Chef Karan Gokani talks about the business of Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day in a restaurant is a peculiar, faintly theatrical thing. On the surface, it’s about love, candles, soft lighting and a slightly different playlist. A set menu promising romance in three courses, plus a dessert you’re encouraged to share. Behind the scenes, it’s about margins, marketing gimmicks, creating FOMO and the comforting knowledge that truffle and a bubbly pink drink can magically add double digits to your bottom line.

Karan Gokani
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As a chef and restaurateur, Valentine’s Day arrives with a familiar mix of cynicism, opportunism and anxiety. We start planning early. Not because we’re hopeless romantics, but because love, as it turns out, pays. Menus get rewritten. Tables inch closer together. Flowers appear where they normally wouldn’t. Candles burn with more commitment. Someone suggests something heart shaped, another shoots the idea down instantly. While quietly, we accept that truffle, chocolate and beetroot will be doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

How I’ve approached my menus, creatively, has changed over the years. During COVID-19, when romance felt both fragile and slightly absurd, a fish supplier and I sent people live crabs, still moving, along with the ingredients for a crab curry, to be cooked courageously at home on the day. It was dinner, with a side of bravado. Not for everyone. At the other end of the spectrum, I allowed pink hoppers to appear on our menu another year. Soft, blush, made for ripping and dipping into curries that keep the evening spicy long after dinner is done.

It’s fascinating how forgiving people become on Valentine’s Day. On most nights, diners are sharp. They notice seasoning. They debate value. On Valentine’s Day, the food just needs to be nice. Because people aren’t really there for the food. They’re there for the table. We are, quite literally, renting space.

Good Valentine’s menus, like good nights out, should comfort rather than challenge.

On the night, you see every version of love play out. The early dates sit unnaturally upright, phones placed face down as a gesture rather than a rule, eye contact held just long enough to feel intentional and compliments deployed generously.

The hopeless romantics lean fully into the theatre of it. Dressed up, champagne ordered early, pacing themselves in the hope that dessert might still change the outcome of the evening.

The long timers roll differently. Fewer words, shorter menu choices, shared looks that replace conversation, wondering whether this was a good idea or if pyjamas and the sofa might have been the smarter choice.

There are the new parents, tracking babysitters on their phones, while enjoying the rare luxury of being uninterrupted adults again. And finally, the jaded couples who insist they “don’t really do Valentine’s Day”, while leaning in, pink drink in hand, very much doing the Day.

After years of watching it all unfold, I’ve come to admit something. For all its corniness, the day still works. Valentine’s, and nights like it, are reminders that tables are where relationships are rehearsed and repaired. Where we listen. Where we wait. Where we compromise, over spice levels, dessert choices, or who gets the last bite.

In the end, whether it’s Valentine’s Day or any other meal dressed up as something more, it’s rarely about getting it exactly right. It’s about showing up, making an effort, and staying for dessert. Truffle optional.

Karan Gokani is a London-based chef and restaurateur who spends his time cooking, travelling and exploring what the world is eating. He loves the gym, biriyani and his frying pan. Not necessarily in that order.

Published – February 13, 2026 05:14 pm IST