grub guides

Where to Make Your Very Last-Minute Valentine’s Day Dinner Reservations

Romance! Photo: Monty Brinton/NBC via Getty Images

Whether you remembered or not, Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. Maybe you’ve been busy designing the perfect bouquet, hand-selecting chocolates from your better half’s favorite shop, or maybe you just forgot. But if you’re here, it means you don’t know what you’re doing for dinner. Don’t bug out: Grub has assembled a list of great restaurants from around the city, all of which still have reservations left for tomorrow night.

Otway
Availability: There are still tables early in the night, until 6:30 p.m., and late, if that’s your style.
Been looking for the perfect place to take your offal-obsessed significant other? Go to this Clinton Hill restaurant for the veal-heart skewers, stay for the pot-au-feu and roasted pears with brioche.

Roman’s
Availability: There are a few tables available at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., as well as bar seating at 7, 8, and 9 p.m.
The Fort Greene trattoria’s four-course prix fixe ($75) includes dishes like fondue, spaghetti with pink shrimp and fava beans, roasted quail with blood oranges, and chocolate semolina cake with pistachio ice cream.

Chaiwali
Availability: There are seats available at the bar all night long.
Looking for a casual meal uptown or don’t mind posting up at the bar? Head to Harlem’s creative Indian restaurant, located in a handsomely decorated townhouse, for Vindaloo lamb chops, masala fish and okra fries, and plenty of flatbread.

Hart’s
Availability: 5:30, 6, 9:30 and 10 p.m.
The snug restaurant’s close quarters and dim lighting make for easy romance. Normally closed on Tuesdays, they’re serving a tongue-in-cheek menu built around the theme of “things you wouldn’t normally eat on your first date”: mussels escabeche, chicken fra diavolo, fried smelt with aioli, and more.

Italienne
Availability: The à la carte taverna’s all booked, but there are still a lot of tables left early in the night as well as later on.
The special prix fixe ($125) features starters including scallop crudo with citrus, pastas like tortelonni with hazelnut and cardoon honey, entrees including loud de mer and lobster or beef tenderloin with foie gras, and mascarpone semifreddo and a croissant with gianduja for dessert.

Sunday in Brooklyn
Availability: There are lots of tables available, provided you want to go early or don’t mind dropping by at 8:45 p.m. or after.
At the Williamsburg restaurant, there will be a four-course ($75) prix fixe with dishes including grilled oysters with lardo, bone marrow with caramelized sunchokes, minute steak with charred onions, and their satisfyingly rich, warm devil’s food cake with peanut ice cream.

Fung Tu
Availability: There are still some tables from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and, if you’d like to go later, around 10 p.m.
Jonathan Wu’s American-Chinese restaurant will serve a special prix fixe with six courses, including lobster and foie gras pot stickers and hazelnut-chocolate praline steamed buns. But you can also stick to the regular menu, and eat signatures like the kohlrabi noodle salad, “china-quiles,” and General Tso’s lobster.

Metrograph
Availability: There are a decent number of tables from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Where better to have dinner and a movie then a movie theater’s restaurant? The four course prix fixe features tuna tartare with caviar, chicken consommé with egg noodles, duck confit, and bananas foster.

Txikito
Availability: There are still tables around 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.
If you’re in the mood for Basque-style tapas, head to Chelsea. Along with the regular menu, there are specials like sweet roasted red pepper with queso de habra, seared duck breast with choricero-chocolate sauce, a surf and turf of rabbit loin and Dublin Bay prawns, and more.

Fancy Nancy
Availability: There are a couple tables available at 6:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., but there also bar seats available by special request.
Here you can use your romantic night out to do a little good: The Brooklyn restaurant will donate all proceeds from it’s four-course dinner ($50) — think smoked duck breast, seared mackerel, vanilla ice cream with spicy honeycomb — to the ACLU and Planned Parenthood.

Cannibal Liquor House
Availability: There are still tables early in the night until 7 p.m., and then one at 10:15 p.m. if you’ve got plans and want a late-night meal.
Head to the boozier sister restaurant of midtown meatery the Cannibal for fluffy and fat onion rings, spicy chicken wings, and Reuben egg rolls with IPA mustard.

Cafe Americano
Availability: You won’t have trouble finding a table at the right time for you, there are still plenty.
If you’re on the Upper East Side and want to keep it classic, you’ll like this menu with its double cheeseburger with shallot and onion jam, spiced Greek yogurt dip, seared tuna nicoise, and an “adult” sundae.

Where to Make Last-Minute Valentine’s Dinner Reservations