Without a lover, what appetite is there for dinner at 8!

ON THE evening of the Queen’s funeral, we dined in a restaurant with friends, recently arrived in town from New York. When it came to fixing the time, the wife of the couple confessed that as an American she liked eating early – indeed 5.30pm was not too early for her – but she’d realised this wasn’t normal practice in London.

Personally, I regard eating dinner before a time that includes the number 8 completely uncivilised. As the child of a theatre critic, our evening meal took into account his arrival home after the first night performance, so our mother could combine both our supper and his.

I realise that this is not most people’s experience but it has led to my penchant for eating late rather than early.

As it happens, our American friend has come to the city at the right time, as seemingly we’re all beginning to dine earlier. Restaurants are starting to be packed out for the 6.30pm booking and increasingly I find we are asked to dinner at friends’ houses at 7.30pm rather than the 8.30pm it used to be.

Like so much, the pandemic has influenced this change in behaviour. When everyone was stuck at home we all got used to eating early since, frankly, what else was there to do of an evening?

And since more people are working from home, there’s often no longer the commute to factor in before you can turn yourself around to go out.

One of the things that struck me when I gave up an office job to work from home was those hours between 5pm and 7pm (the cinqà-sept the French allegedly allocate to visiting one’s lover) can drag. If you don’t have an illicit lover they can be dead stock, so waiting to go out to dinner at 8.30pm has less appeal.

Add to this the current dietary advice for overnight fasting aided by an early evening meal, and in no time at all we might find dinner has vanished and we will be returning to high tea.