One of my favourite things to do is to take myself out for dinner. The venue is crucial. One has to feel at ease – dining alone is not for the faint hearted after all. But, if you should happen upon the right place, it’s heavenly.
I switch my phone to silent, log out of various ‘social’ media websites – utterly stultifying to one’s creativity – then sit back and enjoy my own company.
Most restaurants don’t excel at entertaining sole diners; they’d much rather you were there with 20 of your nearest and dearest or at the very least your other half. It’s rare to find an establishment that says ‘We love you no matter what’.
Carluccio’s in Paddington Street is just such a place. I wandered in tired from a day treading the boards and glanced around. At one of the softly spotlit tables sat an elderly lady, elegant with coiffed grey hair, a glass of chilled rose to one side. A couple of feet away another solitary diner, young and dark haired placed his phone on the table, looking up as the waitress put a plate of steak and frites before his dinner-ready face.
Conversations with Strangers 