When the curtain comes down at 10.20: supper in WC2, properly

The second rush of the night

Covent Garden has two rush hours after dark. The first comes at seven, when the pre-theatre tables clear and the audiences stream towards their houses. The second arrives around twenty past ten, when the curtains fall almost together and several thousand people step into the same handful of streets at once, a good many of them hungry.

At that hour the restaurants split into two kinds. Some have spent the evening winding down and would rather see you tomorrow; others were built for exactly this moment, with a kitchen that expects the theatre crowd and a floor team who know what a half past ten booking means. The trick of an after show supper is knowing which is which before the show begins, because hunting for a table at the interval is a lost cause.

Rooms that expect the late crowd

A few addresses have made the late table part of who they are. Joe Allen, now on Burleigh Street, has fed actors and audiences after the show for decades, its walls covered in posters from productions long since closed, and for years the running joke was that its best burger never appeared on the printed menu. The Ivy on West Street has kept theatre hours since the days when casts ate there between performances. J Sheekey, in St Martin's Court, does the same for fish and shellfish, and its counter makes a lighter second stop.

Kitchens shift their last orders with the seasons and the day of the week, so treat every name here as a lead rather than a promise. The dependable habit is to ask when you book: what time is the last seating, and will the table be held if the play runs a few minutes long? A room that answers both questions without hesitating is a room that wants the theatre crowd.

Hotel dining rooms are the other dependable option. The grills and bars of the larger houses along the Strand and around the Piazza often run later than independent kitchens, and a table there carries one extra merit that no restaurant on a side street can match: at the end of supper, bed is a lift ride away.

Supper as the play's third act

Eating after the show rather than before it has one great advantage: you have something to talk about. The first ten minutes at the table always go on the performance, who was good, what fell flat, whether the ending earned itself, and that conversation is the easiest in the world to share with somebody you met a few hours earlier.

It changes the meal, too. A late supper wants to be lighter than a dinner: a plate of something good, a bottle chosen without fuss and no clock anywhere in sight. Jasmin, whose working hours begin as the theatres empty, has a gift for making a late table feel like the start of the night rather than the end of it. Angelika, who prefers a later show in any case, tends to carry the conversation somewhere with a piano afterwards.

Getting out of the stalls ahead of the crowd

There is a right and a wrong way to leave. Stay for the curtain call, because the company has earned it and a companion will think less of anybody who bolts for the door. But be ready: the programme in a pocket, coats already collected if the house allows it, and the route to the restaurant settled in advance. Aisle seats help, and so does knowing whether the nearest exit opens onto the street you want.

Then walk. At half past ten, a free taxi around the Piazza is as rare as a quiet pavement, and almost everything in WC2 lies within ten minutes on foot. The walk becomes part of the evening, with the theatre fronts still lit and the lanes around Maiden Lane and Floral Street emptying fast behind the crowds.

When the play is only act one

For many guests the supper is not the end but the turning point. After a late table the night can still take in a last drink at the hotel, a stroll down to the Embankment or an unhurried return upstairs, and the evening often feels longest, in the best sense, after midnight. Molly, a red lipped member of the brunettes who keeps the hours after the theatres close and knows which doors in WC2 are genuinely still open, is the natural choice for that kind of night.

That format has its own page, after the final bow, and the streets it tends to cover, from the lanes of Covent Garden to the late rooms around Leicester Square, have theirs.

Booking the late half of the evening

There are two ways to arrange it. Some guests watch the performance on their own, or with a work party, and have the companion waiting at the theatre doors as the audience leaves; a two hour booking at £500 is enough for supper and the stroll home, while £700 for three hours adds time for a nightcap. Others book the whole evening from the first drink to the last, in which case the length depends on the running time and the desk quotes it before anything is confirmed.

For guests who would like the night to end at breakfast, the ten hour booking at £1,800 is the one to ask for. Every duration and its price appears on the rates page, and the theatres and their walking times sit on the Covent Garden page.

Whichever shape you choose, send the desk the theatre, the expected finishing time and the name of the restaurant in one message. That is everything needed to have somebody waiting under the canopy as the audience spills out, and a table ready for two before the rest of the house has found its coats.