Booked by two: a companion joining a couple for the evening

Both of you should write, or at least both agree

The desk would far rather hear from the two of you than from one person speaking for both. It makes the evening better and it makes the arrangement plain. If only one of you writes, Cordelia will ask a short question to confirm that the booking is wanted by both, and she asks it without any awkwardness because it is simply how these are taken.

What the companion is told beforehand

That there are two of you, how you would like to be introduced if anyone else is present, what the evening is built around and anything you would rather she did not raise. She arrives with that already settled. A companion who has to work out the dynamic at a table of three over the first half hour is a companion nobody is enjoying yet.

The shape that works best

A restaurant, almost always, and preferably one you already like, because a table of three settles fastest in a room where at least one person knows the waiter. A show, a concert or a gallery late opening works equally well and gives everyone something to talk about afterwards, which is the part most couples say they remember.

Three hours suits it better than two. The first half hour of any table of three is the introduction, and a two hour booking spends a quarter of itself on that before the evening has properly started.

What is being arranged, stated plainly

Her time and her company for the length booked, for both of you, and nothing beyond that is offered, implied or arranged by this desk under this heading or any other. That is not a disclaimer tucked away at the bottom of a page, it is the actual description of what is for sale here, and the terms put it in the same words.

The figure, which does not change

Two hours is £500 and three is £700, the same as any other booking of the same length, and the whole ladder is on the rates page. Nothing is added because there are two of you at the table. The fee goes to the companion in person when she arrives, before anything else happens, and it is not mentioned again.

Four names a couple can ask for

Michelle has the timing of a good host and is at her most useful across a table of more than two. Liana answers the question she was actually asked and never lets a conversation die. Thea is late supper company and stays good past midnight. Rosa brings colour and energy to a table and takes afternoons as well as evenings.

The questions couples ask before booking

Whether the companion will be uncomfortable, which she will not, because the women listed here take these evenings regularly and find them among the easier ones. Whether she will talk mostly to one of you, which she will not either, and the four names below are on this page precisely because they are good at keeping a table of three even. Whether the desk finds the booking unusual, which it does not.

The last question is always about discretion, and the answer is the same as everywhere else on this site. Nothing said at your table goes any further than your table, no record exists beyond the written confirmation sitting in your own messages, and the companion does not discuss the evening afterwards with anybody, including the desk.

If either of you would rather stop

Then the evening stops, and that is the end of it. Say so to her or write to the desk, whichever is easier at the time, and nobody will make it difficult. An evening that one of three people is not enjoying is not worth the hours it is using up.

The ordinary cancellation rule covers everything before the night itself. Three hours of notice or more costs nothing, and inside two hours half the figure applies. Either of you can write to the desk the moment plans change, and the reply sets out in writing where the booking now stands.