table manners.
Would you eat out alone?
Bank holidays may be a prompt for the nation to gather, but there’s been another trend emerging in the UK restaurant world: the solo diner. Like many people, food writer Clare Finney once avoided eating out on her lonesome, but recent events have turned the tables
“Before you eat or drink anything, consider carefully who you eat or drink with,” wrote the Greek philosopher Epicurus – clearly a man who had never had a solitary sandwich in Pret. Today, eating and drinking without company, whether on the sofa in the comfort of your own pyjamas or in Newport Pagnell services, is not unusual. Our dining rituals have become increasingly solitary – just ask those who lived alone during lockdown.
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Yet while America and Japan have long been renowned for bar seating, kitchen counters and tables for one, proper restaurant eating in the UK has remained resolutely communal. Even the businessman stuck late at work or the solitary traveller shied away from being alone à la carte.
A SINGLE REVOLUTION
Or so we thought. Then, in 2019, bookings website OpenTable reported that UK solo reservations had been increasing steadily.
“While they’re a small percentage of total reservations, solo reservations increased more than 160% from 2014 to 2018,” said the report. Getting reliable data has been difficult post-pandemic, but OpenTable says that “restaurants are increasingly accommodating for parties of one”, citing a dissipation of the single diner stigma and a burgeoning enthusiasm for seeing chefs prepare our meal in front of us. “These open-kitchen counter seats can be some of the best in the house,” the report said.