After smoked salmon, the opera

Dining without the drama of wondering if you'll be late

By Christine Temin, Globe Staff, 10/20/02

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LONDON — Your dinner entree is late. You stare at your watch. You try to catch the waiter's eye. You have a choice: Hang around the restaurant for your meal or skip dinner to get to the theater on time.

The choice wasn't difficult back in the days when British food boiled down (literally) to overcooked mush. But now London is a hot spot for gourmets, celebrity chefs, opulent restaurant decor. You can eat as well here as in Paris — a daring statement but one I stand behind — for a lot less money.

It is possible to combine fine dining and drama in the same evening, and we're not talking about the traditional dinner-theater experience where the food and the acting often have mediocrity in common. We're talking two-pronged excellence. One way to do it is to eat in a restaurant that is in the same building with the theater, preferably a restaurant with a prix-fixe pre-theater menu and waiters who keep track of the time so you don't have to.

Put the Savoy at the top of the list. The venerable hotel has packages combining dinner in one of its several restaurants and a show in its own historic theater, site of many Gilbert and Sullivan premieres performed by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. The theater was destroyed by fire in 1990, but rebuilt in Art Deco style. The walls glow with silver leaf. Nowadays, the swank space is often home to Gilbert & Sullivan revivals (I saw a stylish production of "The Mikado"; the next offering is "H.M.S. Pinafore," opening Dec. 13.) Before the show, I dined at the Savoy's River Restaurant, the hotel's fanciest. There's a two- or three-course pre-theater menu. First courses included warm duck salad with artichokes and parmesan crisps; stellar entrees included gilt edged bream on bean puree with bouillabaise sauce. Service was prompt yet unhurried. They knew why I was there.

There has been a place to eat on the site of the Criterion building in Piccadilly Circus since the 17th century, when it was occupied by the White Bear Inn. The present Criterion Restaurant and Theatre were built in 1873, designed by Thomas Verity, one of the greatest theater architects of the day. During the Blitz in World War II, false walls and ceilings were constructed to protect the real ones underneath. It was only at the end of the 1980s that the original walls were once again exposed. They're dazzling. The room is a Byzantine fantasy. The ceiling glitters with golden mosaics. The walls are a marbled green and cream, like an Irish cheese. Swags, tassels, and exotic paintings add to the ambience. The lighting fixtures resemble oil lamps. I could go on — the designers certainly did — but you get the idea.

The current owner of the Criterion Grill is Marco Pierre White, the youngest chef and the first Englishman ever to be awarded three Michelin stars. As this suggests, the food is fabulous, including the pre-theater menu. Fettucine with rocket mint pesto and octopus. Salmon on fennel gratin Florentine with orange beurre blanc. Treacle tart with clotted cream. Then you roll over to the Criterion Theatre, where the Reduced Shakespeare Company has been in residence since 1996, offering "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)" and "The Complete History of America." OK, the humor is a bit juvenile: My 23-year-old son adored it, but he likes raspberry beer as well. It's a perfect show to see your first night in London, when you're too jet-lagged to take in a true Shakespearean drama.

The elegant Covent Garden Hotel, a property both posh and informal, has a Saturday Night Film Club that combines a three- course meal with a film in a state-of-the-art screening room boasting reclining leather chairs and no gum stuck on the floor. (I saw "Moulin Rouge.") The restaurant offers four choices in each of the courses: Among the winners I sampled were watercress and wild rocket soup, glazed lamb shank with roasted root vegetables, and Normandy Brie with black figs. The staff is so conscious of the time the movie starts that, if you've succumbed to too much wine, they'd probably get a litter to carry you downstairs to the screening room.

London's Covent Garden area is home to the stately Royal Opera House, which had an extensive makeover expansion in 2000 that meant, among other things, people were no longer crushed at the Crush Bar. The adjacent, newly reopened Vilar Floral Hall, a glass and cast iron structure resembling a giant greenhouse, has become a favorite eatery of those attending the opera and ballet. You can order ahead, and eat before the performance — or in the intermissions. A discreet gong announces the moment when you must rise from your smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches, sip the last of the champagne, and, without rushing, make your way back to your seat for the next act.