The Solo Diner

On hedonists, books, and the art of eating alone

This is the second piece in my regular column for Bristol Life magazine. It runs in print first — pick up a free copy if you’re local.

Quarter past nine on a Thursday, the door at Lapin slides open and in walks a man with a bag over his shoulder, a sweat on his brow, a little short of breath. He’d come straight off the train from London. His old university friends were somewhere across Bristol, waiting for the weekend to begin. He’d chosen to start his a little differently. Something civilised before the debauchery, he’d said.

He sat down alone, looked at the menu, and asked for some recommendations. I made the mistake — if you can call it that — of answering a little too thoroughly. I rattled through half the menu. The gougères (always), the soufflé suissesse, a wine that had just arrived and was making me very happy indeed. He listened, nodded, and proceeded to order most of what I’d described, with a few of his own choices scattered in. A trou normand appeared as a brief sojourn before pudding — Calvados over sorbet, the universal signal that you have no intention of stopping — and I thought: yes. This one.