The second glass of wine.

The first glass of wine is politeness. It is the glass you pour because the bottle is open and it would be rude not to.

The second glass is intimacy. It is where the room finally softens. Almost every good conversation of your life — the honest one, the accidental one, the one you were not planning to have — happened in the second glass.

This is why every chef who cooks for two knows, in their bones, to pace the meal so that the second glass arrives just after the main course begins. Not the appetizer. Not the dessert. The middle. When the shoulders have dropped and the phones have gone dark and the candle has burned down half an inch.

Book the chef. Let them worry about the timing. All you have to do is show up, and stay for the second glass.