I love dining out solo. Don’t get me wrong; eating in a restaurant in the company of others is one of life’s great pleasures, but this is not an either/or situation. Solo dining is its own genre, a choice as valid as dining with company and a rare example of absolute selfishness being totally guilt-free.
No one suffers if you get to eat and drink exactly what and how much you want, then proceed to give what you’ve ordered your full attention or no attention at all. That you set your own pace, create your own experience, whether it’s bantering with the bartender (the bar is always my solo dining go-to), immersing yourself in a book or staring into space trying to figure out what herb is in the sauce or just lost in your own thoughts. Without getting too far into the self-care of it all, there is something meditative and undeniably empowering about eating alone.
The revelation that solo dining can be a choice rather than an occasional, uncomfortable necessity came to me in Italy. Some crossed wires with a friend (it was the pre-mobile dark ages) found me on my own in Sicily and, on my first solo night in Palermo, I chickened out of going out to eat alone. It was a little bit about my appallingly minimal Italian but mostly it came from fear of people judging me a lonesome loser, which was exactly what I ended up feeling like, drinking wine and eating bread and cheese by myself in a small hotel room in a city full of excellent places to eat.
Night two, propelled by contempt for my previous evening’s cowardice, I ventured out, armed with two books, a journal, a phrase book, a map of the city and a Walkman, all of which I stacked around me on the table I’d chosen in a darkened corner of the trattoria like a fort. I can’t remember what I ate but I do remember the well-dressed, middle-aged man who came in to dine on his own. Sitting at a table in the centre of the trattoria without any reading material but the menu or conversation apart from some brief chat with the waiter, he was completely, unapologetically, at ease. It was fascinating. He took his time with each of the four courses, not rushing, not fiddling, just calm and present in the moment in the company of his food, wine and thoughts. His self-possession represented a complete paradigm shift for me. I wanted what he had. It was the origin story for my own great love affair with solo dining. The first step? I removed everything from the table except for one book.
It took time to get completely comfortable with solo dining but I was lucky that my revelation came at a time when the stigma surrounding eating alone had begun to lose its grip. The increasing prevalence of restaurant bars and small-plate menus made it easier to explore the option. The phone arrived as a handy prop but, believe me, the more you do it, the less crutches you need.
Being male helped too. The solo dining experience for women can be fraught because there will always be those who believe a woman alone is actually craving company other than her own. But with booking statistics from OpenTable reporting that solo restaurant reservations in Australia had increased by 14 per cent in 2023, it seems hopeful that the practice is becoming more normalised and that any person sitting at the bar with a book, or on an outside table simply observing the street life is there because she chooses to be.
One of the things that I love about this increasing awareness of solitudinous dining is how many restaurants and bars are acknowledging and catering to it. It’s not just menus dedicating the opening section
of their menu to snacks either. Many places now offer half-serves of larger dishes and I’d like to think that the increasing numbers and variety of wine by the glass that I’ve been noticing is not just because people are opting to drink less. If you’re not forking out for a bottle of wine (no judgment if you are), you can splash out on the rarer, pricier stuff and discover flavours you’d never imagined possible.
One of the great discoveries I’ve made is how great going solo to a dégustation restaurant can be. Choosing to eat at one of these types of restaurants is not about having dinner or lunch; it’s an hours-long performance. On your own, it’s easier to observe the ebbs and flows of the way the menu has been assembled. You also notice the music, the careful choreography of the service, the instinct of a server as to whether you want to chat or not. The art of it.
I’ve had some of my best ideas, found solutions to some of my thornier problems, while treating myself to dinner alone. I love conversation but I enjoy what this indulgent form of silence and reflection brings
too. I’d even say it makes me better company.
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