WHEN Jenny Kirsten, a producer for the Food Network, went on her first date with Jason Beberman, a chef at Dressler in Brooklyn, they didn’t splurge on a multicourse dinner with wine pairings. Instead, they went to the Rusty Knot, a West Village bar that teeters between dive and chic, for picklebacks: a shot of whiskey with a pickle juice chaser. They split a gourmet chicken liver sandwich  with bacon and red onion marmalade  followed by a couple of Tecates with salt on the rim, and then played the free jukebox.

Whatever, it worked: a year later, they are still together. Now their idea of a romantic meal might be a burger at Back Forty, a neighborhood place in the East Village with epicurean credibility; the burger is made of grass-fed beef and comes with homemade ketchup. They prefer to sit at the bar.

“We can cut the burger and share the fries, and make a date-night toast,” Ms. Kirsten said. She sighed contentedly. “I’m too in love for my own good.”

And thus is born false hope. Because dating in New York, as countless sitcoms, magazine articles and resolutely plucky blogs can attest, is no picnic. But let’s say that, through some quirk of dinner party seating or online profiling, you manage to meet someone. Where to take them?