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I love the idea of a pre-theatre menu, the notion that it’s three courses ruthlessly calibrated to be ordered, cooked and eaten in a brief, convenient spell prior to curtain up. None of that tedious dawdling around between courses or ordering wine, first two courses then desserts separately. Just straight to the point. But the description is really more a shorthand for a sort of Theatreland prix-fixe-style menu, rather than any sort of guarantee; after all, it’s not the staff’s responsibility to get you to your show on time.
Basically this is a preamble to say that while we enjoyed two thirds of our ‘pre-theatre’ dinner at Covent Garden bistro Pivot, we had to go before dessert, which hadn’t turned up an hour and ten minutes into the meal.
Mark Greenaway’s cosy restaurant has recently undergone an expansion, doubling its size by taking over the coffee shop it used to sit on top of. With that, it’s added a bar, the pre-theatre menu and an all-day menu.
It still feels like a small restaurant, and pleasantly so. The service was laidback but attentive: we ordered all three courses immediately, opting for the £39 menu that includes a carafe of wine each. It’s £11 more than the food-only menu, and it’s £11 well spent: in most West End theatres you can easily drop more than that on a small glass of what is to all intents and purposes battery acid masquerading as wine. Two-thirds of a bottle of tart but honeyed Sensas IGP d’Oc Vermentino from Languedoc was both far nicer and far better value than literally any wine I have ever bought in a theatre.
I loved the extreme juiciness of my strips of dressed summer courgette starter. But it wasn’t exactly bursting with flavour: a scattering of pomegranete seeds and vegan feta wasn’t enough of a kick, and I’m pretty sure the promised beetroot dressing was suspiciously AWOL. My companion was a big fan of her pork-and-apple terrine, which was surprisingly delicate, not at all claggy.
She had a beautifully cooked roasted cod fillet for her main: lovely, but that was basically it – a decent size but there was nothing to soak up the liquidy spin on tatar sauce it was liberally drizzled in. By contrast, I’d been hesitant about ordering wild mushrooms on toast because I thought it sounded a bit underpowered – but au contraire, it was a hulking great thing, a creamy chewy mini mountain of comfort food that kept me feeling full and happy for the duration of the obscure three-hour Schiller play I was about to see.
And just as well, because that was it for food. Around 15 minutes before we need to leave we told our waiter that we’d need to go very soon and was there any chance our raspberry pavlova and chocolate mousse could come ASAP. He nodded affably, and 15 minutes later they still hadn’t shown up and we had to go, something the staff seemed entirely unconcerned about, politely waving us goodbye.
Like I said, no promises were made about timings, but in my platonic ideal of pre-theatre dining, 70 minutes should have been enough. Good food, great wine, but I wonder if taking on an express menu is a pivot too far for this amiable but not exactly turbopaced bistro,
The vibe Cosy, classy but slightly ramshackle bistro in the heart of town.
The food Modern European and British cuisine, hearty but not too heavy.
The drink Paying £11 extra on the pre-theatre menu for a carafe of excellent wine is recommended.
Time Out tip Do what the table next to us did (and we clearly should have done): ask for your mains and desserts to come out at the same time.