It’s your third date? What are you cooking?

For most people in the restaurant industry, Valentine’s Day is a day spent preparing for a particularly busy service. It’s among the most popular days of the year to dine out, second only to Mother’s Day as lovers clamber for romantic experiences worthy of true love. Many hospitality workers, though, will tell you they’d much prefer to cook at home than go out to dinner. On a night where busy restaurants often mean longer wait times, or slower service, it’s appealing to choose intimacy over the crowds. Rather than fight for a reservation, take a page out of these chefs’ books and make Valentine’s Day a night to turn to your third-date move: a dish you whip up when you want to have that special someone over for a romantic night in.

St.Aude-Tate and Tate fell hard for each other: so hard, in fact, that there was no third date.

“It was love at first sight,” St.Aude-Tate remembers of the night she met Tate. The two fell hard for each other in early March of 2020 — by the time they had returned to their respective homes and begun sheltering in place, they were already trying to figure out how to combine their lives. Now, several years, a marriage, two children, and a restaurant later, they don’t even know each other’s third-date moves.

Tate’s is super simple: “You don’t want to be bloated, so my move was always a nice piece of fish or some scallops and some perfect sautéed greens. It’s super simple and delicious but doesn’t pull focus from the date.”

“My move used to be oxtails,” says St.Aude-Tate. “If you grew up eating oxtail, you know how expensive it can be, and you know that if done wrong, it could be really terrible. So, people would always get oxtail.” She adds that oxtails have the added bonus of being relatively hands-off toward the end of the cooking process, which gives you an opportunity to spruce up your space, change clothes, and set the vibes.

Tate quickly points out that he’s never had this oxtail recipe, and she laughs. “Some things have to stay tucked in the back,” she says. “Maybe this year you’ll have oxtails for Valentine’s Day.”

It’s no surprise that the pastry chef at Fiore Fine Foods would have a sweet trick up her sleeve.

“I always have cookie dough in the freezer,” she says. “So if someone comes over for a nightcap, I usually bake fresh cookies.”

Peña says she typically keeps a variety of types of cookies in her freezer — favorites include brown butter chocolate chunk, chocolate brownie cookies, and oatmeal with cranberries and white chocolate. Usually she’ll let people choose what they want, typically to great delight.

“It’s such a vibe if we’re watching a movie or just having a glass of wine and then I’ll be like, ‘Oh, do you want a cookie?’” she says. “Everyone always says yes.”

Peña recommends doubling your batch next time you’re making cookies for another occasion, then scooping half the dough into balls onto a baking sheet as you would if you were about to bake them, then freezing them solid. Once they’re fully frozen, all you have to do is transfer them to a bag or container. Bake them the way you would non-frozen dough, just adding two to five minutes to the baking time before serving them up to your date.

As a longtime bartender, beverage director, and front-of-house manager, Brandon Thrash identifies as not that great of a cook. When it comes time to cook for dates, he sticks to his strengths, advice that is relevant for any less-than-confident cook who wants to make a good impression.

“My biggest strength as a cook is grilling, so I usually grill a whole fish,” Thrash says. “It’s light and it’s hard to mess up, and I can pair it with a wine that I’m excited about, which is what I know more about anyway.”

His special touch is to debone the whole fish at the table, and serve it with leeks sauteed in butter and mustard, but a simply cooked fillet would be just as good for someone without Thrash’s tableside skills. The point, he says, is to make sure you’re relaxed.

“When you’re cooking for someone, it’s just about the meal being a nice thing to have a conversation over, so you really don’t want to be all stressed out.”