Samanta, noir glamour by candlelight

Black is not a colour for Samanta so much as a whole wardrobe philosophy. Slim and 174 cm, she wears sleek noir glamour better than almost anyone: a long black dress cut close, a sharp wool coat, black suede gloves, a single diamond stud. Her dark brown hair falls long and smooth, and her brown eyes are composed and watchful. In her late twenties, she enters a room without hurry and somehow ends up at its centre, magnetic in a way she never seems to work at.

Composure is her signature. Samanta rarely raises her voice, and she never needs to. She has played the violin for most of her life and still practises daily, which gives her an ear for rhythm in conversation as much as in music. Learning languages is her private hobby, a notebook of phrases always in her bag, though with you she keeps to polished, lightly amused English. She also collects design hotels the way others collect stamps, and can tell you which lobby in London has the best chair.

Music shapes every evening she plans. The candlelit concerts at St Martin-in-the-Fields on Trafalgar Square are her favourite, baroque programmes played in a church glowing with candles, where the acoustics carry a single violin to the back row. She arrives early for good seats and says nothing during the music. Afterwards, supper nearby and a critique of the soloist's tempo, then back to your hotel, where she will tell you which of London's design hotels you ought to try next.

Dinner bookings with Samanta, who lives in Mayfair, are best settled by mid afternoon. Ask booking about concert nights near Charing Cross, and send your plans before three.