A Table for 20

By Lisa McLaughlin

It's 8 p.m. on a Thursday night, and at Buddakan, a restaurant in Manhattan's ultra-trendy Meatpacking District, friends Lisa Natt-Irom and Jeanne DiGangi and their husbands are sitting down to an intimate dinner with 18 complete strangers. "Hi, I'm Jeanne," says DiGangi, 42, as she slides into her seat at the 30-ft.-long table that is the centerpiece of the room. "Have you eaten here before? What's your favorite thing? You have to try the butternut-squash dumplings!" she says before taking a breath and introducing the rest of her party.

Welcome to the communal table. Except for the occasional dim sum pig-out, Americans have traditionally liked their public dining experiences to be private, favoring booths, banquettes and sometimes even whole rooms that separate them from others. But lately, whether out of a modern need for community or an ancient urge to break bread in company, sharing dining space with strangers is appealing to a growing number of diners at all levels of the food chain. "I eat so many meals rushed, in front of the TV," says James Wheeler, 28. "It's sometimes nice to share a meal with people." Even if they are people he has never met before. Wheeler can often be found on Sundays swapping pots of jam with neighbors at the wooden farm table at his local branch of Belgian bakery chain Le Pain Quotidien. Restaurants ranging from the fast-casual Bonefish Grill chain to high-end foodie destinations like the Herbfarm in Woodinville, Wash., are offering communal tables. A couple who met at the shared table at Cafe Pasqual's in Santa Fe, N.M., named their child Pasqual. And Wagamama, a global noodle chain, has just opened its first U.S. outlet in Boston, with communal seating.

The tradition of paying to eat a meal at a table alongside strangers can be traced, as so many other dining customs can be, to 18th century France. A 1786 decree ordered caterers, who once fed the nobility in their palaces, to serve all customers in shops. The shared tables in these restaurants were celebrated as social equalizers. Across Europe, community dining has remained a key element of bistros, beer halls and tapas bars. "It's a very European thing," says Vincenzo Lauria, assistant professor of table service at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and a native of Naples, Italy. "It reflects a lot about how Europeans eat. We talk loud. We share."

Restaurateur Stephen Starr, owner of Buddakan, says he has made communal tables part of many of his restaurants because "they provide a great core of energy." Buddakan evokes the roots of such dining with a space reminiscent of Versailles. "When people descend the stairs, it's as if they're watching a movie," says Starr. "People like to feel they're part of a group or party, and our tables achieve that." The shared table is so popular that even Drew Barrymore, whose celebrity status would surely merit more discreet VIP seating, has been spotted there.

Sitting with strangers isn't always a success; getting stuck with someone boring is never a joy, and a bad date can infect the entire table. But unlike a dinner party, a shared table allows you to order what you want, and there's no obligation to talk to the person next to you. Getting to know your neighbors, however, is often part of the fun. Those at such tables tend to be more sociable, like DiGangi and Natt-Irom. At Buddakan that night, the interaction between groups started with food ("Oh, what's that?" as a plate of shaken chili beef tartare arrived) but quickly progressed to a discussion about the latest handbags from Chloe, a debate about police brutality and an exchange of phone numbers at the end of the meal. Just like at a great dinner party.