Sofia Almeida
When I first went solo, what I found most daunting was sitting alone in a restaurant at dinner time. At home before I left for Lisbon, I practiced going into a restaurant and ordering a table for one. I scripted out what I would say in a notebook. Yet when it came down to it, the first night I walked into the restaurant where I was having dinner in Lisbon, I hovered around the entrance for 5 minutes, nervous, before I finally worked up the courage to take a seat at the table, where I proceeded to read my menu as if I were studying for an exam.
Practice will make perfect. For me, eating alone is now the most enjoyable part of my travels, which I can attribute to this simple plan between my Lisbon dinner in which I hovered around the entrance of a rather nice trattoria for 5 minutes before being shown to a table for one, and a lovely 2 hour dinner for one in Naples two weeks ago in which the owner of the restaurant was so happy to see me that he brought me a free tiramisù because I obviously was having such a great time. Being flexible is the key to enjoying meals eaten alone.
Book the reservation in advance
Most of the anxiety around eating alone comes from walking into a place without a reservation. But if you reserve a table for one in advance, that problem disappears. To reserve a table for one in advance you can usually use a restaurant’s website or the restaurant’s reservation page on Google Maps to make a reservation. Often the simplest way to make a reservation for one person is to send an email to the restaurant with your request. Restaurants are not usually weirded out by solo reservations. In fact, they’ll probably be relieved that you reserved ahead of time.
For the email simply say: ‘Hello, I’d like to reserve a table for one person on Friday at 7:30pm. The name is [your name]. Thank you very much.’ Only 25 words or so. It is best to book such a reservation 3 days before or so.
Pick the time, not the restaurant
As with anything, the same place can be vastly different at different times. For instance, at 6:30 instead of 8:30 you will find a much quieter restaurant with more attentive staff. You will have the opportunity to sit at the bar and have a nice chat with the staff and other patrons. The kitchen will be freshly opened and it will be a pleasure to eat there. Later, around 9 pm, you can leave the restaurant and the city will still be young and full of life.
When dinner time is late I book my reservation for 6:45–7:15. In that time the staff has a chance to chat with you. The kitchen has had time to get fresh ingredients ready. The noise level is reasonable. You will finish dinner by 9 pm and the city will still be young and vibrant. I always book the second option for reservations, the first one will have sold out by the time you get around to booking.
Where to sit
When to sit at the bar and when to avoid it like the plague.
Sit at the bar only if the open kitchen is open behind you or if that’s how people normally dine at the restaurant (e.g. oyster bar, ramen, small Italian with a barista). If the restaurant is more formal or you wish to read/write at dinner, then choose a table rather than the bar. Also, take a glance at the bar to see if after work crowds will be holding court there when you dine. Choose a table by the window to be able to see people pass by without having to speak to them.
It is also a good idea to ask for a specific seat when booking or arriving at a restaurant. For the most part, your request will be honored.
Bring one good distraction, not five
I used to get to the restaurant and unpack a whole lot of stuff that I’d brought with me. A book. A notebook. Headphones. My phone. And as I got out all of this stuff and spread it out on the table, I realized that I must look like a bit of a nerd sitting at a table by himself, buried under a load of detritus from which he’s staring down into the abyss of his book or scribbling away furiously in his notebook. Now I go for a single item: a slim book, a small notebook. And the rest of the time, the food is the center of attention.
Most people don’t realize how much time they spend staring at their food without really looking at it. The fact is, most chefs spend considerable time arranging and re-arranging the food on a plate before it is sent out to customers. It’s been planned. So why not take time to admire it? Take time to smell it too. If food didn’t smell, then it wouldn’t be as appetizing as it is. These simple actions before taking a mouthful of food create a lot of pleasure. They are also the actions that differentiate between a very enjoyable meal that you will remember for a long time, and a completely mediocre meal that will soon be forgotten. And it is solo dining that affords the opportunity to slowly sample your way through each and every dish.
The thing about being seen
Of course, you’ll be seen to be eating alone. People will look, sometimes stare, at you to and from the restaurant and whilst you’re dining. But nobody actually cares that you’re eating alone. The other diners are engaged in their own conversations and are bored and sometimes even annoyed by the odd couple or group of noisy kids on a birthday outing. The waitstaff don’t care that you’re dining alone and, in fact, they appreciate a polite solo diner not taking up extra space at a table for four or six and being able to serve you quickly. An owner of a restaurant is occasionally interested in chatting to a solo diner as they are an interesting ‘event’ for the diner to be having whilst alone in a foreign country and the owner is always happy to chat for a few minutes and make recommendations etc.
In terms of travelling between a restaurant and another location, the quickest method would be to take a taxi but I find the restaurant first, and then the other location (so traveling in a straight line) whereas taking the bus would take a lot longer (approximately 40 minutes longer for a 20 minute journey).
The worst part of solo-dining is the worse story you tell yourself about being judged by other than it’s not true. In order to combat your worst fears, try to notice the worst stories you tell yourself about solo-dining and write them down. Then challenge them. The worst is in your head.
What to do when conversation starts
Sometimes people will start talking to you. This can be unpleasant if you don’t want to. This can be especially unpleasant if you were trying to hide from people. Be prepared for this. Have a pleasant enough demeanor that people don’t feel put off by you. If someone starts talking to you and you’re interested then keep talking to them. You can’t force a conversation but you can certainly make one happen if you’re interested. About a third of the time or so that I’ve had someone start talking to me at a table next to me at a bar or elsewhere that I’m dining solo, that conversation will end up being really great. The other two thirds or so it will just be a polite conversation and then you’ll go back to eating your dinner. I don’t really care. Both are fine by me. In fact, I’ve met three of my closest friends this way. One of them was at a wine bar in Barcelona. Another was at a small Japanese restaurant in Lisbon. And the last was at a vegetarian buffet in Bangkok. None of those would have happened had I been dining with someone else.
I have even found three of my closest friends by dining alone at odd hours of the day. For example, there is the owner of a wine bar in Barcelona, an oyster seller in New York, a chef who runs a small Japanese restaurant in Lisbon and the guy who runs a lovely vegetarian buffet in Bangkok, just to name a few.
One small habit that changed everything
For the past several years, I have been writing one sentence before I depart the table for each meal I have eaten alone. I started this habit because I wanted something to do with my hands while I sat alone at a table and I didn’t want to pull out my phone. As it turns out, writing a sentence about something that caught my attention while I was eating and then placing the notebook in my bag with the rest of my things is the perfect way to cap off a solo meal. The sentence is, after all, for me and no one else, but in some small way, recording an observation of the parsley on the plate in front of me provides a closure to the meal that reading a book does not.
If you hate eating alone, do this for ten meals. Just ten. Bring one notebook, write one sentence per meal, and observe how the dread shifts. By meal six the dread will be gone. By meal ten you’ll prefer it sometimes to eating with people.
