Karolina, companion in the West End

About Karolina

Karolina is the reason old dining rooms still bother with their good tables. She is slim and 174 cm, her long black hair worn straight, her brown eyes sweeping a room once and then staying where they belong, on the person she came with. She wears a single strong shape, usually dark, usually floor length, and almost no jewellery. Maitre d's straighten up when she comes through the door, and she thanks them by name, which is why she gets the corner table on nights when nobody else does.

She is in her late twenties, and her English is calm and unhurried, the sort that makes the other side of the table slow down to match her. Her subjects are food, architecture and the small histories of streets, and she is properly informed about all three, so she never has to bluff. She is discreet in the way that matters: she leaves your work alone unless you bring it up yourself, and nothing you say over dinner goes any further than the table you said it at.

Her West End is the older one. Rules on Maiden Lane suits her perfectly, the game season, the red walls, the waiters who have worked there longer than most restaurants survive. She likes a late sitting, and she likes to walk in from Covent Garden, where she lives, rather than arrive in a car at the door. Afterwards there is a drink somewhere small on the same block, and then the piazza, quiet at last, on the way back to your hotel.

Her half of the West End is described on that page, restaurants included. Write to booking naming the night and the hour, and say whether the table should be held as well.

Booking her

Name the date, the hour and whether you want the table arranged; Cordelia will confirm Karolina by message and send the restaurant details with it. Dinner bookings of four hours give her time to do the evening properly.

Her figures are the same figures every companion here works to, printed on the rates page, and the order a booking runs in is on the booking page.

An evening with Karolina

She would rather you met her at the restaurant than in a hotel lobby, because she thinks an evening begins better when both people arrive at the same door. The room does half the work: low light, old pictures, a waiter who remembers her. She orders the thing that is only on the menu for six weeks a year and tells you why it is worth the trouble.

Dinner takes two hours because she lets it. Afterwards, a short walk to a small bar on the same street, one drink, no music loud enough to interrupt. Then the piazza with the tables stacked and the cobbles wet, and she talks about what used to stand where, which is a better way to end an evening than a nightclub ever managed.