September in Palm Beach is wonderfully deceptive.
Traffic is manageable. Your favorite restaurant has an opening at 7:30. You can call on a Thursday and—imagine this—eat there on Friday.
Enjoy it.
Because they're coming back.
Soon the car carriers will begin appearing on South County Road, the charity calendar will spring to life, and the annual migration will be complete. By January, asking for a prime Saturday-night reservation at one of Palm Beach's hottest restaurants will be met with the sort of sympathetic silence normally reserved for someone who has just received unfortunate news.
The stylish thing to do, naturally, is prepare.
Book now. No, really. Now. If you already know who's coming for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's or that inevitable February houseguest who says, "We don't need to make plans!"—make plans. The restaurants everyone will be trying to book in January are considerably more accommodating before everyone remembers they exist.
Learn to love 5:30. Or 9:15. There is no constitutional right to dinner at 7:30 p.m. In season, flexibility is currency. An early table can be surprisingly civilized, and a late reservation gives you time for a proper cocktail beforehand. Call it European and move on.
Pick up the telephone. Yes, the telephone. That rectangular device you otherwise use to text. Reservation platforms are useful, but they don't necessarily tell the whole story. A gracious call to the host stand—particularly if your timing is flexible—can occasionally accomplish what refreshing an app 47 times cannot.
Know someone who knows someone. We are, after all, in Palm Beach. This is not the moment to become shy about your social network. Your friend belongs to the club? Wonderful. Your neighbor has been eating at the same restaurant every Thursday since the Reagan administration? Even better. Someone knows the maître d'? You have chosen your friends wisely.
Become the regular before you need to be the regular. Restaurants remember the people who dine with them in September, tip well, know the staff's names and don't suddenly materialize on December 27 demanding a table for eight at 7 p.m. Loyalty is a long game.
Lunch. Never underestimate lunch. Some of Palm Beach's best dining rooms are arguably more fun at noon anyway, and there's something deeply civilized about deciding that a two-hour lunch counts as the day's main social engagement.
Know the calendar. Everyone wants dinner on the same nights—until everyone is somewhere else. A major gala can empty out restaurants that were impossible the previous evening. If half the island is in black tie at The Breakers, this may be your moment.
And when all else fails, leave Palm Beach. Not permanently. Let's not be dramatic.
Palm Beach County's dining scene now rewards a little geographic curiosity. Head south to Boynton Beach for Michelin-recognized NICHOLSON MUIR. Go west to Wellington and try Maxwell's Plum, where the atmosphere is sufficiently whimsical to make the drive feel like part of the evening. The point is to resist the strange seasonal conviction that dinner ceases to exist once you cross the bridge.
And always have a Plan B.
Season is much more pleasant once you stop treating every reservation as a test of social standing. Sometimes the table you couldn't get sends you somewhere you've never tried—and occasionally, that's the better dinner.
Of course, if none of this works, there's always that friend with the club membership.
You know the one.
Call them.