First Dates: Story, Cast and Series Facts

Story and premise

Cupid's arrow is set to hit Irish shores this month when the brand new series of First Dates Ireland airs on RTÉ2. The restaurant doors will swing open bringing singletons from all over the country together in the hope of finding love.

At the helm of the Irish First Dates restaurant is maître d' - Mateo Saina. Originally from Croatia, Mateo moved to Dublin in 2004 to take up a position at 'Browns on the Green'. Falling instantly in love with the city and its people, Mateo has lived here ever since. Joining Mateo is his team of merry matchmakers; barman Ethan Miles and waitress Alice Marr.

The singletons who will visit the restaurant range in age from 20 to 70 plus. The unobtrusive cameras allow the daters to forget they are being filmed and start bonding. or not!

Series details

• Title: First Dates
• Format: Reality
• Language: English
• Genres: Romance
• Premiere date: 2016-04-21
• Status in TVmaze: Running
• Network listed by TVmaze: RTÉ2
• Network country: Ireland
• Typical episode runtime: 60 minutes
• TVMaze ID: 16363
• TVDB ID: 310393

Cast and credited roles

• Mateo Saina — Maître d'
• Peter Campion — Narrator

Seasons in the TVmaze catalogue

• Season 1: premiered 2016-04-21; final listed air date 2016-05-26; episode order: 6.
• Season 2: premiered 2017-01-19; final listed air date 2017-04-20; episode order: 12.
• Season 3: premiered 2018-01-09; final listed air date 2018-04-03; episode order: 12.
• Season 4: premiered 2019-01-10; final listed air date 2019-04-11; episode order: 12.
• Season 5: premiered 2020-01-09; final listed air date 2020-04-09; episode order: 12.
• Season 6: premiered 2021-02-11; final listed air date 2021-05-20; episode order: 12.
• Season 7: premiered 2022-01-06; final listed air date 2022-04-14; episode order: 12.
• Season 8: premiered 2023-01-05; final listed air date 2023-04-06; episode order: 12.
• Season 9: premiered 2024-01-04; final listed air date 2024-04-04; episode order: 12.
• Season 10: premiered 2025-01-09; final listed air date 2025-04-10; episode order: 14.
• Season 11: premiered 2026-01-29; final listed air date 2026-05-07.

Source and licence

Adapted from First Dates on TVmaze. The synopsis is reproduced as plain text; catalogue facts, cast and season records are selected and reformatted. This adapted text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, following the TVmaze API licence. Network and web-channel credits identify the service listed in this source; they do not establish current streaming availability.