I Ate at La Ballerina Every Night for a Week Before West End Shows

Seven shows. Seven dinners. One Italian restaurant that’s been three minutes from the action since 1999.

There’s a particular kind of chaos that comes with a West End evening. You bought the tickets weeks ago, you sorted the outfit, you know which tube stop to use, and then around 5:30 on the night itself, you’re stood somewhere on Long Acre trying to figure out where you’re actually going to eat.

I’ve been there more times than I’d like to admit.

So this summer, with seven shows booked across seven straight evenings — everything from Operation Mincemeat at the Fortune to The Lion King at the Lyceum — I decided to do something a bit mad and a bit brilliant: eat at the same restaurant before every single one.

La Ballerina. 7-8 Bow Street, Covent Garden. Thirty seconds from the Royal Opera House, three minutes from the Fortune Theatre, five from the Lyceum. Family-run since 1999, and it has the feel of a place your Italian grandmother would run if she’d somehow washed up in WC2.

Here’s how the week went.

The Rules

Nothing complicated. One dinner at La Ballerina before each show. Different dishes every night, no repeats. Get there for 5:30, be out by 7:15 at the latest. Order properly off the menu, not just whatever pasta comes fastest.

I wasn’t trying to punish myself by eating the same thing seven times. I wanted to see if one restaurant could actually carry a whole week of West End evenings — different shows, different moods, different appetites — without it ever feeling like a compromise.

It turns out it can. Here’s how each night played out.

Monday — Operation Mincemeat at the Fortune Theatre

Walk from La Ballerina: 3 minutes What I ordered: Minestrone Della Nonna, Tagliatelle Al Salmone

Monday nights have their own energy. You’re still fresh off the weekend, not quite back in the working-week rhythm, and if you’re off to a show, a little smug about it too.

I got to La Ballerina at 5:30 and the room was already half full — a mix of couples and what looked like an office group celebrating something. I was seated within two minutes.

The Minestrone Della Nonna came out fast: a properly thick vegetable soup, nothing like the watery version you get in lesser places. Carrots, celery, potato, courgette, a short pasta, all sat in a rich vegetable broth. It tasted like something someone’s nonna had put on at 6am and left simmering all day, which is more or less the point of it.

Then the Tagliatelle Al Salmone — wide ribbon pasta with smoked salmon in a cream sauce with a bit of chopped tomato running through it to stop things getting too heavy. Not a complicated dish, and it doesn’t need to be. Perfectly judged for a Monday.

I was out by 7:12. Operation Mincemeat starts at 7:30, and the walk took under four minutes, so I even had time to grab a programme.

The show itself, if you don’t know it, is extraordinary — an Olivier winner and the best-reviewed thing in the West End right now, and it genuinely lives up to the noise. Nice to walk into it without feeling weighed down from dinner.

Tuesday — The Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre

Walk from La Ballerina: 5 minutes What I ordered: Calamari Fritti, Spaghetti Carbonara

If Monday was fresh optimism, Tuesday felt like settled confidence. I knew where I was going and roughly what to expect. Sat by the window this time.

The Calamari Fritti is apparently La Ballerina’s most popular starter, and one bite tells you why — crisp batter, tender squid, none of the greasiness you sometimes get, and a tangy dip on the side. It arrived quickly and vanished even quicker.

For the main I went properly Roman: Spaghetti Carbonara. Eggs, Parmesan, pancetta, black pepper — no cream, because proper carbonara never has cream, and this was the real thing. Pasta cooked exactly right, sauce clinging to every strand. It’s a dish that tells you a lot about how confident a kitchen is, and this one clearly knows what it’s doing.

The Lion King at the Lyceum is one of those shows that’s better than you remember even if you’ve seen it before. Those first five minutes with the Pride Lands coming to life on stage are still as spectacular as theatre gets.

Wednesday — Matilda at the Cambridge Theatre

Walk from La Ballerina: 5 minutes What I ordered: Caprese Salad, Risotto Pollo Funghi

Wednesday brought a slight change in mood. Midweek, the room felt a touch more local — fewer tourists, more people who looked like regulars. Always a good sign.

The Caprese Salad does one thing and does it very well: fresh mozzarella, tomatoes that were actually ripe, basil, a balsamic glaze. Simple, and done properly.

I’d been saving the Risotto Pollo Funghi. Creamy Arborio rice, roast chicken, sautéed mushrooms, sage, aged riserva cheese. Risotto takes longer than pasta — I’d been warned — but the kitchen timed it well, out by 6:25, which gave me plenty of room before a 7:30 curtain.

Matilda at the Cambridge is the show that makes you realise Roald Dahl was basically writing musicals before musicals existed. The cast were superb, and I sat next to a family with two kids who didn’t take their eyes off the stage all night. Worth going back for.

Thursday — Mamma Mia! at the Novello Theatre

Walk from La Ballerina: 5 minutes What I ordered: Zuppa Funghi, Linguine Pescatore

Thursday is when London properly comes alive, and La Ballerina was busier than any other night that week. Glad I’d booked ahead.

