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At The Ashok, Delhi, music is used to soothe loneliness away. (Source: File Photo)
A person eating alone at restaurants might be a common sight. It may even be sought after, but some company is perhaps always nice, and it need not always be a human being. Recently, Prakash Mallya, MD at Intel India, Sales and Marketing Group stopped by at Trident, Bandra Kurla’s Italian specialty restaurant Botticino for a meal. On seeing him alone, the hotel authorities placed a fishbowl on his table.
The practice is not new at Botticino, a place that attracts a large business clientele, who often end up eating alone. In a trend that’s peculiar to this particular branch, as an inside joke, a male fish is provided as a companion for a woman eating alone and vice-versa, a hotel spokesperson informed indianexpress.com. To make it more intimate, the bowl also contains the name of the fish.
ALSO READ | Mumbai hotel’s sweet gesture for guest dining alone is winning hearts online
Land in Mumbai, walk into the hotel restaurant for a quick meal. The hotel staff come by to leave this on my table as company given I was eating alone. So nice & thoughtful and something that’s never happened in all my travel thus far😊! #CustomerExperience pic.twitter.com/YCsL5riQWK
— Prakash Mallya (@PrakashMallya) August 7, 2019
This, however, is not the only hotel to do this, as someone replying to the tweet pointed out. “They gave me one at
@ITCHotels when I said my room was too quiet,” she mentioned. This, however, is not something ITC practices regularly. “There is no such corporate policy on the subject. A few hotels may have done it as part of value addition for a guest experience.”
At The Ashok, Delhi, music is used to soothe loneliness away. Vijay Dutt, General Manager, while speaking to indianexpress.com said, “We have a mandolin player at our flagship restaurant, The Frontier. This artist makes sure not to leave any guest unattended.” And when someone is dining alone, the mandolin player approaches them to asks if he can provide company with music.
“He checks on their song preference, since he can play anything from 90’s to the 21st century on his mandolin. This works well with almost all guests, as food with your choice of music strikes the right chord with your mood,” he says.
