David Mitchell

This post has been slow-cooking for about fifteen years but what nudged me to get it written was a conversation with a relative, who could not be accused of being left wing, about the closure of Sainsbury’s restaurants.

‘It was a public service!’ they complained.

It was true: the food wasn’t great, but the cafés in Sainsbury’s supermarkets were cheap, simple, and accessible. No-one would call them ‘socialist’, but I use that word here broadly for a public eating place which is pro-human and pro-planet, egalitarian and inclusive. And which, for the most part, doesn’t exist.

I got a memorable lesson in the politics and sociology of dining back when I was working in a convenience store at what might be called a socio-economic interface in Belfast. On one side of our shop was a trendy burger restaurant. On the other side was a ‘greasy café’. People of all classes came to our shop, but to eat, working-class people went to the greasy café and middle-class people went to the burger restaurant. Parallel worlds; no surprise, but it was stark, and it seemed wrong.

Then, a revelation in Barcelona. Wife and I were doing as we did (and still do): trying to have the nicest possible holiday on the lowest possible budget. Across from the Sagrada Família we wandered wearily inside to seek food. The place was big, bright, and basic with long tables and plastic chairs. You paid ten euro and ate whatever you wanted from a fresh and nourishing buffet. I took a photo on my digital camera.

Nostalgia for that place only grew when kids arrived. Home mealtimes became long sessions of psychological torture, yet eating out was tricky, humiliating, and increasingly expensive. ‘Remember Barcelona!’, I’d begin.

The problem is this: all eateries are variations on two ideal types, the good quality but exclusive restaurant which is designed to keep most of the population from entering the door, and the cheap and nasty junk food joint which welcomes everyone but destroys health and the planet. Anything in between still tends to one or other poles, the poles of capitalism. Here and there, I’ve come across places which get close to a social democratic alternative, but none quite nail it.[i]

Perhaps we don’t have socialist restaurants because we don’t have much socialism. Food banks are booming; people are hungry. A new kind of restaurant wouldn’t solve food poverty, but it’s a sobering thought experiment to imagine how the range of places available in which to buy cooked food looks from the point of view of someone who is not physically healthy and has next to no money. There’s also a mental health crisis which some people link to what we eat, and even, as I heard experts mind-bendingly argue recently, the specific lack of fish in our diets.    

In some countries, socialism did produce socialist restaurants. This article by Owen Hatherley, writer on cities and architecture, describes Poland’s ‘milk bars’, ‘the greatest survivor of the frequently mocked but strangely enduring legacy of state socialist planning for proletarian eating.’ In 2025, in unfussy surroundings, you can get a satisfying three-course meal for the equivalent of five pounds. Poland has deep cultural divisions and good reasons to be suspicious of socialism. But ‘the milk bar shows that in a certain form, socialism is welcomed by a remarkable range of people, from mohair-bereted devoutly Catholic pensioners to intersectional feminist twentysomethings.’ The socialist approach to dining was partly inspired by a feminist desire to release women from toil in the kitchen.

No doubt there are such examples in other parts of the world. I can only talk about where I’ve experienced. Certainly, Ireland and Britain lack the inexpensive street food traditions found in other cultures.

In any case, the only thing left to do is to open our imaginary eatery. Here are the five principles I jotted down in the car after leaving an inspirational service station (see footnote) in England.

1. Inclusive and informal

Everyone’s welcome, all generations. We want this to be an equalising social hub where we might rub shoulders with people we know, with all walks of life. No booking, no dress code. Lots of dogs.

2. Affordable

A trip to this place must be routine, not a treat. Quality and affordability? If we cut out unnecessary expenses and perhaps with a little government support or cooperative ownership, it can be done.

3. Limited choice

Fewer choices make for an easier and more shared experience. In our socialist utopian diner, we’ll eradicate order envy. Just a few dishes on offer are enough. In my Barcelona buffet there was a range of food but only one price, so you didn’t have to think. Fewer dishes mean less food waste too.  

4. No servility

Table service forces you into a kind of Lord of the Manor role playing game. The faux niceness of staff, the trying to catch someone’s eye to pay the bill, it’s all so stupid. In our socialist restaurant, people will get their own food and clear their own tables. If the staff at the till smile, great, but they don’t have to. And there definitely will be no tipping because tipping is the most patronising and unfair elitist nonsense ever invented.   

5. Healthy and sustainable

We want local, seasonal ingredients with little or no environmental impact. And since we’ll be visiting regularly, it’s got to be nutritious, like it was cooked at home. There’ll be actual food offered to kids, not fried beige gunk. If they don’t eat their vegetables, they’re kicked out on the street. 

For years I’ve been joking that if ever gave up academia I would start this kind of restaurant. It’s a joke because I’d be so bad at it. Over to you!

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[i] And they are:

IKEA restaurants Swedish social democracy infuses the IKEA ideal of well-designed furniture for all, and so also the restaurants. Unfortunately, the food tastes like the furniture.

The Pizza Hut £5 lunch buffet Is it still a thing? Wife and I were regulars at these in the noughties. You could stuff yourself and it would almost do lunch and dinner. Not good food, though.

Posh English motorway service stations At Teebay Services in the Lake District and Gloucester Services, kids eat for one pound! Great, local produce. An informal but restorative atmosphere. If I lived close to one of them…

KC Peaches, Dublin Something like eleven euro and you can fill your plate with goodness: hot dishes and lovely salads. 

Hipster cafés With their minimalist aesthetic, concern for localism and sustainability, and usually quite short menus, the hipsters are in the right direction. But I wouldn’t say those places are for everyday dining.

Work canteens There may be many workplace and educational canteens that get near what I am thinking but which aren’t widely accessible. I recall the one in the Stormont Assembly being particularly good, with lots of tasty (and controversially subsidised) food.

Monasteries etc. Undoubtedly the kind of dining that goes on in many religious institutions and those places on pilgrim routes could be described as socialist: hearty, unpretentious food in a non-hierarchical setting. I resisted calling this blog post ‘Where would Jesus eat?’.