Dinner dates: four hours built around one table

Where the valley actually eats well

Windsor has the riverside tables, which are worth the fuss on a warm evening and less so in February. The Sir Christopher Wren on Thames Street puts you on the water with the castle directly above, and Browns on the Promenade looks straight out at the swans behaving badly. Ten minutes west, Bray has the county's serious kitchens and a booking policy to match.

Maidenhead is quieter and often better value for a long evening, with Fredrick's on Shoppenhangers Road keeping its own grounds and a dining room that will happily let three hours go by. Out towards Burnham and Taplow the country houses do the same thing with gravel underfoot and a fire in the hall.

Half past seven beats nine

This is the single most useful thing on the page. Away from London the last orders are real, the second sittings are not, and a table held for nine will have you eating your main course while the staff start folding things. Book for half seven and the whole evening opens out behind it: a drink first, a meal with room in it, and a bar afterwards that is still glad to see you.

Etta will hold the table as part of the arrangement if you would rather not deal with it from another county. Say the town, say roughly what sort of room you want, and she will come back with two options rather than twelve.

What she arrives in

One notch above the room and never two. A dark dress or something with colour in it, a coat that survives a car park, and a heel she can actually cross gravel in, which around Burnham and Taplow is not a small consideration. If the table is somewhere that expects a jacket, put that in the first message and she will dress to match it.

Nothing about her arrival announces the arrangement. She meets you in the hotel or at the restaurant door, whichever you prefer, and the room simply sees two people having dinner.

Hotel dining rooms are not a consolation

Out here they are frequently the right answer. A country house dining room with no music to shout over and service that leaves you alone does more for four hours than a fashionable room with a queue outside it. It also removes the drive at both ends, which on a wet Tuesday in Berkshire is worth a great deal more than it sounds.

How the four hours usually fall

Take a table booked for half seven as the pattern. She meets you at seven, in your hotel or in the bar of the restaurant if that is simpler, and the first half hour is a drink while the room fills up around you. Dinner runs from half seven to roughly half nine with nobody hurrying the plates. The last ninety minutes are deliberately left open: a walk along the river in Windsor or Maidenhead if the night is dry, a hotel bar if it is not, and a goodbye at eleven that nobody has had to negotiate.

If the table falls through

Country kitchens do occasionally cancel, usually because a private party has taken the whole room. When that happens Etta finds the next best table in the same town and tells you before your companion sets off, so the evening changes venue rather than shape. Moving the whole night is simple too: three hours of warning changes the date at no cost.

Who is best across a long table

Thea is the enthusiast. She does not believe in a rushed second course, she will argue with a menu on principle, and she will choose the wine if asked. Violetta holds an evening at the Sir Christopher Wren better than anyone on the desk and would rather walk back afterwards than be driven. Nancy wants an hour by the river at Boulters before she sits down, and she is right about that.

Margo is the one for a country dining room and a night with no schedule attached to it, and Bianka will make a small Windsor table feel like the only one in the room. Any of the twenty eight on who is on will take a dinner date, so send the night to booking and Etta will match the name to the room.