The pagan origin of the love fest that is now called Valentine’s Day is scary to say the least. Thank goodness it has morphed to the frenzy of chocolate gobbling, rose
cutting, underwear flogging, card swapping and expensive food eating
that we now know as Valentine’s Day.
It used to be known as the Roman festival Lupercalia. Lupercalia (which sounds more
like an STD to me…) celebrated the coming of Spring on the Roman
calendar and, as it turns out, to increase the population. The names of teenage women were placed in a box and drawn at random by adolescent men; thus, a man was assigned a woman companion (a sexual partner) for the duration of the year, after which another lottery was staged. Haibo!
So let us be thankful that we only have to look for cards, flowers and a romantic restaurant and leave the increase of the population to nature.
In a bid to find the Top 5 most romantic restaurants for a Valentine’s dinner I casually asked around. The girls stuck to the question at hand, the boys it turns out went all psycho-cupid on me.
ALL, (did you get that) ALL ie. EVERY SINGLE woman that I put the question to: which restaurant is your choice for a romantic Valentine’s Day meal – rattled off their five fave food spots. That’s it! Nothing else – just the names of five restaurants.
The men, however… They waxed lyrical about picnic baskets bulging with strawberries, chocolate truffles, champagne and a big love blankie! Romantic helicopter rides got two mentions. And restaurants were generally chosen because they were situated in hotels where a “love nest” could be booked for the night. Without fail, red roses were the “blom” of the day and underwear topped the shopping list!
Don’t you just love men – they get down and dirty, right to the interesting bits with no inhibitions. Yes, they wrap up their sexy fantasies in red ribbons and chocolate boxes and there is not a woman on the planet who doesn’t wish to be hailed as the sexiest siren on the planet… but come one we can see where this is going, right? Vive l’amour!
My Top 5 Most Romantic Restaurants in Durban:
Ile Maurice – Umhlanga Rocks
The Oyster Box – Umhlanga Rocks
Bel Punto – Umdloti
Marco’s Ristorante – Durban
Moyo Pier/ Harvey’s/ Market all tied for 5th place
Let us know your top romantic KZN restaurants below.
Janice Tripepi hails from Durban, is an avid foodie and passionately blogs about her Italian men and other – more food related – passions.