All You Need is a Book and a Bar

That time I drank $700 wine with a stranger

Dec 04, 2024

This week’s post is free! Please share with your friends, I’ve loved connecting with a new community through these stories.

Hypothesis

All you need is a book and a bar.

Background

I love, love, love going to dinner by myself. I don’t remember when or why I first started doing it. Maybe I’d seen some actress I thought was cool talk about it. Or maybe it was a leftover habit from the summer I worked in Paris and was too scared to make friends with French people.

Regardless, it’s something that I’ve developed such a fondness for that I do it even when it's unnecessary. When I lived in New York, surrounded by friends and family, it was nice to slip away every once in a while, and have dinner with F. Scott Fitzgerald or Elif Batuman or Eve Babtiz (she’s the best dinner companion).

It’s become such a part of my lifestyle that a friend of mine once texted me to tell me she’d “pulled an Alison,” which she defined as going to the bar with her book to dine alone. I’ve never been more flattered.

Going to a bar with your book doesn’t always have to be for the goal of spending the night alone. It is also a great way to put yourself in a position to meet someone new.

Method

You only need two things for this experiment: a book and a bar. May I suggest that you choose both wisely.

First, the bar: it’s important to think of what kind of person you want to meet at the bar and pick your location accordingly.

If you go to a hotel, you’ll probably have an easier time starting a conversation, but they might be from out of town. A nice restaurant will likely have an older clientele. A wine bar might have a younger crowd. There’s no true science, but I would suggest you find a bar that fits your type. Also, I would stick to a Sunday-Wednesday window (maybe also Thursday); conversing at a bar one-on-one is going to be harder on a Friday or Saturday, save those nights for going out with a group of friends.

Don’t forget to talk to the bartender. When I was alone in Rome a few years ago I went to Roscioli and they sat me at the bar since I was a solo-diner. I was a bit bummed at first but then a very cute bartender came up to take my order and we chatted as I ate dinner. I ended up going to Roscioli every night just so I could talk to him.

Next, the book: you really don’t need to overthink this part of the recipe, but I can impart some wisdom as the unofficial mascot of dining alone.

I like to bring a smaller book with me because I want something that can fit in my purse and isn’t going to get in the way of my eating and drinking (priorities). If your true intention is to be social, I wouldn’t choose a super gripping tale, because you might get so lost in your book that you forget to pick your head up and catch the eye of the person who just sat down next to you.

Similarly, don’t bring anything that requires intense concentration – like a Virginia Woolf stream of consciousness – there’s nothing worse than reading the same page fifteen times because you took a sip of wine and lost your place.

And I wouldn’t pick a book just to pose – I’m picturing an In Search of Lost Time situation. There’s a good chance that if someone talks to you they’re going to ask you about your book (it’s an easy ice breaker) and it will stymie conversation if you don’t actually know or like the book you’ve brought.

I have suggestions for a few book & bar pairings at the bottom of this post, but if you have more ideas, please leave them in the comments, I would love to build a list of the best bars to meet people!

Results

I really just used this post as an excuse to tell a fun story. This story is so fun that I’ve already published it in The New York Times as a Metropolitan Diary (#4 on the list, if you care to read), but I’ll give you the details that didn’t make it into the 200 word story.

A few years ago, I went on a Hinge date on a Sunday in Manhattan. I took the train in from Brooklyn and met him at a wine bar in Flatiron, but it was clear after one Chianti that this was no great love story. We both lunged at the waiter to get the check before our glasses were empty.

I walked out of the wine bar and was about to turn towards the subway, but there was a glow across the street beckoning like an oasis. Why, if those weren’t the glittering lights of the newly-reopened Gotham Bar!

I arranged myself on a stool at their bar (when you are 5’3”, arranging yourself at a bar stool takes additional time and finesse, especially in a mini dress) and ordered a glass of wine. Upon inquiring after their specialty, a house-made terrine, I was sadly informed that Sundays are “family night” and thus they were only serving a prix-fixe menu.

