As we head into August, the nights are (regrettably) slowly drawing in and the days are getting shorter. Images of sunny beer gardens, packed in midsummer at 10pm, are gradually disappearing like Marty’s parents in Back To The Future.
Do you find yourself eating later in the middle of summer, compared to the time you eat in the evenings during the winter? Well, the answer to this could be how old you are, where you live and how healthy your lifestyle is.
Whether you’re a Gen X or Gen Z, diners, especially those who live further out of town, are swapping late-night wine-fuelled culinary indulgence for early evening sobriety — and restaurants are taking note.
Across the country, restaurants are adapting their timetables to meet demand from customers who want to eat earlier. Fashionably late is out — in 2025, it’s the early diners who are filling the tables.
Data from OpenTable, the online restaurant reservation service, reveals a sharp rise in 6pm reservations, up 11 per cent in London and 6 per cent across the UK compared with the same period last year. Zonal, the hospitality tech service, pegs the new national average dining time at 6.12pm, with nearly half of all bookings falling between midday and 6pm. This summer, one London restaurant – Counter 71 in Shoreditch – has introduced a £50 early evening set menu aimed at the growing crowd of purposeful post-work diners. But it’s more than a menu tweak — it’s a response to a cultural shift.
Post-covid work patterns and wellness-focused professionals are driving this change in attitudes, along with the sober-curious and the cost-conscious.
People who work from home tend to start and finish earlier, which naturally leads to earlier dining. Factor in the lack of a commute, and people have far more flexibility to eat out earlier. There’s also now broader public awareness that late-night eating isn’t great for one’s health.
It’s not just about health though. Younger diners especially are making choices that bolster their financial health. Earlier dining helps avoid expensive late-night drinking.
And on the subject of Shoreditch, this area of London (EC2) has just celebrated 20 years since it began being regenerated from one of the grimmest neighbourhoods to one of the most vibrant. In other London news, a recent survey announced that the top 5 areas to live in London for wellness – and the fashion forward – are the following postcodes (although South Londoners might have something to say about this!):
5 – Wembley
4 – Twickenham (my childhood town)
3 – Shoreditch
2 – Stoke Newington
1 – Walthamstow.
Onto this week’s instalment, and we look at Dad fashion, Kim Kardashian’s double chin lift hack and how to dress stylishly for that flight.
