Seven streets and a sundial: a table in the Dials where you can talk

Seven streets, six dials

Seven Dials was laid out at the end of the seventeenth century by Thomas Neale, a speculator who worked out that more streets meant more corner houses, and more corner houses meant more rent. Seven roads meet at the pillar in the middle: Monmouth Street, Earlham Street and Mercer Street each pass straight through, and Short's Gardens runs in to join them. The column carries six sundials, and the pillar itself casts the seventh shadow.

The original was taken down in the 1770s, and the one standing today is a faithful replacement raised in the late 1980s. It makes an easy meeting point: nobody standing beside it is lost, and every one of the seven streets leads somewhere worth eating within a hundred steps.

The shine is fairly recent. By the nineteenth century the Dials had slid into one of the poorest and most crowded corners of London, grim enough for Dickens to linger over it in Sketches by Boz, and the slow change into a district of small shops, studios and kitchens belongs mostly to the last fifty years. Traces of the old warehouses survive in the brickwork, and several of the best rooms occupy them.

Reading a room by its noise

The Dials are packed with small dining rooms, and they sort themselves less by cuisine than by volume. For a dinner whose purpose is conversation, that is the measure that counts. Before booking anywhere, ask three questions: is there music, and how loud; are the tables close enough to overhear the next couple; and where exactly will we be sitting?

The answers usually follow the architecture. Counter rooms are lively, sociable and quick paced. Cellars hold noise and warmth in equal measure. First floor rooms, above the street and away from the door, are the calmest in the district, and a table by an upstairs window on Monmouth Street is about as peaceful as WC2 gets on a Saturday.

Size matters as much as layout. A room of thirty covers with bare floorboards can be louder than one of a hundred with carpet and curtains, so a photograph of the interior tells you more than any review. Look for soft surfaces, spaced tables and a ceiling that is not all glass.

Counters, cellars and first floors

The counter is the most underrated format for a date. At The Barbary in Neal's Yard, the stools run round a horseshoe bar and the cooking happens in front of you, so the conversation always has something to push against and you sit next to each other instead of face to face, an arrangement that takes the pressure off a first evening. It is lively rather than loud, and quick rather than rushed.

The cellar choice is Hawksmoor, down in the old brewery building on Langley Street, with steak, a serious cocktail bar and booths that soak up more noise than you would expect. The food hall in the former warehouse on Earlham Street is the opposite: communal, bright and fun for a first drink, less so for a conversation that needs quiet. Choose the format first and the restaurant second.

Tina, who has lived in WC2 long enough to hold an opinion on every door here, will talk you out of the loudest of them. Tiffany likes to finish at whichever table in the Dials is still taking orders, which is very often the smallest one.

The quiet window between the two rushes

Timing matters as much as the room. Between half past five and seven, every table in the Dials is full of people eating against a curtain; at ten past seven they leave together, and the rooms suddenly fall quiet. From about half past seven until the theatres empty at half past ten, the district is at its calmest, and that is where a talking dinner belongs.

A table at a quarter to eight gets you a kitchen that has just come through its busiest hour and a room at its most relaxed. Book for then and nobody will be hovering for your table. Lea, devoted to the Donmar on Earlham Street, often suggests the reverse: the early curtain first and a table in the Dials once the house lets out.

Walking the Dials between courses

The streets reward a slow loop. Neal's Yard, reached through narrow passages off Short's Gardens and Monmouth Street, is a small courtyard of painted shopfronts, peaceful by evening. Neal Street runs north to the busier end of the district. The Cambridge Theatre stands right on the corner of the pillar, and Denmark Street, with its guitar shops, is five minutes west across Charing Cross Road, where Rosa will lose half an hour in the record racks if you let her.

The stations are close in every direction. Covent Garden is a few minutes south, Leicester Square a little further, and Tottenham Court Road lies to the north, covered on the Tottenham Court Road page.

Monmouth Street also holds the small shop where one of London's best known coffee roasters began in the late 1970s. It is closed by evening, but worth remembering for the morning after, when a proper cup and a slow walk back through the empty lanes make a fine end to a long night.

Bringing a companion to the Dials

A dinner in the Dials suits a companion who enjoys the city at street level, and most of the women on this site know the district well. She can meet you at the pillar, at the restaurant or at your hotel in Covent Garden. Dinner with a wander afterwards sits comfortably in three hours at £700; for a drink beforehand and a nightcap too, take the four hour dinner date at £900.

Nothing is fixed until the desk has confirmed who is free, and the rates page sets out what each length costs. Put the restaurant and the reservation in your opening message and the evening gets built outward from that fixed point.

If a show at the Donmar or the Cambridge is part of the plan, the table can come first or last; tell the desk which, along with the curtain time, and the length is worked out from there. Petite companions such as Tina and Lea are among those who know these lanes best, though any woman on the site will find the pillar without help.