We tried the ultimate date night in…

Every now and then, you want to do something that feels properly fancy, without the inconvenience of actually going out.

I’m not talking about having a takeaway in the ‘nice bowls’. Nor am I suggesting pasta with last year’s Christmas candles. I mean an actual special dinner. The kind of thing that normally requires a babysitter, a booking weeks in advance, and a bill that makes you wince.

We were asked to try an at-home fine dining meal kit to see whether a proper date night in can genuinely rival going out. To make it a fair test, we didn’t cook it in a glossy, well-equipped kitchen. We cooked it in a very average Airbnb. The kind where the frying pan looks vaguely carcinogenic, the single knife is blunt, and the oven dial has long since lost its numbers.

Expectations were cautious.

Because cooking properly at home sounds romantic until you actually do the maths. Ingredients alone can spiral fast. A single sauce can mean buying five things you’ll use once, plus equipment you don’t own, plus the pressure of getting it right while someone you’re trying to impress is watching. That’s before you factor in time. Real cooking eats your day.

Which is where this was different.

The kit we tried was from Indulge Dining, created by Michelin-trained chef Andy Bowler. Everything arrived vacuum packed and clearly labelled by course. Canapés. Starter. Main. Dessert. Petit fours. Nothing missing. Nothing vague. Even the baking paper was included, which tells you a lot about who this is actually designed for.

What stood out immediately is that this isn’t really cooking in the traditional sense. It’s assembling. Everything comes prepped and portioned, often in small piping bags. Blood orange gel, sauces, purees, garnishes. Your job is to follow the instructions and make it look good. There are even plating pictures to help with that part.

The only thing you actually cook is the steak. And even that is idiot-proof. Sear it hard in the pan, finish it in the oven, let it rest, slice. That’s it. No guesswork. No stress. The result was absurdly tender. My partner’s exact words were that it tasted like “legit restaurant food”. And he wasn’t wrong.

The menu itself felt properly thought through. Cheese and onion canapés to start, spelt bread with salted butter, a smoked salmon starter with blood orange gel, fennel and dill, then beef rump cap with butternut squash, king oyster mushrooms and kale. Dessert was Yorkshire rhubarb with vanilla and ginger, followed by salted caramel truffles.

It sounds indulgent because it is.

And here’s the important bit. The portions are not tiny. They’re refined, but there’s a lot going on. By the time we got to the end, we didn’t even want the petit fours straight away. It’s a paced, multi-course meal that leaves you satisfied without feeling heavy.

Which matters.

Because this wasn’t some idealised dinner scenario. We have a two-year-old. Anyone with a two-year-old knows they are essentially chaos in human form. While we were eating what was effectively Michelin-level food at our dining table, she was on the floor crunching spilled Rice Bubbles into the laminate. That’s about as glamorous as date night gets when you’ve got a toddler.

And yet, it still worked.

There was something genuinely brilliant about having Michelin-quality food at home, in our own space, without the logistics of going out. No taxis. No sitter. No rushing. Just a proper meal that felt special, eaten at our own pace.

Even without kids, there’s something deeply appealing about that. A fancy meal at home hits differently. You can talk properly. You can relax. You don’t feel watched. You don’t have to get dressed up beyond what you want to wear. And when dinner’s done, you’re already where you want to be.

I’ve tried a lot of meal kits over the years. This is easily the best one I’ve done. Not because it tries to be clever, but because it understands what people actually want. Something impressive that doesn’t hijack your entire day. Something indulgent that still feels achievable.

This isn’t about being cheap. It’s about being smart.

To recreate this level of food properly from scratch, you’d need serious money, serious prep time, and a kitchen that’s set up for it. Most people don’t have that. What this gives you is five-star restaurant-quality food at home, without the stress, the equipment, or the fallout.

If you want a date night that actually feels special, whether you’ve got kids or not, this is exactly how you do it.

10/10 from us. Even we were surprised.