People eating alone might once have been met with curious, pitiful looks from staff and fellow diners.
However, that stigma has started to shift, according to new figures. One’s company, two’s a crowd, it seems.
Take the travel writer, Alice Bradley.
She would often find herself alone at meal times – and used to order room service or shirk away in a corner of a restaurant.
But after the Covid pandemic, she had “a perspective shift”: she committed to doing more things by herself, starting with dining solo.
Every couple of months, Bradley gets dressed up and takes herself out for dinner.
She is part of a growing number of people choosing to dine alone.
And it is gen Z and millennials driving the trend, experts say. Solo dining has increased by 14% year on year in the UK, according to OpenTable, the online reservation service company. In London, bookings for tables for one have risen by 10% compared with last year, and they jumped 23% in Manchester.
“The pandemic was kind of like a wake-up call that I just needed to go out and enjoy the freedoms and the pleasure of the little things,” Bradley says. “Life is too short to not go on nice dinners, even if no one can go with you.”
Most recently, she treated herself to a meal at the Ivy in Marylebone Village – “a self-care date night”.
Charlie Casey, the account director of Egg Soldiers, a hospitality consultancy, says the influx in solo dining is, in part, due to changing perceptions. “Gone are the days of a stigma attached to a solo diner being at the wrong end of a stood-up date, or any negative connotations, for that matter. Millennials and gen Z have led the way for the empowerment and confidence that comes with dining alone.”
Self-care plays a big part too, he says. “Some time to unplug, reflect and take a well-earned moment to yourself is a highly sought after practice, and what better way to do it.”
Eating meals out alone is still fairly new to Bradley, but Trisha, 62, has more than four decades of experience of doing it. She takes herself out at least once a month for dinner to one of her favourite restaurants in Greater Manchester, where she lives.
Sometimes it is for convenience – after a busy day working, she wants a nice, easy dinner. Or it could be she is craving something she won’t cook at home for one. “I’m a decent cook, but there’s just some things when you’re on your own you don’t cook, because it’s too many ingredients and too much faff,” she says.
“I usually eat earlier in the evening, sort of 6.30, six-ish time, which is generally quite quiet in a restaurant.
“I’ve never thought of it as an odd thing to do. I think a lot of people maybe just don’t do it because they think it’s bigger than it is to go out and have a meal somewhere on your own.”
James Rusk, the owner of the Butchershop restaurant in Glasgow and the Spanish Butcher in Glasgow and Edinburgh, says the UK is catching up to a practice that has been common in New York and some parts of Europe for decades.
“In the last 15 years from opening up the [steakhouses], the increase has been exponential,” he says. “After Covid, it definitely picked up … it’s kind of just part of the mix now.
“It’s not like Saturday night and everybody’s a solo diner, but you’ll definitely have, one, two, or three” most nights, even during busy hours, Rusk says.
And restaurants are beginning to adapt to this trend. “By integrating digital innovations like digital menus, seamless payments and personalised recommendations,” they can “enhance the solo dining experience”, Trish Caddy, an associate director of foodservice at Mintel, a market research company, says.
Creating a pleasant dining experience is a priority for Rusk. “It’s also watching where you’re seating people that are on their own. It’s not plonking them in the middle of a room, it’s hopefully giving them a view. We’re thinking, ‘Is the menu accessible? Is it built just for sharing, or is it the kind of menu where you can have solo dishes? Is the music and the atmosphere and the lights OK?’”
Are solo diners a concern for the restaurant? “Absolutely not. Come on your own, come with four people, come with 20 people. As long as you’re coming and having fun and enjoying what we’re doing, we’re always happy to have whoever wants to come.”
Grace Dent on solo dining
I eat alone all the time. Sometimes I see it as really liberating and a treat and other days I feel anxious about it. The first time I tried to eat by myself in London was in 2001 in Soho and within seven minutes I was offered money for sex. Walking into places and demanding to take up space when people think you’re single does take a bit of nerve but there’s nothing wrong with feeling bad about it and it’s something you can get over.
I case places out. Anywhere that has sit-up bar eating, benches along the windows or the sides, little alcoves or rows of tables for two is perfect. Don’t pitch up between seven and eight thirty and point at a table in a prime position. I just ask if they have anything free, point at the one I want then put my back to everybody, order the food, put headphones in and scroll through WhatsApp.
I wouldn’t spend three hours with a napkin around my neck going through 11 courses because that’s not fun. But there is real joy in sneaking into places for a few plates.
Good places know how to behave with single people. They don’t leave you sitting. You get served quicker than everybody else, not because they’re rushing you out, just because they notice you. I find that staff come and talk to me.
Once I started doing it, I started doing loads of things by myself, like going to the cinema and the theatre. It was empowering.
• Listen to Grace’s Comfort Eating podcast here
