"The Bar Room has a corner table placed strategically at a point diagonally across from the entrance. the table of tables in the setting of settings in the building of buildings. In the religion of lunch, this is the holy of holies"
About this Quote
Sokolov turns a mundane seating choice into a liturgy, and that inflation is the point. By zooming in on a corner table "placed strategically at a point diagonally across from the entrance", he’s describing power the way restaurants actually distribute it: not through official titles, but through sightlines. From that perch you control the room. You see who arrives, who’s waiting, who’s trying to be seen. It’s the maître d’s chessboard square and the regular’s throne, a vantage that converts lunch from mere refueling into soft governance.
The piled-up superlatives - "table of tables", "setting of settings", "building of buildings" - are mock-biblical, but not purely comedic. They mimic the breathless certainty of insiders, the tone of someone who knows that in certain professional ecosystems (media, finance, politics), lunch is where reputations are traded and decisions are pre-negotiated. The phrase "religion of lunch" lands because it nails the secular devotion of cities that run on appointments and reciprocity. You don’t just eat; you perform belonging. You signal that you are, or are becoming, a person for whom time can be spent publicly.
Context matters: Sokolov, as a journalist-critic, spent decades chronicling how restaurants function as cultural institutions, not just kitchens. He’s winking at the sanctimony of elite dining rituals while also admitting their gravitational pull. The "holy of holies" isn’t the food; it’s access.
The piled-up superlatives - "table of tables", "setting of settings", "building of buildings" - are mock-biblical, but not purely comedic. They mimic the breathless certainty of insiders, the tone of someone who knows that in certain professional ecosystems (media, finance, politics), lunch is where reputations are traded and decisions are pre-negotiated. The phrase "religion of lunch" lands because it nails the secular devotion of cities that run on appointments and reciprocity. You don’t just eat; you perform belonging. You signal that you are, or are becoming, a person for whom time can be spent publicly.
Context matters: Sokolov, as a journalist-critic, spent decades chronicling how restaurants function as cultural institutions, not just kitchens. He’s winking at the sanctimony of elite dining rituals while also admitting their gravitational pull. The "holy of holies" isn’t the food; it’s access.
Quote Details
| Topic | Food |
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