Once upon a time, before the era of being a total restaurant nut, I thought that booking tables was a simple matter. Today I know that it is more like running four hundred meters with the intention of breaking a world record, preceded by a complex period of financial, technological and logistical preparation.

The more recognized the restaurant is and considered better in the eyes of critics, the harder it is to get a table. The absolute apogee is being ranked number one in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. For example, booking a table at the three-star Mirazur involved some inconvenience, to say the least, but after being named the best restaurant in the world, it became impossible – the tables were taken a year ahead.

Alchemist, although not yet No. 1, has been in great demand from the beginning. Because of this, it was only after more than a year of effort that I was able to make a successful booking, and go another year later.

At DiverXo, Dabiz Muñoz was named Best Chef of the World and, of course, made the guest list fill up momentarily.

So how do you get into such a restaurant?

In fact, they all use special platforms for reservations. A specific day of the month or quarter, the restaurant opens the possibility to “book” a table well in advance. Some allow you to book for the next month, others only for the next quarter, and there are some where you will soon be able to sign up for dinner in… 2024. I sense some similarity here to the queues for NHF specialists, but let’s move on.

Despite such obvious handicaps, there are enough gastro-wizards like me to admit that my first comparison to a 400-meter run is badly misplaced. It’s more like a discount store fight over luxury handbags on promotion, only it’s online and seemingly cultural. I’m almost certain that if we were given pruning shears and addresses of people vying for a free table, the fiber optics wouldn’t stand a chance.

In addition, fighting for seats is not fair game. There are culinary VIPs, friends of the rabbit, and well-known personalities who get their seats early and when the official booking starts, some seats are dibs on from the beginning.

To illustrate the magnitude of this phenomenon, I can write that during the ca. 2 minutes book all tables for a given period. And it doesn’t matter if these are bookings for October only, or from October to December, or maybe for November 2023. 2 minutes and it’s over. I mean, of course, those top spots.

You would probably think that some people book multiple dates at once just in case, and then cancel the less convenient ones. Such practice yes existed, but was curbed by a simple rule – you book, you pay. Very often the full amount for dinner. Aside from the obvious disadvantage of freezing money for such a period of time, this has an advantage. When a person finally, after a year of waiting, flies to such a restaurant, he hardly remembers paying anything anymore. He doesn’t remember the pain of jerking his wallet against the debit. The bill for the drinks alone is then some such pleasant surprise.

If it’s so difficult, how do I get into such a restaurant?

I need to be faster and better organized than the rest. I don’t have secateurs, so I prepare differently. I am becoming a Reservation Man!

In the first stage, I check airline connections in a specific month. When are the departures, when are the arrivals, what time is dinner, what day is the return flight, when for professional reasons I can and cannot go. This is how a whole grid of optimal terms is created. There will be no time to think while fighting for a table. One date is already taken, then I take the next one from the list. Without a second thought!

Układając listę muszę też wziąć pod uwagę popularność konkretnych dni. Oczywistym jest, że największym zainteresowaniem cieszy się piątek i sobota, a trudność w zdobyciu takiego terminu rośnie nieproporcjonalnie. Dlatego w przypadku choćby Alchemista nawet nie próbowałem o te dni rywalizować, a szukałem stolika w środku tygodnia. I jak się okazuje, tak postąpiła większość 😊

The next step is to prepare the funds in the accounts. Yes, not on one, but on two different, independent ones with different payment cards. Redundancy is the key! Because of its absence, I once almost lost my dream table.

To further enhance the curiosity of the situation when Day 0 arrives, I set the monitor screen so that I fire up a clock with a second hand on one part of it, and the restaurant’s website on the other. I still have my smartphone on standby in case another competitor, however, has a secateurs and knows my address.

10 minutes to zero hour. I turn off all unnecessary apps and stop taking any calls. Accelerated breathing.

5 minutes to zero hour. I can’t hear you even if you stand next to me and shout in my ear. Heart rate very fast.

One minute to zero hour. I wake up the phone to make sure the screen doesn’t go out. One last mouse check and first page refresh. The heart has just turned into a Metallica drummer.

3 seconds to zero hour. I’m starting to refresh the page, in case the server has minimally timed out.

Zero hour. A calendar with free appointments appears. I indicate the date, time, number of people. Acceptance.

In many booking systems, there is then a respite, which lasts for about a month. 10 minutes. This is the time to make payments. I enter the card details (of course, I already have them saved) and wait for a message from the banking application. I know I have 10 minutes, but those seconds last an eternity.

I confirm payment and freeze for a moment. Once before, at this stage, the reservation system crashed, and instead of waiting, I pressed F5… The result. I went back to the beginning, and my table was gone.

Then all that remains is to wait for the official email, and only when it arrives does the celebration begin. Along the way, I eventually beat thousands of competitors, the vast majority of whom will have to wait another few months for their chance.

Until yesterday, I was convinced that booking a table could not be any more stressful, but I was obviously wrong. There is something worse. This evil is called a “waiting list.” When a person misses the deadline for the release of tables, he can sign up for the waiting list and live in hope that some poor soul will give up his paid reservation. Even my innate reserves of optimism are not large enough to believe in the success of such a turn of events.

Yes, I was wrong again. The decks should be bigger and I should be prepared. But I wasn’t. In the middle of the day, I saw an email from Noma Restaurant. I couldn’t believe my eyes. A seat has become vacant! Dinner next week. Noma! Noma!

The outburst of joy turned into dismay when I read the information that this email was received by everyone waiting for this table.

I’ve already written that I’m not the only gastro-wizard, right? First come, first served!!!

I tentatively confirmed after a few seconds, but have not yet paid. The problem was one. Serious. There are four of us going.

Yes, on the waiting list I enrolled us with everyone’s consent, but it was a long time ago. Do they have time next week? Will they go? While waiting for these answers, I looked at the passing of time.

The countdown started at 10 minutes and ran inexorably to zero.

I made the payment 180 seconds before time ran out.

I kiedy już zatwierdziłem przelew, zdałem sobie sprawę, że w okresie wakacyjnym zakup biletów lotniczych dla czterech osób, na za tydzień, może nie być wcale tak łatwy… 😊