Opera restaurants

As a young man I discovered Wagner. In college I was a substitute usher for the standees at the old Met. I had never heard a Wagner opera, having fallen in love with the form by listening to Rigoletto. I was called to usher at a performance of Tristan and Isolde with Birgit Nilsson. I initially found the music difficult but every time she sang I was totally amazed and decided to buy recordings of Wagner to get to know the music. I soon fell totally in love with the operas and vowed I would have to go to Bayreuth some day.

Soon after that, I was traveling in Europe for the first time on a Eurail Pass. I was sick, on antibiotics and in Paris. I did not have any tickets for Bayreuth but was determined to try to see an opera. I took a night train with a couchette and arrived in

Bayreuth in the early afternoon. I was bleary eyed and very underdressed, but went to find tickets. I stood outside the office that took cancellations until they actually told me they had a ticket. I ran with my suitcase and stored it in the train station and got back just in time for the 4:00 pm start. They start very early in order to have very long intervals.

The opera was Meistersinger and by the first interval I was very hungry, not having eaten all day. I felt somewhat intimidated because at that time formal dress was the norm for the audience members and most of the men were in tails and tuxes. But I found a large room where they were selling wursts and beer. I was amazed to see these well dressed people eating the delicious wursts with their fingers after dipping them into mustard and then taking a sip of beer. I immediately did the same thing. In the next interval I realized there were other dining rooms and that people were having multi-course dinners, one during each interval, of delicious looking German fare. It was at that point I became fascinated with food at the opera as well as in the opera.

This section of the website is dedicated to restaurants at the great opera houses of the world. Each post shall discuss the history of the opera house and its restaurants, if they have one, or the restaurant nearby most associated with the opera house. There will be images of the restaurants, menus and recipes from the restaurants both in the past and the present.