A duo in E14: two companions, one evening, one written booking

Mostly conversation that nobody has to carry. Three people at a table is an easier evening than two when you have spent the day talking, because the work of keeping it moving is shared out. It suits a long dinner, a night that starts at a bar and ends somewhere else, and any occasion where one person sitting opposite you would feel like an interview. It is a poor format for a short booking. Below two hours it is all hellos.

Angelika and Karolina are 172 cm and 174 cm, both swimmers, both firmly of the view that the river side of the table is better. Rosa and Lucy are the small, loud, entirely unserious pair, and an evening with them tends to finish in a quiet pub. Stacy and Lea both work Stratford as well as E14 and will talk each other into something with a height in it. Michelle and Bianka both order for the table, which is either a gift or a negotiation.

Usually a restaurant on the estate first, because a table of three is simple to seat early and close to impossible at half past eight. After that it drifts: the water at Canary Wharf, a bar with a view, or a flat if the weather has turned. Say at the booking stage whether the whole evening stays in one place. Two companions arriving separately at a hotel is ordinary and expected, and they will do it that way unless you ask otherwise.

Most duo evenings run three hours from seven. Both companions reach the restaurant within a couple of minutes of each other and sit down with you rather than making an entrance of it. The first half hour is the two of them finding out what you do and settling between themselves which one will tease you about it.

Dinner runs to about half past eight. After that the three of you walk, along the water at the edge of the estate and into a bar with a view, or back to the quieter end of Limehouse, four DLR minutes west. At ten both of them leave together, which is how they prefer to end it and how most people find easiest.

Two diaries. A duo is the format most likely to be unavailable at short notice, not because the women are busy but because they have to be free in the same three hours. Two days of notice makes it straightforward. The same evening is sometimes possible, and Maude will tell you quickly whether it is rather than keeping you on a maybe. All twenty eight, and who is away, are on the desk.

The date, the hour, the address, the length, and either two names or a description and the number of people at the table. Maude confirms both companions in one message with both figures written out. Each is handed her own in person when she arrives. If one of the two has to withdraw, the desk tells you within minutes and puts two options to you: a second name, or the whole booking released. The rungs are on rates.