I read much angst regarding securing seemingly impossible reservations at hot restaurants. How do you regard or address this frustration? Backdoor approaches to obtain the desired reservation or moving on to another option or something in between?
Sometimes stuff is popular because it’s good, and if so, then there’s usually ways to sample it given enough planning, because people doing good work tend to get paid to keep doing it.
Some places are just hot because they’re hot RIGHT NOW, because of celebrity, or novelty, and those places tend to disappear once their virality has run its course. And if you miss one of those, well, have you missed that much?
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I have yet to see a reservation which can’t be made with some planning - yes, you might not get it next week but if you plan sometimes 1-2 months ahead it normally works quite well
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Go at lunch/snag a bar seat/try for an early-bird reservation.
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Amex Centurion concierge.
Never fails.
I had two local restaurants that were very difficult. Both only took reservations through their online system so it meant sitting at the computer ready to hit the button at the precise time they opened the book for the period three months hence. Dates we could go in that month written out in front of me. Credit card next to them. More often than not, I’d be able to get a table. The system would open up at 10am. By 10.15 it would be completely full.
The other was very hot. Similar sort of booking system and I tried for several months without being lucky. Tried again when restaurants reopened after the first Covid lockdown and managed to score without any problem. How things have changed since those early days. It was only last week that i looked at their system and could easily get a tabel for next week.
I just regard this as a frustration I can’t get round. So, if I can’t book somewhere I just move on. It’s a similar “moving on” with regard to those restaurants that we’ve been to before and would like to go again, but they have priced themselves out of our market. We could afford to pay £250 each for dinner at one but don’t intend to.
For one, which we’ve been going to for some years,
