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Since our ancestors first began swiping on Bumble and Hinge, it has been a widely-debated topic of how to knock your first date out of the park. Of course, you can always mail it in with some coffee or cocktails, but some like to roll the dice and do a full meal to kick things off.
I’ve always been the latter.
It is through my vast experiences during my 20s that I entertained the best and worst ideas when it came to which type of restaurant to choose after securing a date. Were mistakes made? Of course. People are still talking about what happened during The Great All-You-Can-Eat Pizza Hut Fiasco of 2012, but the masses aren’t quite ready for that story yet.
Learn from my mistakes by taking the following restaurant ranking into consideration.
10. Brunch.
Are you kidding? Run the risk of being hungover the first time you come into contact with someone you’re trying to court? Are you new?
9. BBQ
No one in the history of mankind has ever sat down at a BBQ restaurant and not stuffed themselves to the point of no return. No one. Unless your date puts in a special request to go somewhere that welcomes elastic waistbands and breeds meat sweats, there are a myriad of other options that won’t leave you both avoiding physical touch until the night finally ends when you can both go back to your respective apartments to put on pants that normally would be a size too big.
8. Chinese
Whether you’re tossing some Sweet & Spicy Chicken over white rice or splitting some egg rolls before going in on some Mongolian Beef, you’re essentially committing to the same fate as you were with BBQ. Yeah, you’ll get full, but your body will be so overridden with MSG and salt that you’ll legitimately feel hungover the next day even if you don’t drink.
Chinese food is “been dating for three months and want to stay in watching Netflix” type of shit. Order it, fall asleep on the couch next to each other, and spend twenty minutes rewinding trying to figure out just exactly where you dozed off during episode three of The Crown.
7. ‘Bar’ Food
Hitting up your local McCallahan’s Pub after connecting through Bumble is never going to be a bad move. Just don’t eat there unless you’re prepared to indulge in a mediocre Caesar Salad with three-day-old croutons.
First date finger foods are a dicey proposition no matter how you slice it. I’m in the “only eating bone-in wings when I’m not next to people I care about” camp, and trying to eat a cheeseburger while impressing the person sitting across the table is more reckless than taking a first date to a wedding as your plus-one.
Some 22-ounce beers and a couple vodka-sodas to shut the night down? Have at it. Just eat beforehand and stiff-arm the waitress when she starts doling out menus.
6. Mexican
Considering the fact that both of your profiles both include “fan of tacos,” this is going to be a natural choice for you to throw out there. But I urge you to proceed with caution.
A couple tacos? Harmless. Run train on that hipster bar that has a food truck out back. Sure, the tacos will be mediocre, but it’s essential you don’t go to an actual Mexican or Tex-Mex restaurant. The second you start incorporating bean and rice sides is the second you commit to having gas the rest of the night. Unless playing fart chicken is your idea of an icebreaker, don’t spend the entire date wishing she’ll go to the bathroom so you can let one fly.
5. Italian
Italian is a romance language, but the cuisine is not. The second you dip a piece of bread into some olive oil and shovel it into your mouth, you’re pretty much begging to get a stain on your shirt. Double down and order the bucatini? Slurp City, population: you.
The pros in this situation are obviously the ambiance and the wine selection. If you can throw out a ‘Sangiovese’ or ‘Montepulciano’ to the waiter with a flawless accent, you’re pretty much guaranteeing yourself a second date based on suaveness alone.
Pro move? Order the ravioli, bowtie, or ghnocci. No slurping required and you can reuse that starched white shirt at work later in the week.
4. Steakhouse
Now we’re in the zone.
Of course, when you think “first date,” you don’t exactly default to “steakhouse.” Steakhouses are reserved for special occasions and celebratory events which is why this isn’t ranking atop the list. It’s an aggressive move at best.
Where you’ll lose out on the wallet, you’ll make up for in simplicity. A straight-forward steakhouse menu will leave you each eating some middle-of-the-road cuisine that you know will be top-notch if price isn’t an issue. Sure, you may want to make sure your counterpart is made of wife or husband material before hopping on OpenTable and making a 7 p.m. Thursday rezzie, but you know what you’re getting: consistency and quality.
3. Seafood & Oyster Bar
Seafood is polarizing. About as polarizing as whether or not to get an actual meal of food for a first date, but that’s neither here nor there.
Oysters are hot in the streets right now, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t slide in some seafood discussion prior to booking a reservation. Work it into your initial texts or just blatantly get clearance. The upside of seafood is that it’ll be a light fare that leaves you open to switching locations for more drinks once you’ve signed the bill. The downside? Well, the bill itself. Chilean seabass ain’t cheap.
Oh, and I hear oysters are an aphrodisiac. I can’t confirm this because I always end up getting too drunk whenever I eat them, but science is science.
