Its name alone ensures that the elegant Italian restaurant, favored by celebrities and food lovers alike, is booked six months to a year in advance of every Valentine's Day. But carefully chosen, he says, restaurants provide the perfect venue for proposing. No one has to think about the next course, or do the dishes afterward. Mood enhancers like lighting and music are left for someone else to orchestrate. I want a response.
Restaurants are eager to play the part of Cupid.
At the French Room in the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, manager Jim Donohue once arranged to have a proposal listed as an entree option, between the lobster and the foie gras, on a lady's menu. Kimberly Straubing, maitre d' of Aujourd'hui in the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston, affixed a romantic request over the true label on a bottle of wine, before proffering it to a female guest for her approval. Take the case of the man who pretended to book a table for eight at the glittering French Room in Dallas. The evening featured more twists and turns than an O. Henry short story, and culminated in the appearance of both sets of the couple's parents in the lobby. Sometimes the whole restaurant gets in on the secret.