Knowing the best places for solo dining in Chelsea makes all the difference between a good dinner alone and a distinctly self-conscious one. Choose well and you are seated without ceremony, fed properly, and left in peace. Choose badly and you are put in the window and asked, twice, whether anybody is joining you.
People dine solo for all sorts of reasons: travel, an hour that belongs to nobody else, a treat long overdue, or plain misanthropy. The pleasures are the same in every case. A newspaper over breakfast with no one asking what is in it. A second glass of vermentino at four because the afternoon happens to be yours. Company you need neither entertain nor look after, and the freedom to leave the moment you have had enough.
A counter, or at least a seat facing the room, is the pro move here: you face the action rather than an empty chair, the service is quicker because you are within reach of it, and there is somewhere to prop a book. We have already made the case for the solo dinner. These are the five places in and around Sloane Street to put it into practice, each for a different kind of alone. If you are making a weekend of it, a solo stay will take care of the rest.
When you want a newspaper and nobody's opinion: Colbert
Here, newspaper racks are built into the joinery. The bar is where walk-ins are sent, which is the first kindness: no pause at the door while somebody decides what to do with you. It is the loudest part of an already loud room, so nobody can hear you not talking. Everything is served with French equanimity, without so much as a raised eyebrow. Order the kedgeree at breakfast, the steak tartare after dark.
“Everything is served with French equanimity, without so much as a raised eyebrow”
50-52 Sloane Square, SW1W 8AX; sloanestreet.co.uk/directory/colbert
When the afternoon belongs to you: Willett's
The bar has its own door straight onto Sloane Street, so you need not cross a hotel lobby to reach it. On your own, that sometimes matters more than it should. Or take the chef’s counter and let the open kitchen do the entertaining.
“Gentleman’s Relish, Marmite butter, or Dorset crab, according to your whim”
Crumpets are the house speciality, served morning to night: take your pick of Gentleman’s Relish, Marmite butter, or Dorset crab according to your whim, then finish with the sherry trifle made to chef Michael Turner’s grandmother’s recipe.
75 Sloane Street, SW1X 9SG; sloanestreet.co.uk/news/willetts-restaurant/
When you want people but conversation is optional: Martino's
Martino’s oval bar puts you opposite other people rather than a wall of bottles, and at a quarter to seven it has a way of introducing you to your neighbours, invited or otherwise. The light does everyone a favour and the staff move as though choreographed. Order the house shakerato (Campari, gin, and orange, shaken over ice until it froths) and the vitello tonnato, sliced thin enough to read through.
37 Sloane Square, SW1W 8AN; sloanestreet.co.uk/directory/martinos/
Image: Studio Dragò
When you want a floor show: Azzurra
Give the bar a swerve and ask instead for one of the booths facing it, from which all sixteen metres become your entertainment: oysters shucked over crushed ice at one end, the wood-fired oven at the other. The room is big enough that a person alone in a booth goes unremarked. Order the crudo, then the tiramisu, assembled at your table and, for once, entirely yours.
127-128 Sloane Street, SW1X 9AS; sloanestreet.co.uk/news/azzurra-best-things-to-order/
When you want the evening to have a soundtrack: The Aubrey
Dark enough to lend every diner an air of mystery: just what you want beneath one of the grandest hotels in London. The room is a shuffled deck of hotel guests from everywhere, Knightsbridge locals, and someone with a story. The music shifts gear as the night goes on, so the evening has somewhere to go even if you don’t. Order the black cod and the white miso soufflé.
66 Knightsbridge, SW1X 7LA; sloanestreet.co.uk/directory/the-aubrey/