2. Tapas
Overall, tapas are trash. Small bites that leave you unfulfilled by night’s end where you inevitably ask your Uber driver if they’d mind going through a Taco Bell drive-thru (make sure to get them a taco of their own so they don’t mind).
Where tapas comes out ahead is that there’s a little something for everyone. You can play it safe by ordering some shishito peppers, or you can show your wild side by getting some braised oxtail and experiencing something new together. You don’t run the risk of your date ordering a $42 filet because there’s nothing on the menu, and you can order as you go which allows you to stop the second you feel even slightly full.
Get some sangria while you’re at it. You’re not driving. Well, hopefully not.
1. Sushi
“But what if they don’t like seafood?” you ask. “Didn’t you just poopoo rice as a viable first date option?” you question.
I know, I know, I get it. But sushi isn’t just rice-wrapped fish. It’s fucking sushi. Totally different. For some inexplicable reason, people who hate seafood will eat sushi. Expansive menus covering everything from California Rolls to Shaggy Dogs, you can mix and match much like you can with tapas. You hover along in between feverishly starving because it isn’t enough and feeling too full because all of the sudden you’re buzzed on sake and just took down one-and-a-half rolls each. Bingo, bango, bongo, you’re out the door for under a hundred bucks with nothing to worry about except the sake hangover the next morning at work.
Except if they insist on ordering a roll with cream cheese in it. That’s when you escape out the bathroom window. .
Respond
Will
Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.
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Once took a young lady on a Sunday brunch date to a BBQ place here in Chicago. Turns out she was a vegan. Great time.
“How’s your plate of beans and slaw?”
Look, all I’m saying is she should have said something ahead of time. She didn’t even order a bloody mary or mimosa, just straight water. Probably the fastest I’ve ever eaten. Needed to get out of there.
no offense, Will, but I’m gonna need CMV to weigh in on this.
Co-signed, need a response column from her
The people need to hear about The Great All-You-Can-Eat Pizza Hut Fiasco of 2012
Me and my girlfriend hiked on our first date. I hid a cooler of beers in the brush near the summit the night before. The rest is history.
It turned out she was a serial killer, she murdered you, skinned you, and now acts as though she is actually you?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m a fan of taking a potential mate to the shooting range (maybe not for the first date). Gets the adrenaline going, it’s out of the ordinary, and you have a great excuse to get close by “adjusting her form”
If any of y’all ATX residents haven’t checked out The Range at Austin, that place is the kitty’s titties
all in on this. also, seeing a man shoot a gun (safely and not at someone) is the biggest turn on in the world.
*Finger pistol gif*
Great opportunity for a Houston PSA: The Oceanaire (on Westheimer in the galleria) has an INSANE happy hour that we stumbled across. I’m talking serious seafood at ridiculous prices. Monday-Friday 5-7. You’re welcome
Tacking on Houston PSA for HH drinks on a date:
Wooster Garden – about 20 High end cocktails for $6-7 during HH
Julep: Same but smaller menu of 7 classics
Blue Fish: thursdays have large saki for $2 and a great HH sushi menu
All have a great atmosphere, all are cheap, and all have great apps to tide you over until you decide if you like this person enough to a full restaurant close by.
Also, great post Will
Operation: Payback has initiated on my company and a potential new role will see a lot more networking and dinners/lunches. This is going on the list.
State of Grace in River Oaks has an awesome oyster happy hour if you’re specifically looking for those. $1 a pop for incredible quality (including the single best variety IMO, Murder Point from the Gulf)
Trust me, we’re ready for The Great All-You-Can-Eat Pizza Hut Fiasco of 2012 tale.
The one and only Mona Lisa Saperstein and I decided that our first date was the one where she actually bought my pizza before I even realized I was inside the pizza place because we had been drinking since 9am and this was our first time away from the group. Almost a year later, I’m sticking with curbside pizza and a giant water as a top tier date spot.
One time I ate curbside pizza with a friend after a day of drinking and he got some girl walking by to chew a bite and spit it into his mouth. So I’m going to co-sign on this one. It’s where folks find love.
Restaurants are obv great date spots, but it’s also nice to branch out some time. Absolutely crushed a first date to brewery yoga last night, thanks to me being the best at stretching on my 8th grade baseball team.
Any kind of meal on a first date is an awful idea, especially if you’ve never met the person before. If you don’t like them and want to end the date, you can’t really do that because you’re eating. It’s just too much of a commitment. I’ve had many dates where I was sitting there, eating and wanting to poke my eyes out because of how awful the date was going, but I couldn’t leave because my entree hadn’t come yet.
Weeknight drinks in the early evening is the way to go. That way there’s no real commitment, you both haven’t eaten so you can get buzzed quicker, and if the date is going great it’s super easy to parlay it into dinner.
100% agree.. If you’re having a horrible time it’s very easy to get out of drinks