Nothing, apart from a business lunch with someone whose money you are seeking, compares with the first-date dinner for the importance of the correct restaurant choice. Make the wrong selection and it is very likely there won't be a second date, and an absolute certainty that the first date won't last beyond the bill, if you manage to get that far. But what is the right sort of restaurant for that crucial first-date? It's all very well to say 'a very expensive one', if you're not the one who's paying. Indeed, if you're not paying, it would be foolish to say otherwise
Given, however, that it is usually the person who picks the restaurant who also picks up the tab, a degree of moderation is perhaps advisable. Another point to bear in mind is that a first-date restaurant is not the same thing as a romantic restaurant. It is a common mistake to conflate the two, and it's a mistake that invariably results in the humiliating exposure of your darker motives. Candlelight, soft music, and all the rest are not a safe option until many months, or preferably years, into a relationship, by which time they can be properly appreciated for their absurd campness without fear of libidinous complications.
But moody atmosphere and vintage champagne on a first date are of a piece with dropping into the chemist to buy something for later: they suggest a confidence screaming out to be crushed. Let's try something a little less obvious. A gastro-pub might seem to strike the right note of relaxed informality, but there is a fine line between coziness and sharing a table with four inebriated strangers, and most gastro-pubs have only the loosest idea of where that line is.
Somewhere, then, a little more restrained, but not stuffy. Somewhere with discrete tables, but not too expensive (you're paying remember, or at least you might have to). Somewhere you feel comfortable, where there is the kind of clientele that seems familiar. Somewhere, then, that you've been before. Wrong!
Do not make the schoolboy error of going anywhere that you've been previously. Sod's Law insists that if you've been there before, you've been there with someone else, and that person will be there again. Whatever a first date is, it is not a spectator sport. In particular, it should be restricted viewing for anyone you've ever wined and dined in the past. Sitting down at a table to discover an ex in eye-shot will do nothing for your digestion
If, however, you do find yourself in this appalling position, do not on any account attempt to butch it out. Retreat immediately. Say that you've left the gas on at home, take extreme offence at the menu, do whatever is necessary, but get out. The alternative explores levels of self-consciousness you did not think possible with your clothes on.
Phew. Your options now are very limited. You could suggest a restaurant that is nowhere near anywhere you've ever been, but that may appear strange, bordering on the psychosexually perverse. The centre of town is clearly out, as for obvious reasons are the suburbs. That leaves the countryside, but you would require something special about you (possibly a lot of money) to mention the words 'countryside inn' on your first date and expect a positive response.
You may, after all, have to be prepared to pay a large sum of money and go to one of those impersonal but extortionately expensive restaurants that only business people on bottomless expense accounts can afford. Here, unless you are a business person (in which case, you can't be very successful if you're reading this column for tips), the chance of being recognised by a friend or former lover is negligible.
However, the advantage of anonymity will be offset by the sheer tension of wondering if your date is going to insist on a starter and a pudding. If it does go to three courses, you'll have little choice but to introduce into conversation your support for gender equality and distaste for pointless rituals that reinforce gender divisions - for example, men paying for women and such like.(Note: if you are a woman and you have orchestrated the date, do not mention this topic.)
All in all, a serious financial reverse in the company of besuited stiffs is not what you would call an ideal first date. So what's left? There is, in fact, one other option. You could always go to the cinema instead.
