I recently went to see the film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover, directed by Peter Greenaway, masterfully scored by Michael Nyman, and gorgeously costumed by Jean Paul Gaultier. Before going to watch the movie at the IFC Center, I took myself out to dinner.

There’s this restaurant on Sullivan right before you get onto Houston called Three of Cups. It’s a bizarre restaurant, a mix of American and French cuisine, to a degree, but to me, it reads more as a restaurant where the chef had a few good ideas and no way to piece them all together under a cohesive culinary culture. This is totally fine. In fact, I think there might be a world of dining experience to be explored, a world where nothing really makes sense in context and where the menu logic baffles critics and diners alike.

As a vegetarian, I had limited options. Crossed off the list were rotisserie chickens and cuts of lamb—the two viable options left were: 1. Japanese roasted root vegetables, and 2. Tofu and paneer tikka masala. As you might be able to deduce, neither of these particularly French nor American. I opted for the tikka masala—old reliable—a dish I eat perhaps three times a week, particularly after I developed a mild tofu ick. To accompany my dinner, a glass of ripasso and a couple essays by Elisa Gabbert, all to bide the time before my feature screening.

The film’s concept is simple enough—a rather despicable man, Albert Spica, portrayed by Michael Gambon, terrorizes the staff, clientele, et al. in his restaurant. Described in the script as “a 40 year old master crook, a dangerous, infantile monster, sexually prurient, a snob,” he’s the film’s eponymous thief, and consistently gripes with the food his head chef serves him. His wife, Georgina, played by Helen Mirren, develops a romantic affair with another patron of the restaurant, Michael. Most major plot events take place in one of three locations, all connected—the restaurant’s dining hall, the kitchen, or the loading dock for the kitchen.

This was my first true solo dining experience—I’ve done it while traveling, but it has always felt less consequential. To solo dine in your home town is to succumb to the essence of solo dining, because there is always the option to do otherwise. I quickly thought about the optics—what would the public think? Paul, eating alone at a restaurant? How mysterious. How pathetic.

Michael, in the film, mostly dines alone, bringing a stack of books and scattering them about his table. Spica, on the other hand, gregariously dines with an entourage of lackeys. After spotting the solo diner, Spica asserts that they’re in a restaurant, not a library, that Michael should pack his books up and either eat, or read, but not both, and certainly not in his restaurant.

I think the real reason I, or anyone else, hesitate to dine alone is because we’ve oriented ourselves to associate restaurants with socialization. Tables are set for two or more, appetizers are often made to be shareable, and so on. There’s also a degree of vanity I associate with the decision, perhaps because of its novelty. Theoretically, one could do anything as a solo diner—mindlessly scroll through TikTok, watch an entire movie on their phone, stare off into the distance with a melancholic gaze—endless activities for the lone diner. It feels particularly asocial, however, to obsess over one’s phone in this context. Somehow, because phone use is lowbrow and reading highbrow, those who bring books to restaurants moreso escape the ridicule of a solo diner.

The solo diner is one that is judged purely on their actions, then. There’s a certain sense of validity to this, at least, as I observe socially. Ordering takeout and using delivery apps like DoorDash are solutions to the negative optics of solo dining, the outer experience. I can escape the public eye, eating a dinner that I could have ordered at a restaurant from the comfort of my own home, free to do as I please, without risking social suicide.

Therefore, I think it’s true that dining is a sort of performative experience, or at least an external one, whether public or private. We are surrounded by other people, complete strangers, all with the capacity to listen to our conversations and watch our every action. A solo diner implicitly acknowledges their entry into the public realm, they acknowledge that they, by leaving their house, can judge and be judged. It’s the Grecian philosophy of private vs. public life. Despite meaning to experience dinner alone, solo diners are not alone, instead they interact with the public world to a substantial degree.

Georgina spots Michael across the dining hall—he is engrossed in his book before making eye contact with her. Reading is almost a deliberate signal to the world—as if he is advertising his character, his private life, to the public. Or, to a degree, he is forming a facade of sorts, signaling what he wishes the public would theorize about his private life. Michael’s character description in the script reads, “A modest, fearless, ironic bookseller.” Bookseller, yes. Modest? Perhaps not.

The very fact that Michael’s character is a bookseller is integral to his reading books alone at a restaurant. I may venture to guess that Greenaway would have changed Michael’s actions should he have been any other profession, yet as a deliberate iconographic signifier, his reading books plural in a restaurant serves to inform the audience that Michael is bookish, intelligent, perhaps even fearless. He knowingly opts to dine against social convention, and by making this choice, he acknowledges the public setting of the restaurant and chooses to engage with it, particularly after catching Georgina’s eye. He’s a perfect foil to Spica, loud, obnoxious, and terribly dislikable. Yet, both share a regard for their concern with public life and perception. Spica verbalizes his worries and discontentment, Michael implies them, yet brashly.

When Spica tosses Michael’s books aside after he chides him for reading, Michael returns the next day, still with books to read. If no decision was made up to this point, this is the ultimate active decision, the decision that entirely affirms Michael’s recognition of the public eye. Very easily could he have gone to another restaurant or listened to Spica, who rules as the voice of authority in this particular one. When Michael is ultimately killed at the end of the film, he is stuffed with pages of his favorite book until he suffocates at his bookstore. Here, Michael is held to the image he’s portrayed throughout the film, but ultimately, it is not the same as his private self. When forced to adopt his public identity internally, he dies. He’s no longer invincible, his public self has invaded his private home. The synthesis of these two realms literally kills Michael.

On a more obvious note, Michael is killed because his affair with Georgina is made public, again, a real messy consequence of private and public merging. In this case, it’s the inverse—the private is made public, and in this context is rejected by those who see it. Michael undergoes a radical transformation where public attempts to become private and private attempts to become public—no person can handle such a dramatic shift of entirely different worlds.

When it comes to dining, it’s almost impossible to envision solo diners as anything but their public facing selves. The tension between public and private makes it impossible for a solo diner to bring their private lives to dinner. Using TikTok while enjoying a succulent meal is essentially screaming to the world, “I am addicted to my phone! I love TikTok!” while being aware of that messaging.