Work backwards from the curtain
Most West End performances begin at half past seven, some at seven or a quarter to eight, and the opera and ballet keep their own times, with the longest works starting well before seven. Check the ticket rather than your memory. Everything else in the evening is arithmetic built on that single figure.
Backstage, the company is called to the half thirty five minutes before curtain up. Front of house keeps a similar rhythm: the doors open, the bars fill, and the last ten minutes before the lights go down are the most crowded of the night. Aim to be in your seat by twenty past for a 7.30 start. That means leaving the restaurant by ten past seven at the latest if the theatre is five minutes away, earlier if it is ten, and asking for the bill well before either.
Work it through once and the table books itself: 5.30 or 5.45 for a 7.30 curtain, 5.15 for a seven o'clock start, and later only when the restaurant sits right on the theatre's doorstep.
The seventy minute table
Seventy minutes is plenty for two courses and a glass of wine without anybody hurrying, provided the kitchen knows from the outset. Tell the waiter the curtain time as you sit down, not when the mains arrive. Many good rooms in WC2 run an early evening menu aimed squarely at this crowd, usually two or three courses from a short card, and the kitchen is geared to send it out briskly. What those menus include, and until what time they run, changes by restaurant and by season, so ask when you book.
A few habits help. Order everything at once, the second course and the water included. Choose dishes that will not need twenty minutes of fuss at the pass. Skip dessert and save it for later. Ask for the bill with the main course and settle it while there is still food on the plates, because the slowest part of any pre-theatre dinner is the ten minutes spent waiting to pay.
None of this should feel like a drill. The whole point of the discipline is that the conversation at the table can run at its own pace, because the clock has already been dealt with.
Choose the table by the theatre, not the menu
Covent Garden is compact, but ten minutes in the wrong direction at seven o'clock, against the crowds, can feel like twenty. Match the restaurant to the house. For the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and the Lyceum, look east of the Piazza, along Russell Street and around Catherine Street. For the Royal Opera House, Bow Street and Floral Street are on the doorstep. For the Donmar and the Cambridge, stay around Seven Dials. For the Coliseum, the Noël Coward and Wyndham's, the tables on and around St Martin's Lane make the most sense.
Within those zones a handful of rooms handle the early sitting especially well. Clos Maggiore on King Street, with its conservatory hung with blossom, is the romantic choice and fills early for good reason. Frenchie on Henrietta Street is smaller and brisker. Rules on Maiden Lane, the oldest restaurant in London, is glorious but rich, and better saved for after a matinee than eaten before a long second act.
Lea, who loves a short run in a small theatre, always picks a table within five minutes of the Donmar; Sonya, who belongs with the companions in their thirties, builds her evenings around the early curtain at the Coliseum and walks out of the restaurant with time to spare, every single time.
Interval drinks, ordered before you sit down
The interval is the one part of a theatre evening that can undo all the careful timing. Twenty minutes, several hundred people and one small bar add up to a queue. Most West End houses will take an order for interval drinks before the performance and have them waiting on a numbered shelf or table when the lights come up. Do it on the way in, at the same moment as leaving coats at the cloakroom.
It is a small thing, but it turns the interval into a conversation rather than a scrum, and that is the moment of the evening when company matters most. Somebody who has a view on the first half, and is happy to share it, makes a very long second act feel short.
Pudding after the bow
Keeping dessert for afterwards is about more than saving time. It gives the evening a second chapter. Some restaurants invite their pre-theatre diners back for pudding or a drink once the show is over, and it is always worth asking; otherwise a hotel bar or a late counter does the same job. Karolina, who holds an opinion on every second act she has ever sat through, considers the walk from the theatre to a late table the best part of an opera night.
The practical upshot is that a pre-theatre dinner is really a three part evening: table, performance and whatever follows. Plan it that way and none of the parts needs rushing. The streets and the later options are laid out on the Covent Garden page.
Booking a companion around the table
For a pre-theatre evening the companion usually meets you at the restaurant a few minutes before the booking, or at your hotel half an hour earlier if you would rather walk there together. Tell the desk the restaurant, the table time and the curtain time. It matters, because together they tell everybody how long the evening really is.
Booked as a four hour dinner date, £900 usually stretches across a 5.15 table and a seven o'clock curtain. A 7.30 start with a long running time will stretch beyond four hours, and the desk will quote the full length in writing before anything is confirmed. Prices for each length are listed on the rates page, and a ready worded message sits on the booking page.
Quick answers
For a 7.30 curtain, 5.30 or 5.45 at a restaurant five to ten minutes from the theatre. For a seven o'clock start, 5.15. Tell the waiter the curtain time as soon as you sit down.
For most people, yes. Two courses and a glass of wine fit comfortably into seventy minutes, and keeping dessert for after the performance gives the evening a natural second stop.
Yes. Send the desk the restaurant and the reservation time, and she will walk in shortly before your table is due.