The Art of Dining Alone

The Art of Dining Alone

“A table for two?”

“Only one,” I’ve replied so many times that I often lead with the answer before the question can be asked. 

“Sólo uno,” I declare as I am greeted at the door. 

Then I’m usually led to the bar or a table in the back corner or back room of the restaurant. I don’t know if this is out of pity for me, you know the poor person dining alone, or for the sake of the restaurant who wants the visible tables to be bustling with conversations and laughter. 

Sometimes restaurants won’t let you make a reservation for one person, a practice I abhor, and one that makes me less likely to visit an establishment when I’m dining with a friend. There was only one time that I can remember caring when I was led to a back table near the kitchen in an otherwise empty restaurant. It was on my birthday in 2021, and a guy I’d been seeing let me know at the last minute that he wasn’t able to make it to dinner. My reservation for two became a table for one. 

Dining alone has become so commonplace in my life that I don’t even give it much thought. A couple of summers ago, I was staying at The Peninsula Chicago and decided to go up to Z Bar, the rooftop lounge, for a drink and bite to eat. I was seated next to two women who were engrossed in conversation. While they laughed and carried on, I wrote quietly in my journal. 

We started a conversation shortly after my food arrived, and I learned that the two were former colleagues and regularly met for happy hours around the city. I told them about my coffee research and applying for Mexican residency. We talked long enough that we joined tables and shared our food with each other. 

“Are you here alone?” the older woman, Alice, asked me. 

“I am,” I told her. 

“And you’re fine dining alone?” she continued. 

“Of course,” I answered. 

She continued asking questions, so many that she apologized. I didn’t mind the questions, but they made me think back to a time when I wasn’t so comfortable dining alone. 

Cindy, Alice, and me

—

I was supposed to spend the summer of 2001 in Europe. I was a 23-year-old graduate student studying literature and had taken every Shakespeare course offered by the university, so my professor let me create an independent study. When I proposed that I wanted to spend the summer in Europe watching plays, operas, and musicals with the intent to examine Shakespeare’s influence on modern theater, she clapped her hands together and gave an emphatic, “Yes!”

I had planned the entire trip–what would have been my first time abroad–when I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t exactly know how I was going to manage everything. It was too big to fully comprehend, but I was determined to try to keep my life on track as best I could. When my doctor advised me against backpacking across Europe, I decided I’d travel to New York City instead. New York City, after all, had plenty of theater. 

Going to shows alone didn't faze me, but dining alone didn’t even cross my mind. It felt so lonely. I spent the first half of my trip grabbing pizza slices and hot dogs, anything that I could eat on the go, but there are only so many hot dogs a person can eat in a week (or in a lifetime) until you just can’t stomach another one. 

One afternoon, I found myself eyeing bowls of pasta at a small restaurant in Little Italy. God, what I wouldn’t give for a pasta pomodoro, I thought as I continued down the street until I realized I was the only one stopping myself from enjoying a nice meal out.

Equipped with a new magazine that I walked blocks to find, I went back to the restaurant and requested my first table for one. I’d like to say the experience was liberating, but it wasn’t. I was keenly aware that I was the only person in the restaurant dining alone.

I was alone. And pregnant. 

But I didn’t eat another hot dog on the trip, and by the time I left, I knew every story in my tattered magazine. I like to think this simple act was a way of convincing myself that things would be okay. I would be okay.

—

I recently spent a month in Tepoztlán, a small mountain town just south of Mexico City. As I was nearing my last weekend, I realized that I hadn’t yet dined at Parcela, a farm-to-table restaurant, and Margarita Concept Garden, which is located in a glass greenhouse in the exquisite gardens of playwright, Margarita Urueta Sierra. I made reservations at both for my final day. 

The salmon ceviche

My lunch at Parcela was quick–salmon ceviche, a glass of rosé, while reading Como Agua Para Chocolate. Meals tend to go quickly when you’re dining alone and have no one to talk to.

At Margarita Concept Garden, I was seated in the front of the restaurant with views of the garden and the surrounding mountains. I lingered over dinner long after the sun set. I drank a glass of wine before my meal and even splurged on dessert. I made a night of it, and I never took my book out of my bag. 

Margarita Concept Garden