First Dates | Series 25 Preview (Channel 4)

The saying goes, there’s someone out there for all of us. Channel 4’s First Dates Restaurant is living proof that it’s true. In this award-winning fly-on-the-wall dating series, real people go on first dates in a restaurant with a unique twist: No one in it besides the staff has ever laid eyes on one another before. 

All the diners are single, and on a real blind date. Aged from 18 to 80, hopeful singletons from all over the country are looking to meet the man or woman of their dreams. In First Dates, we’re there with them, from awkward greetings to backfired chat-up lines and the earliest flushes of love.

The daters have been brought together according to their likes and dislikes by First Dates’ team of matchmakers. But a successful date needs more than just the ideal partner.  In this new-look series, the restaurant’s atmosphere has been fine-tuned so that romance can blossom. 

Now on hand to ensure that the cuisine, cocktails and conversation are flowing at every table is world-renowned Maître d’ Fred and his dedicated team. Frenchman Fred is well versed in the lyrics of love, abiding by Tennyson’s principle that “’Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all”.

Fred plays cupid across the series and welcomes eager daters from all walks of life through the doors. They’ve all been brave enough to let us eavesdrop on one of the most intense meals of their lives. Some of them crash and burn….others strike it lucky. And at the end of the evening they’ll be asked the killer question: ‘Will you see each other again?’.

In the first episode, twenty-seven-year-old yoga instructor Nicole meets Matthew, a 24-year-old mindfulness coach. While they seem like the perfect combination for love, how will Nicole, who's only ever dated older men, react to finding out that Matthew is younger than her?

First Dates returns Friday 10th April at 10pm on Channel 4.