Valentine’s Day: My top recommendations for the perfect date
Whether you’re treating your partner to a night on the town, whisking them out of the city for a weekend away or just cosying up together at home, here are my top recommendations for Valentine’s Day.
For London lovers
The Elizabeth on Ebury St, Belgravia will be serving a special three-course menu (£55pp) with an appropriately English twist. Dorset crab, Cornish mussels, Yorkshire rhubarb and Jersey milk ice-cream washed down with a glass of English wine. The award-winning Langham’s Reserve Sparkling Rosé is just the ticket to charm your patriotic partner.
The Mulwray, tucked up above the Blue Posts in Soho, is doing a curated wine-flight with a love theme. These people really know their wines and it is likely you will try something excellent that you have never tasted before – will it be love at first sip? Pair your three glasses (£25pp) with cheeses from Neal’s Yard (£8pp) to seal the deal.
Brunswick House is the jewel of Vauxhall, a huge Grade II listed Georgian manor incongruously placed beside the station and roundabouts. Inside is eclectic glamour lit by candles and chandeliers – and innovative food. It is celebrating Valentine’s Day with a four-course menu (£80pp) including grilled potato bread, trout with blood orange and jalapeno and beef with black truffle.
For the adventurous, try something a bit different at Babur in Honor Oak, which is offering a tasting menu themed around the imperial court of the Mughal Empire (£69.95pp). Get the flavours of the East in Southeast London with taro cakes, venison kebabs, barramundi in coconut curry and chocolate-infused peshawari naan.
If you’re feeling lyrical, head to The Coral Room at The Bloomsbury, where acclaimed poet Luke Davis will be in residence from 11.30am-7.30pm creating personalised poems for guests. Give him a memory or sentiment and he will craft you an ode as you sip Valentine’s Day champagne cocktails. Then stay for an indulgent dinner at the Dalloway Terrace (£85pp) with a wine flight pairing (£45pp).
Valentine’s day for Rural romantics
Love is in the air at charming Tewinbury Farm in Hertfordshire this Valentine’s, with various ways to maximise your time together. Arrive to a glass of sparkling wine and a spacious bedroom where, I have it on good authority, rose petals will be amply spread across the bed.
Get messy together with a couples’ cookery course (£95 per couple), during which you will learn to prepare the perfect beef wellington and truffles as you drink champagne cocktails. An overnight stay comes with a four-course dinner at their restaurant The Cowshed, a hearty breakfast in the morning and a noon checkout (£399).
If you’re looking for more of a day trip then head to Gusbourne Estate, only an hour’s drive out of London (or take the high-speed train from St Pancras to Ashford International in 40 minutes). Stroll through the vines and admire the views while tasting the wines that are putting the UK on the map, such as the Fifty One Degrees North 2016 (£195), which was number two in Wine Enthusiast’s Top 100 Wines of 2025.
Valentine’s champagne for sofa snugglers
It is a day for pink wine, so the newly released Bolney Rosé (£16, Tesco) is sure to go down a treat. A carefully created English Pinot Noir, delicately perfumed with watermelon and peach, this is an easy wine for food pairing no matter what’s on the menu.
If only sparkles will do, Maison Lanson boasts more than 260 years of Champagne creation and its Lanson Le Rosé Création (£46, Ocado) is a vibrant blitz of red berries and florals with bright effervescence.
The Champagne Taittinger Prestige Rosé (£60, Sainsburys) adds a touch of class to any tete-a-tete with its crisp finesse and delicate strawberry and rose petal notes. Piper-Heidsieck is a House that always exudes fun and its bright, bold Rosé Sauvage (£45, The Champagne Company) is just that: rich, generous and slightly hedonistic.