Sarastro - The Opera Themed Restaurant In Covent Garden, London!

My fiancee Paul is a BIG fan of Sarastro. Back before he and I met, when he was young, footloose, fancy free and had a large disposable income (!), he used to frequent Sarastro on a fairly regular basis.

I'd heard so many tales from him about how amazing the place was, I wanted to experience it for myself and so he took me there for my birthday.

We went to Sarastro for one of their "Opera Menu" matinees. This meant we got the WHOLE Sarastro experience - the restaurant, the food, the ambience and the live opera!

I'm not an opera fan and know very little about it, but I thought listening to some opera whilst having dinner would be a pleasant and unusual way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

When I walked into the restaurant my initial impression was "WOW"...I could have spent hours just looking around - it's amazing. Sheer opulence and fantasy, all colour and glitter and the epitome of pure Drama :)

We were shown to our seats by an attentive waiter. The opera performances get very busy as you can imagine, so it was a bit on the cramped side, but I had expected that. The food (which I've described further down the page) was good and plentiful and the other diners were friendly and chatty. The atmosphere was great as everyone was there for the same reason - the communal enjoyment of live music in some very interesting surroundings.

We were seated on the lower level, just by the stairs to the opera boxes. I thought this was a great place to sit as we seemed to have a bit more room than other parts of the restaurant...but there was a reason for this and at this point I hadn't realised what would happen later!

The music commenced with a very good string quartet, followed by the opera singers. A female and a male who sang solos and duets. It was an incredible experience to hear really good singers performing at such close quarters. I can't sing a note myself and so I'm always in awe of anyone who can hold a tune!

All was going well, until the male singer decided to serenade a female member of the audience...guess who he chose!

I'm a naturally shy person and there I was with this enormous man with the voice of an angel down on one knee in front of me, holding my hand and staring lovingly into my eyes.

My fiancee thought it was hilarious...I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me :)

It got worse, next he wanted to dance with me! He kept trying to coax me off my chair to join the female singer who was already happily dancing around the restaurant with a male audience member who was clearly far more of an exhibitionist than me.

I'm introverted and I have two left feet. I can't dance to save my life and there was no way I was getting up. Eventually the poor man got the message and found a more adventurous lady!

I remained red faced for what seemed like hours :)

It was a fabulous experience though...would I do it again? You bet...I'd sit somewhere out of the way though :)