Mind Your P's & Queue...

How a date at a London French restaurant led me to reflect on the art of the humble British pursuit.

When Queen Elizabeth died, hundreds of people stood in a queue for 7 hours a day, to see her coffin. Whilst this was a moment of modern history, it appears the desire we have to queue is not only reserved for once in a lifetime events. In a world where we are encouraged to set our boundaries and keep valuable time to ourselves, it appears Londoners are happy to ring-fence hours of personal time aside for treats. Something like attempting to dine at Dishoom after 6pm on a Wednesday (Good curry but definitely not worth a 2.5 hour wait - even if they do give you free chai).

Once you embrace the incredibly annoying mantra of a no reservation policy, i.e. the ‘big dick energy’ of restauranting, I make my case for why the restaurant queue can be an entertaining pursuit…