HIT LONDON’S LEAST ROMANTIC RESTAURANTS
C&R Café
Imagine you’ve just woken up on the operating table, because that’s what the lighting is like at this Malaysian haven, where you can splatter delightful laksa all over yourself to your heart’s content. 4 Rupert Court, W1 (cnrcaferestaurant.com)
Your local chicken shop
We don’t care what Amelia Dimoldenberg says, chicken shops are not for dates, they’re for crouching over a cardboard box of wings that you’ll devour with the gusto of a fox tearing apart a bin bag.
Arments
Because nothing says leave me alone like a tub of jellied eels — which you can kindly donate to a regular once you’ve stuffed your face with pie, mash and liquor. 7 & 9 Westmoreland Road, SE17 (armentspieandmash.com)
Speedboat Bar
Let the good tears roll with plate after plate of hyper-spicy Thai and a couple of litres of the saving grace (aka ice-cold Singha), then challenge a stranger to a game of pool. 30 Rupert Street, W1 (speedboatbar.co.uk)
PLAY STRUGGLING COUPLES BINGO
THE OBVIOUSLY-ON-THE-WAY-OUTERS
The bread is being torn aggressively. Eyes are rolling at the menu choices. The wine is being drunk more swiftly than in any country apart from Romford on a Saturday night. The most romantic night of the year was, in retrospect, probably not the best night to fix this.
THE FRIENDS-WITH-NO-BENEFITS-EVER-ERS
Their jobs are a joke. They’re broke. Their love life consists of going out on Valentine’s night with a friend so platonic that Ladbrokes has shorter odds on Harry getting a tattoo of Camilla than these two hooking up. They both laugh a bit too loudly, as though they’re above this and having more fun than they actually are. Not saying they’re always stuck in… well, you get it.
THE STILL-ON-THOSE-FIRST-FEW-DATES-ERS
Kissing. Hair stroking. I’m-really-impressing-them-here jovial discourse with the waiter (anyone working: this is the tip you want this evening). The laughter skirts the fine line between excruciating and heartwarmingly infectious. Just bear in mind: the next time you are doing this, they will not be.
THE THERE-OUT-OF-TRADITION-ERS
One half strides in, 30 minutes late, furiously texting, to be greeted by the other furiously emailing over an already popped bottle of Pinot. There is no malice. Just a sense of inconvenience on both sides. Menus have been perused online on the Tube, so food is incoming. The emails ‘from LA’ continue to flood in. Conversation is ‘sorry, what?’ stop-start. Soon enough, the Tube. And more furious emailing.
MUTTER THESE LINES AT COUPLES
“One in three marriages ends in divorce!”
“Did you know the real Saint Valentine was condemned to death by beheading?”
“We come into this world alone. We leave it alone. No amount of novelty teddies or candlelit dinners will remedy the fundamental loneliness of the human condition”
“Terribly sorry to interrupt your dinner, but didn’t we just match on Hinge?”
“Just curious. Did you consider the carbon footprint of those roses?”
“Couldn’t you have sprung for à la carte?”
GO SEE A FILM AT WHICH THERE WILL BE ZERO CANOODLING
Morbid obesity, lonliness, zero likelihood of Cupid’s arrow harpooning Brendad Fraser’s fatsuit... The Whale is quite the passion-killer, meaning you can go in peace and decide whether Fraser deserves his Oscar nomination.
It really doesn’t matter what its about, because no fully-fledged lovebirds are going to choose a film called Nothing Lasts Forever. Fittingly, this sparkling documentary is about that most quintessential of romantic gifts: diamonds.
Picture the scene: a humungous Imax screen is bearing down on you like an over-sized acid trip and. just as you’re attempting that awkward French kiss with 3D glasses on, a freaky blue person reaches out to join in. Yes, the new Avatar is far from a canoodlers’ paradise.
Awww, look at that cutsey-wootsy donkey... Let’s suck face and be cuddly-wuddly too! The star of Oscar contender EO is an actual donkey, but this beast of burden’s travails aren’t the best backdrop for a snogathon.
THE PLAYLIST
Being unattached is banging! Don’t believe us? Listen here!
