Eating alone: there's no shame in a table for one

More and more of us live on our own, so why should we feel embarassed about being the lone diner?
Even though around a third of us live alone these days, the image of the lone diner is still quite sad. Think Bridget Jones eating pickle straight from the jar with a spoon, or the business traveller on a table for two with only an iPad, or worse, paperwork, for company. It's not exactly aspirational.Aside from the perceived tragedy of the lonely diner, it's not easy cooking for one either. Unless you're super-organised and cook in batches to eat at leisure, making food or ordering in for one person can be quite wasteful.But the opportunity presented by the number of people who live (and, by implication, eat) alone is an entrepreneur's dream. Social designers, restaurateurs, and app-builders have been busy finding creative ways to tackle lack of dinner partners, wasted leftovers, and even how single eaters are perceived by culture. Could these make eating for one more palatable?

Tables for one

It might be that you're loud and proud about eating out alone. Taking the shame out of the experience is the idea behind Eenmaal in Amsterdam, a recurrent pop-up restaurant, with only tables for one. While communal tables make it easy to eat a meal alone without looking like you've been stood up by your date and help restaurants to save a cover on a table for two, they don't tackle the perception that eating alone is weird or uncomfortable. Creator, social designer Marina Van Goor, doesn't think it's either of those things. "If you sit at a communal table you're expected to chat and talk, and I wanted people to have the choice to do so or not. Through EENMAAL I wanted to break the perception that eating out alone isn't very attractive. Solitary dining can actually be an inspiring experience, because you get a chance to disconnect for a while in our hyper-connected world."

Global supper clubs

If you do prefer your food with company, the still-trendy supper club movement lends itself perfectly, since the intention is to share good food with interesting strangers. Finding a supper club in a strange city when you're away with work can be easier said than done, however. So, after being scooped up by a Greek local and taken home for dinner while travelling, Guy Michlin set up EatWith. It's a global supper club listing site, a little like the food version of AirB&B, where locals can invite travellers to tea. The site has 400 dinner hosts in 23 different countries who offer a homecooked-from-scratch meal for a fee. Guests register to join them for food and get a taste of local culture as well as local cooking. "Food is a wonderful way to create stronger connections between people," says Michlin. "This is exactly what we're doing and why the EatWith movement is proving so popular across the world."

Feeding your neighbours

Still, spending an evening with strangers isn't everyone's cup of tea. Some of us would actually prefer to dine alone and at home, but don't want to cook for one. If that's you, there's shareyourmeal.co.uk. Working from the premise that it's cheaper and easier to make food in bulk rather than in single person portion sizes, a group of neighbours in Utrecht in the Netherlands set up a WhatsApp group where they could share food if they cooked too much. From humble beginnings it's grown into a Europe-wide meal-sharing site.Lovers of ladling out huge portions get to satisfy their urge to feed people by advertising what they're cooking. If you're nearby, you simply ask to have a portion, and go round with a container to collect it like takeaway. It's more inspiring than the singleton diet of late-night bowls of cereal, omelettes, and pasta-pesto (or is that just me?), and less wasteful than filling your fridge with food that will rot because you can't eat it all in time.

Meal sharing

But why would you buy food from your neighbour when you can just phone for pizza and have it delivered, you might ask? Unless you have a voracious appetite, even takeaway isn't really geared towards the lone eater. But now there's an app for that. Leftoverswap allows you to offer your uneaten takeaway to your neighbours for a small charge. After all, as their website says, '99% of us don't need a second helping of beef lo mein'. As long as you're not too squeamish about eating other people's cast-offs, it's one way to treat yourself on Friday night when you can't afford a full-blown takeaway. It minimises your food waste, and you get to feel good about sharing with your neighbours.Are these good ideas? Could they help make the way all of us eat less wasteful, single or not? Or do they isolate singletons further from the joys of conviviality and communal eating?Photo: Dining alone is shedding its stigma Photograph: Alamy