Manhattan is the only place in the world that thinks that family dinner pairs nicely with prix-fixe menus. I looked around and sure enough there was a banquette with a distracted financial-type father, a young mother with expensive highlights, and three-year-old twins dressed alike in tiny Brooks Brothers suits tucking into their foie gras appetizer.

I took one look at the prix of the prix fixe and resigned myself to the fact that I would be having a liquid dinner tonight. Sancerre to start, Montepulciano as my main. And F. Scott Fitzgerald would be my dinner date for the night. I took minuscule sips of wine in between essays from The Crack Up in order to drag “dinner” out.

At some point, another man sat down at the bar. We’ll call him Bruce Wayne, to follow the Gotham theme. The whole bar was empty, but he chose the seat one away from me. Without turning my head, I moved my eyes as far to the right as they would go, sneaking a glance at his face. He was about 50, maybe younger? Handsome. I turned back to my book but kept one ear open. Eavesdropping is my vice.

He ordered his prix fixe meal and asked for the sommelier. I didn’t know what he ordered, but there was a bit of pomp and circumstance when the bottle arrived. While he waited for his first course, Bruce turned to me and asked what I was reading. Oh, just a little compilation of Fitzgerald’s least popular essays from the end of his life as he descended into madness and alcoholism. Published posthumously, of course.

We kept chatting about Fitzgerald (a popular subject amongst men), and then moved on to talk about art. My Sancerre dwindled towards empty, “would you like to share my bottle? It’s too much for me to finish,” Bruce asked. Being the good Samaritan that I am, I agreed to help this man in need. He poured his red into a fresh glass and I took a sip, instantly aware that I had just been upgraded, oenologically.

The conversation blossomed, each new subject unfolding like a petal. I watched hungrily as Bruce ate his first course and then his second. When they cleared his main course, the bartender asked him what he would like for dessert. Without skipping a beat he said, “two pear tarts.”

The tarts arrived and not long after, the two of us departed. We exchanged our first names at the door before we went our separate ways, and nothing else. It was the perfect New York City night: elegant and mysterious.

The next day I kept thinking about the wine we had. I went to Gotham’s website and found their wine list. And that was when I discovered that Bruce had shared his $700 bottle of Domaine Jean-Louis Chave L’Hermitage with me.

Conclusion

Not every night is going to result in you sharing a $700 bottle of wine with a stranger. Some nights you’ll go to a bar, and everyone will be coupled up and the bartender will be too busy to chat and you actually end up reading your book. I’ve gotten discouraged by this before, trudging home like Eeyore with my head hung low.

But during one such pity party, I realized that instead of feeling defeated, I should feel hopeful: I was still in the game. I put myself out there again and again. Not every day, because I’m not a masochist, but with more frequency than a lot of people do. And I decided to be proud of any night that I left the house and took myself out, regardless of the outcome.

A Book and a Bar, the Perfect Pairing

New York

Balthazar and Table for Two by Amor Towles

I would have suggested Gotham Bar, where Amor Towles used to go to write, but sadly they are now closed again
Balthazar once brought me a glass of champagne for being a solo diner so they rank very, very high in my book
This collection of short stories about New York City are laugh-out-loud funny, which will lead the person next to you to ask what you’re reading

Long Island Bar & Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

The Martini Whisperer meets the Martini King

Get a vintage copy of Ian Fleming’s series; the old covers are so chic
*Tried and tested: I’ve gotten asked out here before

London

Goodbye Horses & The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Shameless plug
If there isn’t anyone cute at the bar you can just talk to me
This book is about WWII and everyone knows boys like WWII
Plus, the book is romantic and sexy just like the bar
If you really hit it off, you can invite him back to your place after to watch the movie adaptation with Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas
*Tried and tested: I witnessed a man and woman strike up a conversation that led to a four hour dinner here last Sunday

Los Angeles

Musso & Frank’s and Eve’s Hollywood by Eve Babitz

Eve Babitz, the queen of LA, loved Musso & Frank’s, so you should take her out for a steak at the bar
Read all about Eve’s Hollywood and conjure an industry insider who will tell you equally salacious stories of the biz