The Zuppa Funghi is a different animal to the minestrone — darker, richer, earthier. A mushroom soup with pancetta, cream, thyme, and Parmesan. Exactly the sort of bowl that makes you feel looked after on a rainy evening, which it happened to be.

For the main, Linguine Pescatore — the fisherman’s pasta. Fresh linguine with king prawns, calamari, and mussels in a tomato and herb sauce. The seafood clearly came in that morning, and the sauce had real depth without tipping into heavy. Most restaurants in London would struggle to pull this off; here it’s just another dish on the menu.

Mamma Mia! is the kind of show where the audience is smiling before the curtain’s even up. By the end, people around me were dancing in their seats. Those ABBA songs never get old.

Friday — Back to the Future at the Adelphi Theatre

Walk from La Ballerina: 8 minutes What I ordered: Bruschetta al Pomodoro, Pollo Milanese

Friday nights at La Ballerina feel like a different restaurant — not worse, if anything better. There’s a certain buzz when the room fills with people starting their weekend. I turned up at 5:30 sharp and was seated straight away.

The Bruschetta al Pomodoro is the perfect Friday starter — light, fresh, almost Mediterranean. Toasted bread, ripe tomatoes, garlic, basil, decent olive oil.It Takes about ninety seconds to eat and clears the palate completely.

The Pollo Milanese, done well, is a small triumph of simplicity. Breaded chicken breast, golden and crisp, served with a fresh salad. Sounds ordinary until you actually eat it — this was the real Milanese, thin, evenly crumbed, cooked through without drying out. Makes you question why you’d ever order anything fussier.

Back to the Future at the Adelphi won the Olivier for Best New Musical in 2022 and has been selling out ever since. The practical effects — a certain car, especially — are genuinely astonishing. Worth it for the stagecraft alone.

Saturday — Kinky Boots at the London Coliseum

Walk from La Ballerina: 9 minutes What I ordered: Insalata di Frutti di Mare, Tagliatelle al Tartufo

Saturday meant the longest walk of the week — nine minutes to the Coliseum on St Martin’s Lane — so timing mattered more than ever. I arrived at 5:30, told the server about my 7:30 curtain, and let them handle the rest.

The Insalata di Frutti di Mare — prawns, mussels, calamari, and octopus with a lemon vinaigrette — is the lightest starter on the menu, and exactly the right call before two and a half hours of theatre.

The Tagliatelle al Tartufo was the most indulgent pasta I had all week. Handmade ribbon pasta, truffle oil, earthy mushrooms. You smell the truffle before the bowl even reaches the table. The kind of dish you pause on for a second just to appreciate how good it is.

Left at 7:18, walked briskly, made it to the Coliseum with seven minutes to spare.

Kinky Boots — Cyndi Lauper’s musical about a struggling shoe factory saved by a drag queen — is exactly the reminder you need of why live theatre still matters. Half the audience were on their feet by the finale.

Sunday — The Mousetrap at St. Martin’s Theatre

Walk from La Ballerina: 6 minutes What I ordered: Tiramisu and an espresso — nothing else

I should explain this one.

The Mousetrap is the longest-running show in theatre history, on stage at St Martin’s since 1952. Sunday was the one evening I’d already eaten properly — a long lunch earlier on — and by 6pm I wasn’t hungry. But there was no way I was finishing a week at La Ballerina without ordering something.

So, tiramisu.

Made in-house. Espresso-soaked savoiardi layered with mascarpone, finished with cocoa. Took five minutes to eat and was, by some distance, the best thing I had all week — which says a lot, given how good everything else was.

The Mousetrap is exactly what it’s always been: a sharp, clever, tightly constructed Agatha Christie whodunnit in a lovely old theatre. The ending still catches you off guard, which after 70-odd years on the same stage is genuinely impressive.

What I Actually Took Away From This

A week of pre-theatre dinners at the same place should, in theory, get old fast. It didn’t.

What La Ballerina gets right is what good Italian cooking always gets right: it makes quality look easy. The pasta’s made fresh, the fish comes in that day, and the service understands you’ve got a curtain to catch without ever making you feel rushed.

A few things stood out across the seven nights:

Book ahead. Every single evening, people turned up without a reservation and either waited or got turned away. It fills up fast, especially Thursday through Saturday. A quick call or email the day before sorts it out completely.

Tell them your curtain time. Every time I mentioned when my show started, the kitchen paced the meal around it. Nothing arrived late, nothing felt rushed. Twenty-five years of doing this means they know exactly how long you need.

Don’t skip the starter. A couple of nights I was tempted to jump straight to a main to save time. On the nights I ordered a starter too — most of them — I never once felt pressed for time. You’ve got more time than you think.

The tiramisu is not optional. If you’ve got ten minutes spare, order it. Made in-house every time, and the best version you’ll find anywhere in Covent Garden.

The Full Week at a Glance

Practical Details

La Ballerina Italian Restaurant 📍 7-8 Bow Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7AH 📞 +44 20 7379 6659 ✉️ reservations@laballerina.co.uk 🌐 laballerina.co.uk/reservation/

Open Monday to Saturday 12pm–11pm, Sunday 12pm–10pm.

Vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options available. Child-friendly. There’s a pre- and post-theatre set menu too — just ask when booking.