Why Valentine's Day is the worst day of the year to dine out

Feb 13, 2023

Tempted to make a special reservation this February 14? Don't do it, writes Kate Gibbs.

Did you hear that? That was the sound of your beloved’s heart breaking when you told them where you plan to take them this February 14. Oh, yes. It’s Valentine’s Day, again. Just around the corner, and promising to bum you out with all its pink ribbons and crimson heart cards, shoving another fancy meal at you that you needed like a fork in the eye. Here’s why you and your Valentine should absolutely, trust me, dine at your place this Valentine’s Day.

Every year, too many of us try to throw money at the problem. If we haven’t been organised enough to book way, way, ahead for our favourite restaurant on Valentine’s Day, we do the next best thing and book the most expensive, not really likeable but definitely impressive place we can think of. Unless you want to test the strength of your relationship and wing it on the night with all the other beleaguered couples who also forgot to care about the DAY OF LOVE – shame – until the last minute.

Even calendar overachievers are destined for an awful night if they’ve chosen to eat out on Valentine’s Day. Here’s why. A loved-up pair slurping oysters and ordering the Champagne with two more dollar signs than the one you ordered is no aphrodisiac. And nothing sucks romance out of the air like a person getting down on one knee at the adjacent table. Unless February 14 feels like the perfect day to dissect your relationship and explain where you’re going, where the romance has gone, and did you want to have kids right now? How about a third? Well, do you? Restaurants are a dead end for those not necessarily locking in love-for-forever tonight.

comfort food

Also, a two-hundred dollar prix fixe has – shock – not been designed with your specific likes and loves in mind. “Special” set menus are designed to appeal to every diner in the restaurant at the same time. And they, averaging out, all like a lump of chicken breast roasted to medium-well with a jus you could have done with your eyes closed (maybe one squinted eye on a Gordon Ramsay YouTube video).

Valentine’s day is about celebrating your affection for a special person in your life. Sitting, elbows jostling and conversation diluted, in a crowded restaurant surrounded by couples also celebrating their brilliant, unique love is not, by any measure, quality time.

You’re not the only person who doesn’t want to be there. Nor does your waiter. And your chef is cooking spitefully, knowing that all she has to go home to is a partner who will complain about her work-life balance, again, and BTW it’s Valentine’s Day and what-is-more-important-to-her-in-the-end? That is not food made with love; the more attuned noses can smell the fear, the resignation, in our bouillabaisse.

Revealing your prowess in the kitchen is sexy. If you can’t conjure the energy to put a meal together at home, what else will you not quite muster when the time comes? No pressure, but you’d better be able to make up for the lack of personal service in another department.

Oysters with pomelo and kombu oil

Chilled oysters on a plate. The man can cook! A quality chicken in the oven, salt and pepper, a squeeze of lemon, does a heroine make. And if you honestly can’t cook, order in a Fix Dining and let Peter Gilmore, Lennox Hastie and Palisa Anderson do dinner. Hint: You get to heat and assemble and look like a pro – the good kind.

If I put my hand on my heart – because it’s about love after all – in this modern world the most romantic thing you can do for your beloved on Valentine’s Day is to propose… that you do the washing up.