Birthday meals become complicated remarkably quickly.

It starts with:

“Where shall we go?”

Then somebody invites another six people.

One person wants somewhere special. Somebody else doesn't want anything “too fancy”.

There's a vegetarian. Uncle Dave wants parking. And the person whose birthday it actually is stopped contributing to the WhatsApp conversation 47 messages ago.

So forget trying to name Peterborough's single best birthday restaurant.

Start with the kind of birthday you're organising.

The Blue Bell, Glinton: when you need your own space

If the guest list is getting longer, The Blue Bell in Glinton has something potentially more valuable than another enormous menu:

a private room

.

Its Garden Room is available for celebrations and other private functions and can also be combined with the adjoining restaurant for larger bookings.

That immediately changes the atmosphere.

A family birthday with several generations around the table is very different when you're not worrying about whether the neighbouring couple can hear every word of Grandad's story for the fourth time.

For a birthday where getting everybody together matters more than turning dinner into fine dining, this is the one I'd investigate first.

Location: Glinton, Peterborough

Prévost at Haycock Manor: when dinner is the birthday present

Then there's the opposite end of the scale.

At Haycock Manor Hotel in Wansford, Prévost is built around a much more serious dining experience.

The hotel currently describes Prévost as modern British gastronomy with three-, five- and eight-course tasting menus, led by Chef Rikki Hughes, with sommeliers available to guide the wine selection.

Haycock Manor Hotel

This isn't the obvious choice for assembling 17 relatives and hoping everybody finds something familiar.

It's for the birthday where the meal itself is the event.

And because it's inside Haycock Manor Hotel, there's another possibility Taste Trail should start exploring much more often:

don't drive home.

Dinner, drinks and a room turns a birthday meal into a night away without travelling very far at all.

Location: Haycock Manor Hotel, Wansford, Peterborough PE8 6JA

Fontanellas: when Whittlesey makes more sense than the city centre

Not every celebration needs a tasting menu or private dining room.

Sometimes the difficult bit is simply finding somewhere that works for the people coming.

Fontanellas in Whittlesey gives us a third kind of option: a local restaurant that also caters for events and celebrations.

That matters if half the guest list lives east of Peterborough and nobody particularly wants to trek into the city centre simply because that's where birthday articles usually send them.

Sometimes closer, easier and everybody around the same table beats grander.

Location: Market Street, Whittlesey

The birthday decides the venue

So don't begin with:

“What's Peterborough's best restaurant?”

Begin with:

“What sort of birthday are we having?”

Big family gathering and some privacy? Look at Glinton.

Food is the present and perhaps you'd quite like a hotel room afterwards? Wansford.

Relaxed celebration around Whittlesey? Fontanellas.

And now we want the ones Peterborough families already know.

Where have you had a genuinely good birthday, anniversary or family celebration around Peterborough - and what made the venue work?

Tell us in the comments.