What To Say Before And After A Meal - Learn English - ABC Education

In this lesson, find out what you can say before and after a meal at someone's house.

What to say before a meal

If you're having friends over for lunch or dinner, you can say the following:

• Let's dig in (or 'dig in')
• Enjoy your meal (or 'enjoy')
• Hope you enjoy what we've made for you
• Bon appetit

'Bon appetit' is one of the many French phrases adopted by the English language.

Using this phrase is a very popular way of telling someone to enjoy their meal. And you can also use it if you're a guest.

What to say after a meal

After a meal, there a number of different things you can compliment. For example, the host, the taste of the food, the variety served or the talent of the person who prepared it.

If you want to compliment your host, you can say:

• The lunch was outstanding!
• We had a great time, thank you.
• Thank you for having us. We loved the dinner.

To acknowledge a good meal and comment on the taste of the food, you can say:

• What a fantastic meal!
• We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
• That was a delicious meal.
• It was a very satisfying meal.

If you like something, you might want a 'second serve' or 'another helping'.

These phrases can be used when you're having more of the dish once you've finished it the first time round. If you have a few more serves after that, you can say you've had a 'few helpings' or 'too many helpings'.

• I wouldn't mind having a second serve of that.
• I've had so many helpings! It was delicious.
• I ate way too much. I'm really full now.

When we want to recognise the person that prepared the meal, we can say:

• The meal tonight was very tasty. You've done a great job.
• Thanks very much, you cooked that meal to perfection.
• Your cooking has really brought out all the many flavours.

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