How To Plate For Your Date On Valentine’s Day

If you’re planning on cooking up something special for your someone special this Valentine’s Day, you better but equal effort into the presentation! 

Chef Mimi’s plating tips are here to ensure everyone is eating with their eyes on Valentine’s Day. 

Don’t fill up the plate

The golden rule of less is more totally applies to plating food. It ALWAYS looks more sophisticated to put less on a plate and ultimately, you don’t want to be too full of food to move. It’s Valentine’s Day, after all.

Get saucy 

Whether you’re making a sauce for your steak, pesto for a hearty pasta, or a dressing for a beautiful salad, sauce makes everything better! It adds colour to your dish, as well as professional flare – showing you’ve made plenty of effort to plate to perfection.

Colours are key

By adding lots of different colours into your food, it instantly makes it more attractive and appealing to the eye. Don’t limit yourself to the same tones, be brave with different parts of the colour wheel. Vegetables are great for adding lots of colour.

Try:  Pork Kofta Gyros. The fresh tomato, pickled red onion and salad are so colourful and delicious-looking, it’ll get your date’s heart racing.

Put everything in small bowls

If you struggle with presentation and making food look attractive on one plate, transfer it into small, pretty bowls so you’ve got a tapas-style table. The hands-on nature of tapas is also perfect for a cosy date night. 

Char-grill your meat

If you’re serving meat to your date and you’re able to griddle it, do! The griddle gives it some char-grilled, darker pieces of meat which make a plate look professional and thoughtful. 

Try: Bacon Wrapped Fillet Steak & Blue Cheese Sauce

Give herbs the THYME of day

Garnish your dish with herbs to give it some flare. Make sure you know what compliments your dish though! Dill is excellent with fish, thyme is perfect for most meats and root veg, whilst oregano is essential in all Italian dishes.

Try: Creamy Prawn Rigatoni with Zesty Herby Sprinkle and Courgette (best paired with a glass of white wine!)

Invest in decent crockery

The crockery is the base of your food, so it needs to be as good as the food placed on it. Hunt around the charity shops or purchase some luxury crockery for those special one-off occasions. 

Now that you’re guaranteed to nail your V Day dish, why not order our Valentine’s Special? Simply head to the menu and look for the Valentine’s Special tag!