Langouste

Langouste has sat on Kosančićev venac. The city's oldest quarter, on the bluff above the Sava. Since 2008. It is Belgrade's most self-consciously classical room: white linen, polished silver, a small dining room of twelve tables, and a wine list printed in a leather folder. It is also, for diners who want the theatre of European grand dining, the city's most reliably romantic seat.

The menu is French-seafood-led with Serbian produce woven through. Lobster bisque; turbot with beurre blanc; a chateaubriand for two with morel sauce; a soufflé au Grand Marnier that requires a thirty-minute lead time.

The wine list runs deep on Burgundy and Bordeaux with a discreet shelf of small Serbian whites for those who want to anchor the meal locally. The sommelier is an old-school figure in a waistcoat who genuinely enjoys decanting.

The room's view. Over the Sava-Danube confluence, through trees, to the Novi Beograd skyline. Is the most romantic in the city. Request a window table two weeks ahead and arrive for sunset.

Langouste is the Belgrade proposal restaurant. The bluff-top view over the rivers, the classical French pacing, the soufflé that arrives with a flourish, and the maître d's quiet complicity if you need him to bring a box at the right moment. It all adds up to the most cinematic table in the city.