Buona Sera at the Jam

Before I was ill, I had one of those days when you just need to be by yourself.  Of course, now I am by myself and craving friends and post-work drinks and pub suppers and train travel and conversation, I can’t imagine wanting to spend any more time with my own thoughts (untroubled and superficial as they are), but the other week I distinctly remember that being the case.  I spent much of the age of 17 in the same mindset.  One Saturday in the early 2000s, I went to the French bookshop on Bute Street in South Kensington, bought a slim Folio edition of a book by Jean-Paul Sartre called ‘L’existentialisme est un humanisme’ and carefully placed it at an angle, poking out of the top of my handbag in what I hoped was a passive aggressive ‘do not talk to me, I am an intellectual’ manner, but actually just meant that people took the piss. It was especially galling to realise I could only actually understand one word in about sixty five. 

Anyway, I left work, bought an ill-advised but successful bright red dress, downloaded a new book to the kindle, walked almost all the way home and then decided to have a quiet, solo supper somewhere nice. You need to pick the kind of place to do this carefully. You don’t want somewhere you’re going to be made to share seating space and (horror) possibly have to talk to strangers, just because you’re alone e.g. Wagamama.  You also don’t want somewhere they’re going to try to make it look like their restaurant is full by putting you and your book in the plate glass window like a freak show display (I don’t think it’s freakish, you understand, but a lot of people do), and, lastly, eating by yourself in a chain – Byron, Pizza Express... – is all kinds of depressing (they even have vouchers so you bring more people, could you really not rustle anybody up?) so avoid those too.  To recap, I was looking for cosy, noisy, secluded, not too big, not too small (they’ll turn your table in favour of 2 or more covers), and probably pasta.  It’s almost always probably pasta if I’m by myself. Not a huge amount to ask.

To cut a very long story short (and skipping out the 20 minutes I spent walking up and down the Kings Road in a welter of indecision), a little restaurant called Buona Sera gave me a superlative plate of salmon and courgette pasta – sparklingly fresh fish and veg, al dente pasta, lovely vibrant seasoning- with a glass of Pinot Grigio, friendly, non-judgemental solo-eating service and 45 unhurried minutes with my book which was, at that point, the most perfect evening I could imagine. As soon as I am restored to sociability, I’ll be coming back with friends.

Buona Sera at the Jam

289 King's Rd, SW3 5EW

020 7352 8827