian, gluten-free and pork-free trays are available at no extra charge, and the halal tray is a menu in its own right at €44.30; what they all need is notice and names. Give us the names against each requirement and each tray is labelled for its person.
Halal is a menu in its own right, not a note on a standard one. The halal meal tray is €44.30 per person, with a choice of two menus: Flavours of the Orient (mezze trio, tandoori chicken with basmati rice, two cheeses, baklava) or Mediterranean (burrata with cherry tomatoes and pesto, salmon fillet with lemon and dill sauce and penne with grilled vegetables, two cheeses, lemon meringue tartlet). The halal breakfast is €18.90 per person for 20, the halal lunch buffet €39.90 per person for 30 and the halal cocktail reception €42.50 per person for 50, with 16 pieces per guest.
On the halal menus, the meats are certified halal, there is no pork anywhere and no alcohol in any dish, dessert or drink. Halal trays arrive sealed and labelled, kept apart from the others in transit: forty guests of whom twelve keep halal is twelve halal trays and twenty-eight from the rest of the catalogue, on one delivery and one invoice.
The fourteen regulated allergens are declared on every menu. Traces cannot be excluded in a shared preparation environment, so raise a severe allergy when you order rather than assume the list covers it.
Delivery windows and 48 hours' notice
Give us the time your guests arrive, not the time you would like the van to come. Breakfast is delivered between 07:30 and 09:30 and in place before people walk in. A buffet needs about forty-five minutes on site before service; trays need fifteen to thirty minutes, because they are handed out rather than laid out.
Allow 48 hours and the whole catalogue is available, including the halal menus. Most standard menus can be delivered with 24 hours' notice; from one hundred guests, allow 48 hours, then three days from five hundred.
Building access is the real variable in Paris. Many office buildings have a service entrance that is the only usable one, a reception that needs the delivery announced by name, and a lift that needs a badge. Put all three in the order, and give us the name of one person who will be present and reachable at the delivery time.
Two calendar traps for teams planning from abroad: May is full of public holidays and bridge days, and the first fortnight of August is the quietest of the French business year. Both are workable; confirm earlier than you otherwise would.
A first-order checklist
Before you send the request, have these ready: the date and the time guests arrive; the headcount; the format, breakfast, trays, buffet or reception; the address with the floor and the access details; the dietary requirements by name; the legal entity to invoice and any purchase order number.
With that, the proposal is priced in one pass, signed online and paid, and the delivery is scheduled against the arrival time. On the day, the one thing we need from you is a person at the door.