February 21, 2016

Over the last two years, OpenTable has seen a 62 percent increase in reservations for tables for one throughout the country. Is this because people like—or are even growing to prefer—dining alone or is it purely circumstantial?

In this episode, food writer Jamie Feldmar, who appreciates a restaurant meal with herself, and a videographer who goes by the name Keff, who produced a short film underscoring his concerns about solo dining, present the pros and cons. Then New York chef Amanda Cohen talks about why she not only reserved the bar seats at her Dirt Candy restaurant for solo diners last week, but also created a special tasting menu for them. And finally, I discuss the most private of private dining situations, eating alone at home, with Samantha Rose Widder. She just finished a masters in food studies at New York University, where she completed a project that studied the emotions connected to this kind of solo meal taking.

Do you like to dine by yourself? We’re all ears.

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