Table for One
On the joys of eating alone
I have a confession to make: I cancelled a date tonight to eat by myself in a restaurant.
This is the kind of statement that my mother, a hardened extrovert, hates. She thinks that moving out and living alone for the past few years has made me less tolerant of other people. However, my love affair with alone time, specifically dining alone, began long ago.
In the summer of 2011, when I was 15 years old, my whole family on my mom’s side went on a week-long Alaska cruise. We made our way from Seattle to Skagway, sidling past enormous icebergs and keeping our eyes peeled for whales. I don’t need to tell you that 15 is a tender age. I also don’t need to tell you that travelling with your entire extended family is a circus.
Despite not having the exact language for it at 15, I already knew that alone time helped me feel centred and calm. I would learn to escape the trials of group travel and overrun buffets by dining alone at one of the cruise restaurants as often as I could. I always ordered the roasted red pepper panini (“no prosciutto, please”) with fries, and a slice of blueberry cheesecake for dessert. Since WiFi at sea cost one million dollars per minute — and my Nokia C3 was capable of little other than texting and being a sorry excuse for a BlackBerry — I always ate my meal with no distractions, in silence. And enjoyed it.
Aside from my solo dining interludes, I have fond and vivid memories of that trip. I remember ziplining in an Alaskan forest with my family, eyes tightly closed while the instructor joked about bears on the ground below us. I remember exploring the cruise ship with my cousin Kavita, accidentally discovering a creepy nightclub and running away so quickly we couldn’t breathe. I remember my cousin Gautam having a lot of fun facts about octopuses. I remember laying on the top bunk, listening to Selena Gomez and Foster the People on my neon pink iPod nano, and plotting how to change my personality in time for tenth grade as the ship swayed and lulled me to sleep. I remember having heart-to-hearts with my cousin Shail. I remember one of the cousins bursting into the cabin that we were all hanging out in to tell us that Amy Winehouse died. I remember my brother unwittingly charging seventy-five American dollars worth of game tokens to our room in his quest to win a plastic dollar sign necklace from the cruise ship arcade.
I remember being overwhelmed with heartbreaking happiness. After that trip, I missed my cousins so immediately and fiercely that I cried inconsolably on the plane ride back to Toronto. The person sitting next to me asked me if I was alright multiple times, and I just kept on blubbering.
Occasionally eating alone was a huge part of the reason that I was able to build so many happy memories on that trip. Taking that time helped me process the day’s events and build my energy back up. Even now, the ritual of eating alone allows me to organize the constant noise in my head into a steady stream of consciousness. Perhaps most importantly, eating alone has made me feel self-assured, ultimately normalizing independence. Not in the gross neoliberal way, but in the sense that I am a complete version of myself without others, without men. That’s something that I truly believe every woman should experience.
Even though I love eating at restaurants with my friends, eating alone has its own charms. That’s why I’ve gone on to enjoy solo dining through multiple stages of my life, finding that it still takes on the meditative quality it did 13 years ago on that cruise ship. While living in residence during my first year at U of T, I sometimes eschewed the cramped dorms and inedible dining hall food to eat mutter paneer alone at Kothur on Yonge Street. On an evening a few months ago when I had writer’s block, I brought my notebook to a bar, downed two lychee martinis, and scribbled out an outline using the bartender’s pen. Last year, while my then-boyfriend worked during our trip to Montreal, I ate a long, slow lunch at the Italian restaurant below our Airbnb. After a really bad day last summer, I went to Cafe Polonez to eat alone on a whim and came home feeling infinitely better. I found myself back there tonight.
So, yes. Instead of going to my neighbourhood bar and making strained small talk with a stranger I met on a dating app, I went to a Polish family restaurant far away and ate dinner with the person whose company I enjoy most — me!
My Rules for Eating Alone
1. Remember: nobody cares that you’re sitting by yourself.
Think about all the times you’ve gone to a restaurant and seen someone alone at the bar, at a table, whatever. You probably didn’t give it a second thought, and you definitely didn’t judge them. Apply that same truth to yourself. (If you did judge someone for sitting alone somewhere… please work on that.)
If all else fails, think of this sage advice from Jemima Kirke. I swear to god this screenshot is as valuable as several months of therapy:
2. Bring a book, a journal, or anything that keeps you off your phone.
To fully immerse yourself in your solo dining experience, stay off your phone. I will allow a maximum of 3 pictures of your meal and/or the restaurant ambience. Otherwise, put the phone away and read or write while you wait for your food — or pretend to do those things while eavesdropping on the table next to you.
3. Eat whatever you want, but eat without distraction.
Similar to above, when you get your food, put all the distractions away and focus on your meal. Think about where it came from, what it took for all the ingredients to make it to you. Think deeply about the tastes and textures. Take in the chatter, music, and atmosphere around you. Takeout or food delivery never tastes as good as eating something at a restaurant, so enjoy the full experience. You’ll be back to eating food absently, hunched over your coffee table in front of the TV, in no time.
I know I didn’t invent the concept of solo dining. There is a lot of great writing about it all over the internet, like this Vox article that digs into the history and privilege of dining alone. Eric Kim wrote a column called Table for One about cooking solo meals at home. There’s also this book that I’ve been meaning to read. And I’ll just bump my previous Substack post about Cafe Polonez one more time — ya’ll better dance to this old shit!
If you’ve never eaten alone at a restaurant, I can understand why. You might feel embarrassed, lonely, or anxious about it. But believe me when I say that no one is judging you but yourself, and if you can let that go, the experience waiting on the other side of your apprehension is worth it.
P.S. In the spirit of not taking life so seriously, here’s a TikTok I made two years ago documenting a meal I cooked for myself.
If you are someone who enjoys dining alone and got this newsletter in your email, please reply directly and tell me about your favourite solo dining experience. If you’re reading this on the app or web, leave a comment.
i loved this! i find the same reprieve eating alone, especially in a city like toronto it can be so invigorating being alone in the heart of a moment like that. (i also love going to movies alone but i think that’s because i hate movie talkers haha!)
Loved this! I have travelled solo and so eaten alone many times in my life. I always enjoy it. Normally I am listeing to a podcast or many times just enjoying my food, observing and keeping myself to my toughts.