After the bread, appetizer, entrée, and wine to wash it all down, the dessert menu arrives with fabulous things you’re too stuffed even to think about. If you have a sweet tooth, plan ahead next time. “I look at the dessert menu first so I know what I’m going to have and can leave space,” says master chocolatier Jacques Torres, owner of Jacques Torres Chocolate Haven, in New York City. Other strategies: Resign from the clean-plate club. “I never eat all of my entrée,” says Alison Arnett, a food writer for the Boston Globe. Linger between courses, if possible, so you can digest. “In France,” notes Torres, “it’s common to sit for three hours at the table with friends and a good bottle of wine.” Starving yourself during the day to “save room” only sets you up for self-sabotage, says Arnett: “You’ll eat the entire bread basket and still be too full for cake.” But you might manage a sorbet or a light, fruit-based confection, she suggests. Torres’s favorite option: “Start with dessert! Then you’re sure to have room for it.”