Bianka, a table for two on Shad Thames

Bianka goes through a wine list as if it were a letter from home: slowly, and then a second time. She is 165 cm and softly curved. The long light brown hair turns sun-gold at its ends, as if she spent August somewhere hotter than London, and her eyes are hazel, warmer still once the candles are lit. Her clothes belong to another decade: a fitted dress nipped at the waist, a small structured bag, seamed tights once the weather turns. None of it looks like costume. It looks as though she never saw the point of anything else.

Warmth arrives first, then attention. She notices the things people mention in passing and returns to them an hour later, which makes her unusually easy to talk to. Her English is fluent and relaxed. At home she cooks from scratch and without a recipe, rolling pasta on a floured board on Sunday afternoons. Weekends often include a vintage market and a rail of dresses from the forties. She enjoys wine properly, with questions, never with showing off.

Her evening by the river is a long dinner at Legare, the pasta restaurant set into the old warehouses of Shad Thames, a few minutes on foot from Tower Bridge. She books early, because the tables go. She will suggest sharing three small plates rather than ordering two large ones, and she will ask what you like before choosing the bottle. Afterwards the cobbled street is lit and quiet, and the bridge glows at the far end of it like a set built for the occasion.

Give the desk a day and she will hold a proper table for a Tower Bridge dinner. Her favourite length, the four-hour dinner date, is listed with the others under rates, and a date sent to booking sets it in motion.