Places: Cafe Med, Notting Hill

IF the words "romance" and "restaurant chain" seem entirely incongruous, it's probably about time you visited Cafe Med. The Mediterranean food specialists have five restaurants dotted around the trendier parts of London. Comfy leather seats, candlelight and discreet tables nestling in the nooks and crannies of the Notting Hill branch make it the ideal place to snuggle up with a few glasses of red wine. Despite the so-hip- it-hurts location, and a celebrity clientele including Chris Evans and Mick Jagger, the feel is very low-key. The staff act like your best friends and are so unpretentious that they even hide their Carlton London Restaurant Award upstairs.

Cafe Med, 184a Kensington Park Road, London W11, 0171 221 1150