America's most romantic restaurants

By Rob Baedeker

updated 3:24 p.m. ET Feb. 13, 2007

As the sun dips behind a tranquil seascape, enticing hors d’oeuvres kick off a dinner to whet all sorts of appetites. Bubbles in champagne glasses rise in tandem with the evening’s mood — which abruptly evaporates as a boorish couple wedges into the adjoining table.

“Romantic restaurant” can be an oxymoron: a private enclave in a public space.

“The most important element of a romantic dining experience is privacy,” explains Peter Neptune, a Master Sommelier and Vice President at the Henry Wine Group, where he works as a consultant for a number of West Coast restaurants. “A lot of places these days will try to cram people in, so that you’re almost sitting on top of the person next to you. But you’ve got to have a sense of privacy to foster romance.”

How to find a secluded and intimate table to share with a room full of strangers?

We turned to a team of insiders for advice on navigating this paradoxical pleasure. Our panel of five chefs, drawn from contestants from both seasons of Bravo Network’s reality competition show “Top Chef,” have worked and dined in some of America’s finest restaurants. They shared their thoughts on the romantic dining experience as well as their recommendations for restaurants best suited to St. Valentine’s special night.

Atmosphere, inside and out

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“I’m a sucker for a sunset,” says Harold Dieterle, winner of "Top Chef" season one. And to soak up the day’s last rays over a romantic meal he recommends The Beacon restaurant in Sag Harbor, New York. Dieterle warms to this venue’s top-notch cuisine, “rustic” ambience and magnificent view of the harbor. For even more rustic charm he recommends the Saddleridge Restaurant in Beaver Creek, Colorado, where “old-school Western antiques” like Annie Oakley’s gun lend a meal the romance of the frontier.

La Boheme La Boheme in West Hollywood, Calif., offers “private booths and the lush décor,” making it a favorite spot for Betty Fraser, a contestant in the second season of "Top Chef."

Marisa Churchill, a season two "Top Chef" contestant, shares Dieterle’s affinity for a meal under waning light, but prefers to bring the restaurant to the sunset, as it were. She suggests planning something out of the ordinary, like an ocean-bluff picnic with a meal from Out the Door, the to-go branch of San Francisco’s modern-Vietnamese destination, The Slanted Door. The picnic could just as well take place in a candlelit living room, Churchill points out; what’s important is mood. “Food can be very sensual,” she says and accordingly, her romantic Out the Door picnic would involve “lots of finger foods; items you can eat with your hands and feed to your partner.”

This kind of physical entanglement figures into season one contestant Andrea Beaman’s suggestions as well. She recommends New York City’s cozy Korean-vegetarian hideaway, Hangawi, where, Beaman says, “You get to play footsies under the sunken tables.”

For an amorous meal in close quarters, season two chef Betty Fraser is lured by L.A.’s La Boheme, where she says the “private booths and the lush décor” offer the right ingredients for romance.

The classics of romantic atmosphere — seclusion, dim lighting, muted colors — may have broad and time-tested appeal, but for some, like season one "Top Chef" competitor Stephen Asprinio, those elements can be “kind of old-school.” What’s important for the 21st-century romantic dining experience, according to this young chef-entrepreneur, is “sexiness.” He explains, “This sexiness can be expressed through a multitude of design elements, such as a chair shaped to resemble the curves of the female body, or captivating color schemes within a particular décor.” Asprinio recommends the restaurant at the Setai Hotel in South Beach, Florida for a “mind blowing” night of romantic dining.

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