For incurable romantics, Valentine’s Day is like any other. We wonder what all the fuss is about. Why everyone else is getting all starry-eyed, talking in hearts and flowers and, ultimately, acting the way we do every day of the year. We shake our heads smugly. And then we jump into February 14 with full abandon, indulging, too. Why miss out on any fun?

Restaurant Week is that way for foodies.

ROOM WITH A VIEW Chef Phillip Craig Thomason

When you’re passionate about restaurants, eager to try new menu items or chat up a chef for the latest industry trends, you spend as much time as you can in them. You dine out on promising dates, you dine out with boisterous groups of friends, you dine out solo, drinking in the theater of the restaurant without distraction.

Others find you odd or cast patronizing glances at your queer “hobby,” befuddled by why your Paris pix show only a smidgen of your face but a full frontal of your boudin de homard.

Then, suddenly, it’s January and you’re getting your hair cut and all the other heads around you in various stages of shampoo or highlight—wrapped in foil like so many casseroles en route to a church supper—gab about the beef bourguignon at Eat and the Kentucky bourbon pork tenderloin at Hell’s Kitchen. Go figure. You stop for a coffee and overhear folks strategizing their week’s meals with Pattonian precision: “If we lunch at Eurasia on Tuesday, then we can have dinner at 219 and still make it in time for the late movie on Wednesday.” For such is the nature of Restaurant Week—attractively priced three-course prix fixe meals originating in big cities in the 1990s to jumpstart business during a traditionally sluggish time that caught on locally in 2006—that it turns the most dyspeptic among us into raving gastronomes.

And that’s a good thing.

If you’re a frequent diner, it can coax you somewhere you haven’t been before. Say you’re perpetually sucking down oysters at A.W. Shucks (and who could blame you?). Maybe it’s time to sink your teeth into Byrd & Baldwin’s aged-on-site Harris Ranch beef. If you have a regular table at Aldo’s (lucky you!), why not see what all the buzz is about at Mannino’s. Or perhaps you’re always chasing eggs with a Bloody Mary at Doc Taylor’s. Well, if that’s the case, carry on. That’s the only Restaurant Week restaurant serving breakfast.

Now, if you’re an amateur, and need a birthday/anniversary excuse to eat out, this is the time to see that life’s too short to limit yourself. Maybe you thought upscale eateries like Fire & Vine were too expensive and intimidating. They’re not. You’d be surprised how many of F&V’s wood-fired entrees are under $20 regularly and how the accommodating staff is warm and welcoming.

In other words, it’s a time for everyone.

Of course, for restaurateurs and staff (bless them—we have tremendous talent both front and back-of-the-house around here), the crush must feel like Valentine’s on a Saturday night followed by Mother’s Day with Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve thrown in. Twice.

Taste spoke with three notable chefs and restauranteurs to prime your palate. We here embrace Restaurant Week; it’s good for business. Figures from the Virginia Beach Restaurant Association, for example, show that in 2006, participants saw a 38.3 percent increase in gross receipts compared to the same week in the prior year.

So sharpen those tines, polish those spoons. Norfolk, Ghent and Virginia Beach will hold restaurant weeks from Jan 18-25. (In Norfolk, menus are set for $20 or $30; in Virginia Beach they’re $10.09 for lunch and $20.09 or $25.09 for dinner. Visit downtownnorfolk.org, destinationghent.com and vabeachrestaurants.net for details.) Don’t fret when they’re through. Pick right up without missing an eat—Williamsburg’s Restaurant Week Jan 25-Feb 1. Portsmouth and Suffolk rolled ones out last year in spring, and Norfolk runs a second in summer.

CALM BEFORE THE STORM Shula's 347, downtown Norfolk

And while we could greedily wish for an entire year of restaurant weeks, with so many restaurants giving ongoing sweet deals as the economy sours, we’re practically there. Big Easy offers complimentary appetizers on Fridays and Saturdays from 11 pm to midnight (even if you order off the late-night menu, prices like $4.95 for chicken jambalaya are sure easy to swallow) and the Pagoda does Sunday brunch with every item $10, to name just a couple. Fairly priced tasting menus have long been in existence from Terrapin at the Beach to Le Yaca in Williamsburg.

So remember to keep Restaurant Week, like Valentine’s, in your heart (and stomach) every day of the year.