Escorts in Notting Hill: a floor plan from Church Street to Portobello Road

Kensington Church Street leaves the High Street beside St Mary Abbots and rises gently for about half a mile to Notting Hill Gate. The lower stretch is lined with antique dealers, their windows lit long after the doors close, which makes it a better walk at dusk than at noon. Halfway up, the Churchill Arms disappears under its flowers every summer and is the obvious place for a first drink if the evening begins early.

Just before the top, turn right into Hillgate Village: a small grid of low terraced cottages painted pink, lilac and sage, quieter than anything on Portobello Road. It is the prettiest ten minutes in W11 and almost nobody who is visiting for the day finds it.

Notting Hill keeps three proper places to watch something. The Gate, on Notting Hill Gate itself, is a single screen with a handsome ceiling and a programme that leans towards new releases worth talking about. The Electric, a little further north on Portobello Road, trades rows for leather armchairs, footstools and a blanket if you want one. The Coronet, in a Victorian playhouse a few doors from the station, stages theatre rather than film.

A seven o'clock screening suits this shape of night best. It leaves the conversation for afterwards, when both of you have something shared to argue about, and it puts supper at a civilised nine rather than a rushed half past six.

Clarke's, back down Kensington Church Street, has cooked from the market for decades and remains the calm, grown-up choice: white cloths, a short menu, bread from its own bakery next door. Mazi, on Hillgate Street in the middle of the painted cottages, serves modern Greek plates made for sharing and gets louder as the evening goes on. Book either in your own name and pass the time to the desk; the booking begins when you meet, wherever that is.

Some evenings end in W11 itself, in a short-let flat on a crescent or a mews house off Ledbury Road, and those addresses are visited exactly like a hotel room once the name and the door number match. More often the night goes back south. The venue list on this page names the hotels nearest the Gate, but a guest at SW7 3ER or SW7 5BB simply takes her back to SW7.

From Notting Hill Gate the Circle and District lines run one stop to High Street Kensington, two to Gloucester Road and three to South Kensington. After ten o'clock a black cab down Church Street is quicker and takes about ten minutes, and the ride is often the best conversation of the night.

A film and supper together fill three hours comfortably, £700, and four hours at £900, the dinner date, leaves room for the walk up and a last glass at the hotel. Everything inside Zones 1 and 2 is covered, W11 included, so her taxi up the hill is never billed. You settle her fee with her when you meet, and cancelling costs nothing with three hours of notice.

One weekend a year behaves differently. On the August bank holiday the streets north of the Gate close for Carnival, cabs crawl and every arrival takes longer, so if your dates fall then, plan the evening around Kensington instead and treat Notting Hill as a walk rather than a destination.

Three women in the collection spend more of their evenings in W11 than anywhere else. Patricia builds cinema nights around whatever the Electric is showing and likes to hear from you early. Tina likes to begin before the shops shut, with a record shop on Talbot Road and a gin on Portobello Road. Jasmin comes into her own after nine, when the night turns to cocktails. Anyone else in the gallery covers Notting Hill on the same fees, and the grid above shows who lives nearest.

Holland Park Avenue continues west to Holland Park, where the villas and the Japanese garden make a quieter second walk. Back down the hill are High Street Kensington and the palace end of Kensington.