Team Lunch Ideas for London Offices

The best team lunch ideas for a London office depend on the occasion: hot, choose-your-own bowls for the weekly team lunch, hand-held food for a working lunch, and a sharing feast when clients are at the table. Three picks to start with: Pali Kitchen's Indian rice bowls for a mixed-diet team, HOP Vietnamese banh mi for meetings, and an atis catering feast for client lunches. Below are 13 ideas grouped by occasion, each with named dishes from Ordit partner restaurants, menu prices and dietary options, plus a guide to how much to order.

Team lunch ideas at a glance

These office lunch ideas for teams are grouped by occasion below. Prices checked on 12 November 2026 and may change. They are menu prices from one London branch of each partner on Ordit; other branches can differ, and delivery and the service fee are extra.

Weekly team lunch ideas

The best staff lunch ideas for a weekly lunch rotate cuisines and let people choose their own dish, which is what a group order is for.

Build-your-own salad bowls

Best for: weekly team lunch · Menu price: from £9 to £13.95 per bowl · Dietary: vegan and vegetarian bowls · Format: individual

Building a bowl from a fixed list gives every diet a route through the same menu.

Dishes: atis Build Your Own Bowl (from £9) and Green Goddess (£9, vegan); The Salad Project Thai Me Up with Bold Bean satay (£13.95, vegan).

Indian rice bowls and kati rolls

Best for: weekly team lunch · Menu price: £10.94 to £12.58 per person · Dietary: halal, vegan and no-gluten options, as tagged by the restaurant · Format: individual, hot

Hot, filling and mixed-diet: one menu carries halal chicken, a vegan chickpea curry and bowls tagged no gluten.

Dishes: Pali Kitchen Charcoal Smoked Tandoori Chicken Rice Bowl (£12, halal, no gluten), Chana Masala Rice Bowl (£10.94, vegan) and Krispy Fried Chicken Kati Roll (£12.58, halal).

Udon and katsu curry

Best for: weekly team lunch in colder months · Menu price: £10.95 to £13.95 per person · Dietary: halal and vegan options · Format: individual, hot

A mildly spicy curry with halal and vegan versions marked on the menu.

Dishes: Marugame Udon Chicken Katsu Curry (£13.95, halal), Pumpkin Katsu Curry (£13.45, vegan and halal) and vegetable Curry udon (£10.95, vegan and halal).

Working lunch and meeting lunch ideas

A working lunch has a different job: people eat while they talk, take notes or present. The food that works can be eaten one-handed, quietly and without cutlery, and it is still good at room temperature, so it survives staggered arrivals. Skip noodle soups, anything that needs a knife and fork, and strongly scented hot dishes in a closed room.

Banh mi

Best for: working lunch, internal meetings · Menu price: £11.35 to £11.65 per person · Dietary: vegan option, marked VE · Format: individual, hand-held

A filled baguette is a full meal in one hand and holds up well if half the room arrives late.

Dishes: HOP Vietnamese Chargrilled Honey Pork Banh Mi (£11.45), Caramel Chicken Banh Mi (£11.65) and Pulled Mushroom Banh Mi (£11.35, VE).

Sushi rolls and SushiDogs

Best for: working lunch, client-facing meetings · Menu price: £8.70 to £10.25 per SushiDog · Dietary: vegan tofu option · Format: individual, hand-held; sharing platters

Hand-held, quiet and served cold, sushi is arguably the least disruptive food for a meeting room.

Dishes: Sushidog SushiDog Signature Salmon (£10.25) and Satay Tofu SushiDog (£8.70, vegan); itsu salmon & avo rolls (£6.75) as an add-on. Sharing platters from itsu start at £29.95 (big veggie platter), but servings are not stated, so ask before sizing the order.

Wraps and filled baguettes

Best for: working lunch, workshops · Group size: five baguettes per platter · Menu price: £9.79 per wrap; £39.99 per platter · Dietary: vegan and vegetarian options · Format: individual or platter

Wraps keep fillings contained, even mid-meeting.

Dishes: Tossed Shawarma Rainbow wrap (£9.79, vegan), Piri Protein wrap (£9.79, vegan) and the mixed baguette platter (£39.99 for five filled baguettes, including a caprese and a houmous & falafel).

Lunch and learn ideas

A lunch and learn needs food people collect in one pass and eat while someone presents, so set sharing platters out at the back of the room.

Salad platters

Best for: lunch and learn, training sessions · Group size: 6 per platter · Menu price: £54.99 per platter, about £9.17 per person · Dietary: vegetarian platter · Format: sharing platter

Each platter is listed as a feast for six, which makes the maths simple: one platter per six attendees.

Dishes: Tossed halloumi & roasted veg salad platter (£54.99 for six, vegetarian), avocado chicken caesar platter (£54.99 for six) and parmesan chicken salad platter (£54.99 for six).

Client lunch ideas

With clients in the room, the food should look generous and arrive ready to serve. For bigger events, see Ordit catering and the office catering guide.

Sharing feast

Best for: client lunch, board meetings · Group size: 10 to 12 per feast · Menu price: £230 per feast, about £19 to £23 per person · Dietary: Veggie Feast at the same price · Format: sharing feast

A set feast looks like hospitality rather than takeaway. Order by 17:00 two days before delivery, and earlier in the week for a Monday lunch: it is a pre-order menu.

