Violetta takes the long view

Violetta swims forty lengths before breakfast, long unhurried strokes that barely leave a ripple, and she carries that same smooth composure into every evening. She is 178 cm of long lines, tall and slender, her black hair sleek and poured straight down her back, her eyes a dark brown, and she favours a desert-gold glamour: a gold silk dress, bare shoulders, minimal jewellery, nothing wasted.

Mystery is part of her charm, though it never lasts the whole evening. In her early thirties, Violetta is elegant and quietly confident, and her English comes in a low, measured voice that gives away just enough to keep you curious. Behind the poise hides a surprising sense of humour; she adores stand-up comedy and laughs loudest in the room. Bookshops are her refuge, and she rarely leaves one without a novel, a collection of essays and something she will never admit to reading. Ask her for a recommendation and she will write three titles on a napkin, one of them a joke.

Sunset, for Violetta, belongs to The Peninsula London on Hyde Park Corner, where the rooftop restaurant, Brooklands, looks out across the park and the lights of Knightsbridge. She likes a glass of champagne as the sun goes down, conversation that opens politely and becomes wonderfully candid, and then a slow walk home through the squares, her heels in one hand if the pavement allows.

Violetta lives in Belgravia and is travelling abroad until early October. Rosie is taking dinner date requests for the days after her return, and the rates page covers every option.