Romance rears its head in February with the annual frenzy that surrounds Valentine's Day, and restaurateurs have ways of attracting couples.
The easiest one is simply by ensuring that their lighting is as flattering as possible. Others can take advantage of nature and make their restaurant a stage setting, using either a view across verdant countryside or a river to stir the emotions while letting the chef and the sommelier work their magic with the food and wine. For city centre restaurateurs this is an even bigger challenge, but here are four that manage to provide the most romantic of settings.
PARIS
Le Grand Véfour, 17 rue de Beaujolais, +33 1 42 96 56 27, grand-vefour.com
This gem of a restaurant is located under an arcade that leads on to the Palais Royal in the heart of Paris. The interior is equally impressive, as it evokes an era of how restaurants used to be, replete with drapes, mirrors and plenty of red velvet. There has been a restaurant here since the late 18th century.Guy Martin is the chef who has restored Le Grand Véfour's culinary reputation and he has done so via a combination of classic and more modern dishes, including foie gras as a starter or with Bresse chicken and morel mushrooms as a main course, langoustines with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and, finally, what many consider to be the city's most impressive cheese trolley. Excellent petits fours, too.
VIENNA
Demel, Kohlmarkt 14, +43 1 535 17 170, demel.at
The splendid rooms of this historic café are filled with the aroma of coffee, chocolate and exquisite pastries. Demel is a great place to stop for a leisurely breakfast en route to one of the museums. The lunch menu features a range of soups, veal goulash, fillets of freshwater char with pumpkins and pages of cakes and desserts. If it is cold outside then it is the perfect place to call in for some hot chocolate, with or without cream, with or without another cake or an early supper. There is also a shop on the ground floor brimming with potential presents or just mementos of a romantic weekend.
GIRONA
El Celler de Can Roca, Can Sunyer 48, +34 972 222 157, cellercanroca.com
This restaurant in northeast Spain, a hotbed of culinary rivalry, is home to the three Roca brothers: Joan, the savoury mind in charge of the kitchen, Josep, the liquid mind, in charge of the cellar, and Jordi, the pastry chef. The modern, glass, triangular building that is now their new home has as its centre a small garden planted with trees that generates an extra sense of calm as the meal unfolds.
Extraordinary bread, fillets of sole with olive oil, lamb with peas and mint and a rose soufflé were the highlights of my last meal. But the most memorable sound comes from Josep's rumbling wine list: it is so extensive that it occupies four books that are transported around the restaurant in a mobile cabinet.
LYON
La Mère Brazier, 12 rue Royale, +33 4 78 23 17 20, lamerebrazier.fr
The remarkable Eugénie Brazier was an important figure in Lyon's culinary development when she first opened her restaurant in 1921, at the age of just 26. In 2008 the restaurant was taken over and restored to its former charm by chef Mathieu Viannay and his young team. The cooking is modern and precise, the wine list a careful composition of the best from nearby Rhône and Burgundy, and the service swift and charming.Our dinner began with two Lyonnais specialities, foie gras with artichokes and a creamy quenelle of pike with a langoustine sauce, moved on to John Dory with asparagus and sole with Aquitaine caviar, and ended with the lightest millefeuille, laced with almonds and caramel, I have ever indulged in.
British Airways flies to Lyon, Barcelona (for Girona), Paris and Vienna. Visit ba.com
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