Dishes: atis catering The Chicken Feast (£230, serves 10 to 12), The Veggie Feast (£230, serves 10 to 12) and, to build your own, Hot Honey Salmon (£60, serves 6 to 8).

Fieldtrays

Best for: client lunch, smaller tables · Menu price: from £15.45 to £17.50 per person · Dietary: halal, vegan and no-gluten options, as tagged by the restaurant · Format: individual

A composed tray per guest feels considered.

Dishes: Farmer J Amba Chicken + Green Tahini Fieldtray (from £15.45, main tagged halal and no gluten; base and sides are chosen separately), Where My Vegans At? (£15.50, vegan, no gluten) and Butcher's Cut with charred flank steak (£17.50).

Friday treat ideas

Friday is the quietest weekday on Ordit: under 10% of orders are delivered on a Friday (orders with delivery dates from 11 August to 8 November 2026). Treat it as a smaller lunch and order for who is actually in.

20-inch pizzas

Best for: Friday lunch, team celebrations · Menu price: from £29 per 20-inch pizza · Dietary: vegetarian and vegan pizzas; halal-tagged options · Format: sharing

Pizza shares easily across a team, and the vegan and halal-tagged versions sit on the same menu.

Dishes: Homeslice whole 20-inch Margherita (£29, vegetarian), vegan Margherita (£29, vegan, tagged halal) and Curried Minced Lamb (£38, tagged halal).

Sourdough doughnuts

Best for: Friday treat, birthdays · Group size: boxes of 6, 12 or 24 · Menu price: £24.95 per box of six, about £4.16 a doughnut · Dietary: vegan box · Format: sharing box

A box after lunch marks the end of the week.

Dishes: Crosstown Doughnuts The Crosstown Classic 6 (£24.95), Crosstown Favourites Box of 12 vegan doughnuts (£52.95) and the Ultimate Sharing Box of 24 (£99.95).

New starter lunch ideas

You rarely know a new joiner's diet in week one, so let everyone pick their own dish rather than putting the newcomer on the spot.

Signature salads

Best for: new starter lunch, team welcomes · Menu price: £8.95 to £14.95 per person · Dietary: vegan pot; tempeh option · Format: individual

The Urban Caesar and Thai Crunch each come with chicken or tempeh; the menu does not tag either as vegetarian, so check before ordering for a strict vegetarian.

Dishes: Urban Greens Urban Caesar (£14.95), Thai Crunch (£14.95) and Harissa Chickpeas Protein Pot (£8.95, vegan).

Poke bowls

Best for: new starter lunch · Menu price: £9.45 to £11.25 per person · Dietary: meat-free bowl · Format: individual

Poke is usually served cold, so it travels well and nobody has to reheat anything.

Dishes: Poke House Sunny Salmon (£11.25), Chicken Teriyaki (£10.45) and Hummus & Avo (£9.45, no meat or fish in its listed ingredients).

Team lunch budgets: three bands

Delivery and Ordit's service fee come on top. The delivery fee per restaurant on a group order is £15 + VAT, which spreads to about £1.15 + VAT a person across 13 people from one restaurant; catering delivery is a flat £15 including VAT per order. Ordit's service fee is 5% + VAT on your monthly total spend, applied on the invoice rather than per order; see pricing. For a full budget, see the office catering budget guide.

Is a free team lunch taxable? It depends on how and where the lunch is provided, so check the employee meal benefits tax guide.

Planning the order

Individual choice or a shared spread

Individual orders suit mixed diets and recurring lunches, because nobody eats what someone else guessed they would like. Shared spreads suit occasions where the table itself is the point, such as a client lunch or a celebration. The case for individual choice sets out when each works.

How much to order

For individual meals, order one main per confirmed attendee. Across Ordit group orders with delivery dates from 11 August to 8 November 2026, the median group was 13 people, and the middle half ranged from 7 to 26.

For sharing food, use the serving figure on the menu and plan to the lower end of any range: a feast that serves 10 to 12 covers 10 hungry people. For 13 people, that means two Tossed salad platters plus one individual main, or one atis catering feast plus a build-your-own tray and a side, such as Herb Chicken Breast (£45, serves 6 to 8) and Roast New Potatoes (£12, serves 6 to 8).

Midweek is when most Ordit orders land: Tuesday to Thursday carry about 71% of them, and 40% of orders are delivered between 11:00 and 13:00 (same period).

How group ordering works

The organiser sets a delivery window and a cutoff time; each person opens their own Ordit account, picks their own meal from the restaurants chosen for that order before the cutoff, and everything arrives together, each meal labelled with the person's name. See how group orders work, or the group ordering guide for the workflow step by step.

Dietary and allergen planning

Start with a short dietary questionnaire before the first order: allergies, halal, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and an open "anything else" field. Repeat it for each new starter.

Then check the dish, not the restaurant. Partner menus on Ordit show the allergen information each restaurant supplies, for most meals but not all. Where a dish shows none, do not read that as allergen-free: ask the restaurant. The Food Standards Agency's allergen guidance says food sold online must come with allergen information before the purchase is completed and again when it is delivered. For anyone with an allergy, confirm the allergens with the partner before ordering.

Make halal, vegetarian and vegan options part of the default menu, not a special request. In the 2021 Census, 15.0% of London residents identified as Muslim, 5.1% as Hindu and 25.3% with a religion other than Christian (ONS, Census 2021). Those figures describe residents' religion, not what anyone eats, so use them as a reason to cover these diets by default, never to set quantities.