Dinner out here, at a table somebody has actually eaten at

Which high street

Whitton is one short street with a station at the end of it and a handful of small kitchens that are full on a Saturday and easy on a Wednesday. Isleworth puts you on Church Street, where the road runs into the Thames and the pub on the corner has been pouring drinks since long before the Great West Road existed, with dinner either in the village or ten minutes up towards Brentford.

The TW3 high street has the widest choice and the least charm, which is a fair trade on a wet Tuesday. Twickenham has the prettiest rooms and the worst weekends. Hayes has a restored record works with a yard and a cinema in it. Say which of those sounds like your evening and Iris will point you at the companion who eats there.

Who books the table

You do, and it is worth doing. Nothing out here takes a walk in at eight on a Friday, and the good small rooms hold about nine tables. If you would rather not choose, say so in your first message and a suggestion comes back with the road it is on and roughly what a plate costs, so you can look it up yourself before you commit to anything.

Her name does not go on the reservation. It is your table, booked under your name, and she arrives at it or meets you outside it, whichever you prefer.

What she is like across a table

Attentive, and genuinely so. The women who take these bookings are the ones who ask a second question rather than a polite first one, who eat slowly, and who can carry a conversation for two when you have had a day that took everything out of you. Nobody here checks a phone while you are mid sentence.

She dresses for the room she is going into rather than for the idea of a dinner date. In a small place on a Wednesday that means something you would not notice until you looked properly, which is the point of it.

The walk before, and the hour after

Almost every dinner out here has something worth doing on either side of it, and the companions build their evenings around that. A park before the light goes. A stretch of towpath. A church that burned and was rebuilt. Twenty minutes of that changes the pitch of the whole night and it costs nothing at all.

Afterwards there is not a great deal open past eleven in most of these postcodes, which some guests count as a fault and others count as the entire attraction. A last drink somewhere quiet, or back to wherever you are staying, are the two realistic answers and she will say which she would prefer if you ask her.

Getting the timing right

Book the table for half an hour after the booking starts and the evening breathes. Book it for the same minute and somebody spends the first twenty minutes apologising to a waiter. Between four and seven the whole borough slows down, so an eight o'clock table is usually calmer than a seven.

The trains matter at the other end. The Piccadilly line runs to around half past midnight and straight through on Friday and Saturday nights, the Elizabeth line at Hayes runs late, and the Waterloo trains to the river towns stop a little after twelve. Every companion here knows her own last train and none of them will let it ambush the last hour of your evening.

Five who are good over dinner

Jasmin walks Crane Park Island first and then talks her way through two courses on the Whitton high street. Cindy wants an afternoon start so the tide is still doing something, then a table by the water. Thea takes early dinners in TW13 and is the least interested in ceremony of anybody on the list. Rosa times a riverside table against the tide in Twickenham and is worth following on that. Michelle will make dinner last two hours and you will not notice it happening. The whole list is on On The Route.