Dinner companions for Notting Hill, W11, from cinema armchairs to candlelit tables

Portobello Road runs north from Notting Hill Gate for well over a mile, residential at first and then the market proper. Around Westbourne Grove and Ledbury Road the shops turn into boutiques and galleries; further north, under the Westway, the street grows looser and louder. To the west, Lansdowne Crescent and Stanley Crescent curve around the communal gardens of the Ladbroke estate, which is why so many houses here have a back gate onto private lawns.

The Electric Cinema on Portobello Road opened in 1911 and is still showing films more than a century later, with leather armchairs, footstools and small tables for a drink during the film. At Notting Hill Gate the Coronet Theatre occupies a Victorian playhouse. On the late August bank holiday weekend, Notting Hill Carnival takes over the streets entirely.

Notting Hill has few hotels and a great many flats. Most bookings here go to private addresses: converted houses with several bells, mews houses behind the main streets, apartments in the crescents. Each is visited on exactly the terms of a hotel room.

Three hotels are within reach, each named as a place companions arrive at and none as a partner. The Portobello Hotel on Stanley Gardens is a small townhouse hotel with a famously individual style. The Laslett on Pembridge Square, a few minutes from Notting Hill Gate station, is a boutique hotel across a row of Victorian houses. Hilton London Kensington, a little further west on Holland Park Avenue, suits guests who want a larger hotel near the Central line.

The nearest station is Notting Hill Gate (Central, Circle and District), 1 minute from the top of Portobello Road and the Pembridge streets. Bayswater, for the Circle and District lines, lies about 6 minutes' walk east towards Queensway. Ladbroke Grove, for the Circle and the Hammersmith and City lines, is about 8 minutes from the market's northern stretch.

Every address in W11 is inside Zones 1 and 2, so nothing is added to the fee for her journey.

On most evenings a Notting Hill booking is straightforward: one message, an answer within 10 to 15 minutes, the name on the booking matched to the address or room, and a companion with you normally within the hour. Saturdays are busier while the market packs up. On Carnival weekend at the end of August, road closures make every arrival slower and less predictable, so book those evenings well ahead and allow extra time.

To hold a standard W11 visit, flat or hotel alike, a deposit of one quarter, 25 percent, goes over by bank transfer first; the balance is paid in person when she arrives, or by transfer afterwards. Overnights, events and journeys need half up front, and whatever in that sum pays for her travel cannot be returned. A cancellation three or more hours before the start is free; inside two hours, half the fee falls due.

Notting Hill guests are usually here to eat well and stay somewhere with character. Visitors renting a mews house or a flat on a crescent for a week. Residents who would rather have good company at their own table than queue for someone else's. Guests at the townhouse hotels who spent the day on Portobello Road and want company for the evening. They like informality done well, and they get on best with companions who are relaxed, curious and as happy in a cinema armchair as at a tasting menu.

Seven: a drink at your hotel or at home while the streets fill. Half past seven: dinner at Core by Clare Smyth on Kensington Park Road, where the cooking is exacting and the atmosphere easy, or a simpler table on Westbourne Grove if the evening calls for it. Half past ten: a walk back along the curve of Lansdowne Crescent, the gardens dark behind the railings, to the house or the hotel.

That pace uses most of the four hour dinner date, £900, and dinner alone usually fits three hours at £700. For a film at the Electric before the meal, ask the desk to shape a longer booking around the screening.

Notting Hill is nobody's home district on the roster. Closest are the three Paddington companions, just east beyond Bayswater: Laura, Nora and Vanessa. From the south, Thea, Danielle and Milena come up from South Kensington in a short taxi ride. Every companion in the gallery covers W11 on the same fees.

West along the avenue is Holland Park. South, down Kensington Church Street, are High Street Kensington and the palace side of Kensington.