For lonely Londoners: five rules for bringing community back
If I had to choose just one pillar of wellbeing, one thing that underpins everything else, it would be community.
Not supplements. Not routines. Not even sleep (although I love it dearly). Connection is the thing that holds us together. And it’s the thing that feels most fragile right now. We are more connected digitally than ever before, yet so many people feel lonely, untethered, and unseen. We message constantly, scroll endlessly, like and comment and react but real connection feels harder to come by. The kind that happens around tables, in kitchens, in unguarded moments where no one is performing but just being.
I see this so clearly in my retreats. People arrive as strangers, often exhausted, often guarded. Within a few days of cooking together, eating together, walking together, something shifts. Conversations happen. Laughter comes more easily. Phones stay in bags. Many friendships are formed and as you get older and busier, friendships are hard to come by.
Food plays a huge role in this. Across every culture I’ve lived in, meals were never just about fuel. They were about gathering. About sitting down. About checking in. About sharing the day. Eating together wasn’t a special occasion, it was daily life. Coming together around a dinner table as a family and chatting about your day.
Somewhere along the way, many of us stopped doing that.
We eat on the go. At our desks. In front of screens. Alone, even when we’re with other people. Meals have become functional, rushed, and oddly disconnected. Even when we do gather, there can be pressure for it to look good, be impressive, be worthy of documenting. As if a dinner only counts if it’s Instagrammable. But the most nourishing meals are rarely the prettiest.
Cooking together matters just as much as eating together. There is something very bonding about the community aspect of chopping, stirring, tasting, and sharing responsibility for a meal. It gives everyone a role and creates space for conversation and an opportunity to share cooking knowledge.
Going out for dinner matters too. Dressing up, leaving the house, sitting across from someone with your phone tucked away in your bag. No rushing, no half-listening, no scrolling between courses. Just being there, properly.
And then there are dinner parties, the ones that don’t need the pomp and stomp. No matching tableware. No curated playlists. Don’t get me wrong, I love a beautifully styled dinner with a theme as much as the next person. But what happened to just popping into someone’s house, or throwing something simple together because you felt like being together? Without worrying about how it looks or whether we’re “doing enough”. Connection doesn’t need styling or to be Instagram worthy. I have intentionally started asking dinner guests to refrain from taking pictures and sharing on social media because my effort is for them and not for the gram. I like having a separate life that is very much separated from what I do online. Is that a good business decision on my part? Probably not but I do know that once those phones are put away it makes a hell of a difference to the experience.
What worries me is how quietly community has slipped away. We assume connection will just happen, and when it doesn’t, we blame ourselves rather than the systems that keep us isolated and overstimulated.
Loneliness isn’t just an emotional issue, it’s a health one. Studies show that strong social connections are linked to longer lives, lower stress, better immunity, and improved mental health. Community regulates us. It calms our nervous systems. It reminds us we’re not doing this alone.
Rebuilding it doesn’t require grand gestures. It starts small.
Here are my five rules for trying to bring community back
Eat at the table.
Leave your phone in another room.
Invite someone over, even if it’s last minute.
Cook together, even if it’s simple.
Say yes to dinner.
Community doesn’t have to be loud or constant. It just has to be real, like how there are community groups making our City greener.
If sleep restores us, and food nourishes us, then community is what sustains us. It’s the glue between all the other pillars. Without it, everything else falls apart too.
We don’t need more optimisation. We need more togetherness.
To find out about Bettina Campolucci Bordi’s cooking go to Bettinaskitchen.com