The awkward feeling is yours. Restaurants do not mind solo diners: they mind wasted tables, and a solo diner filling a two-top is a completely normal and welcome booking. The discomfort is a self-perception problem, not a social reality, and it dissolves almost entirely by the second time you do it.

Ask for a Counter Seat

The first thing to do when you arrive is ask whether there's a counter or bar seat available. This is not settling for less. Counter seats are usually better: you face the kitchen or the street, you're not sitting in the middle of the room as a solitary figure at a table for two, and there is something to look at other than the wall.

If there is no counter, ask for a small table rather than waiting to be placed at a large one. A table for two near a window is better than a table for four in the centre of the room.

Have Something to Do With Your Hands

In the minutes between sitting down and the food arriving, having something to do with your hands removes the self-consciousness. A phone, a book, the menu read carefully rather than scanned. After the food arrives, put it away. Eating while staring at a phone is not the same as eating alone. One is avoidance; the other is presence.

Order at Your Own Pace

One of the genuine advantages of eating alone is that nobody else's hunger or indecision governs yours. You order when you're ready. You ask about dishes you're uncertain about. You take as long as you want over the menu. This is freedom that disappears the moment you add another person to the table.

The Long Solo Lunch

The long solo lunch is one of the best things you can do on a city break. Two hours, a good seat, a real meal, nowhere to be. No conversation required. No negotiation over what to order or where to go next. Just you and the food and the room.

People who say they feel awkward eating alone are usually imagining the dinner scenario, the formal evening meal at a table surrounded by couples and groups. That is the harder version. Lunch is far easier, and the long solo lunch is not awkward at all. It is, in fact, a minor pleasure of solo travel that you cannot replicate any other way.