There’s something special about dining out alone — when there’s no one to veto your order, and you can lose yourself in a good book, strike up a conversation with a stranger, or spend the meal doomscrolling. The world is your oyster.
Rachel Aronow, chef de cuisine at the Polk Street fine-dining Japanese restaurant Nisei, says San Francisco is a particularly good city for going solo. “It’s amazing for people-watching, or you can just hide in a corner and read a good book or get some extra admin work done,” they say. “We’re lucky to have so many options, especially for industry folks.”
Many other pros agree. We asked 10 to tell us their favorite place to eat alone. The answers do little to upend the stereotype that chefs are anti-social and “always grumpy,” says Spencer Horovitz of the pop-up Hadeem. But, he proposes, “maybe we are just bad at being intentional with our social lives.”…