A table for one, kept beautifully.

Practical

Tips for eating alone at a restaurant.

• Sit at the counter or the bar. You get a view of the kitchen, quicker service and no empty chair across from you.
• Go early or late. Half past five or after nine, a table for one is easy and nobody is waiting on it.
• Pick places built for one. Ramen counters, sushi bars, noodle shops and cafes are made for solo eaters.
• Bring a book, then put it down when the food comes. The food deserves your eyes for the first few bites.
• Ask what they’d order. Staff love that question, and solo diners get more of a chat.
• Order the dish you’d never share. That’s the point.

Where to go

Places made for one.

The photo

Is it weird to take a photo alone?

Not at all, and it takes three seconds. The camera opens inside PlateDiary, you snap the table once, each dish is cut out into its own save, and the phone goes back in your pocket. Nobody at the next table will notice; they are looking at their own food.

Notes

Notes to future you.

Each save and each moment has an optional note. Solo meals make the best ones, because you were paying attention. A few prompts:

• What made this good — the dish, the seat, the light?
• Would you come back alone, or bring someone?
• What were you thinking about?
• The one thing to order next time.

The map

Places you loved on your own.

Your solo tables sit on the same map as every other meal. Add a free tag like table for one and your tag wall gathers them on one page, or heart the best into Favorites. Search reads your notes, so “quiet corner” will find the place with the quiet corner.

Travel

Solo food trips.

Travelling alone is when a food diary earns its keep: nobody to remind you later what that place was called. Capture works offline, so roaming can stay off, and each stop becomes its own moment by place and time. More in food trips.