Becoming a regular somewhere
Dining relationships/our relationship to dining + a list of places I'm a regular at in London
Ciao, everyone. I’m back again with a weekly recap. Because of my broken toe, my outside radius is still pretty limited, but it also means I get to explore more locally. I can walk about 15 minutes before my hamstrings start hurting, and I love my neighborhood but it is also not the most central one, so I’ve mostly been orbiting around the same (wonderful) places.
My friend James, who used to live here, has moved to California but comes back to London once every two months for work. He loves dining out and always makes reservations at the same three or four places: Sunday brunch at Inis, because they have the special roast menu, and a weekday dinner at either one of Smoking Goat, Dishoom, or Bocco di Lupo (followed by ice cream at Gelupo). James really believes in becoming a regular somewhere, and therefore has a deeper connection with these places, people who work there, and what to get on the menu.
There are also people on the opposite end of this social dining spectrum who never want to visit the same place twice. “Oh I’ve been there before,” they’ll usually say with a certain disappointed tone at your suggestion, “shall we try some place new?” In London especially, there’s always some place new which makes me question whether we try new places because we actually like a new experience or because otherwise we feel like we might be missing out.
Because if I’m being honest, I usually have the most fun at places I frequent regularly. You could say that there is a reason why they’re your regular places in the first place but there’s more than that. It does cut down the time and stress associated with decision-making too (which can be a real pain in a big city) but also being a regular somewhere changes your relationship to the experience.
It allows you to build stronger bonds compared to eating out casually. Casual (dining) is also fun but it seeks a different kind of pleasure. There’s a version of being a regular that reads as status: being recognized, having a usual, spending enough money somewhere that people remember you. But I kind of feel it’s the opposite. It has less to do with prestige (or how much you’re willing and able to spend) and more to do with your investment in nurturing a relationship. Not the number of times you’ve walked through the door but the quality of your engagement once inside—whether you’ve bothered to learn a name, let a conversation go somewhere, treated the whole thing more like an exchange that deserves your curiosity. On the other side of being “known,” there’s the harder work one puts into “knowing.”
So for today’s letter, I decided to take stock of the places and things I’m a regular at (and why), partly as an effort to stretch that muscle more. There’s definitely some local favorites because the habit starts there.
