A London food diary entry on chasing a hyped Soho opening, the specific agony of a fully-booked reservation system, and whether the wait was ever going to be worth it
Impala in Soho has just taken the top spot on Time Out’s list of London’s best new restaurants, and within about forty minutes of that list going live I was refreshing a booking system that informed me, with what felt like genuine cruelty, that the earliest available table was six weeks away.
Why I Immediately Abandoned Everything Else To Try And Book This
There’s a specific kind of urgency that kicks in the moment a genuinely reputable list crowns a new number one, a sense that the window for getting a table at anything resembling a reasonable notice is already closing even as you’re reading the announcement, and I have never refreshed a reservation page with quite this level of doomed determination.
What Six Weeks Of Waiting Actually Does To Your Relationship With A Restaurant You Haven’t Even Visited Yet
It builds an entirely disproportionate amount of anticipation, honestly. I’ve spent more time this week reading about Impala’s menu than I have about restaurants I’ve actually eaten at recently, which feels like a genuinely strange way to relate to a meal I haven’t had yet and won’t have for well over a month.
Why I Think This Particular List Carries More Weight Than Most
Time Out’s Food and Drink editor updates this ranking regularly rather than as a single annual event, which somehow makes a fresh number one feel considerably more earned and less like pure hype than some of the more sporadic, splashier best-of lists that circulate every so often.
What I’ve Actually Done While Waiting Out My Six-Week Booking Window
Set a calendar reminder to check for cancellations obsessively, which I recognise is a slightly unhinged use of my own time, and also started a small mental list of everything I’m planning to order the moment I actually get through the door.
Whether I Think Six Weeks Of Anticipation Is Ever Actually A Good Idea
Probably not, if I’m honest with myself, and I fully expect to arrive in six weeks having built the whole meal up into something no kitchen could realistically deliver. But I’ve booked it anyway, and I’ll report back properly once I’ve actually eaten there rather than just obsessively reading about it.