Speed is critical to the opera experience, and offers simple business lessons

Someone should do a productivity study on the bar staff at the Royal Opera House. In a country not known for its service, the team there is a model of genial efficiency.

Of course, this should be no surprise. The logistics there are challenging. Most performances are sold out. I suspect the vast majority of ticket holders arrive no more than 20 minutes in advance. For the average show, there will be one interval of perhaps 30 minutes. Meaning the staff, scattered across a variety of bars and restaurants on several levels, has no more than an hour to take care of more than 2,000 people, though the reality is that most of the crowd is going to want a drink or snack in their hands within the same 10-minute window. Given the margin on food and drink, and the general affluence of this audience, I have no doubt there's a marketing plan somewhere in that building that's all about getting all those guests to consume as much as possible in that tiny window.

That's a scenario which, in most bars and restaurants in the UK, would leave half the potential business un-done, as irritated punters wait in long queues to be served. Not here. I can't remember waiting more than a few minutes, ever, and last night was a real exemplar of the power of efficiency.

We'd finished dinner in Covent Garden and had 10 minutes to get to our seats. At 7 minutes and counting, we were cutting through the Amphitheatre Bar. "Can I get you anything at the interval?" a cheery waiter called, wine list already in hand. I didn't know that we had time, I worried. All we had to do was tell him what we wanted and settle up later. Add 30 seconds to choose a bottle of wine, a request over my shoulder for "something chocolate" to go with it, and we continued on our path, with the waiter pointing to the table he'd have ready for us.

With magical efficiency, we emerged an hour later to find our name neatly printed on a reserved card on a table, our bottle of picpoul and two gorgeous chocolate brownies waiting. (A surprisingly good combination.) Of course, the cost of this little interval treat was about the same as our whole pre-theatre dinner. But for ROH management, that must be the point. This is entirely discretionary spend, which we made ... or might have skipped ... based completely upon convenience and the approach of that waiter. Many businesses could take note.

Including Chez Gerard across the piazza. It's one of the closest restaurants to the ROH, has a solid fixed price menu and a marvelous atmosphere, tucked into a Victorian-style glass house on top of the north market building. (Its open air balcony is one of the best spots in London to while away a sunny afternoon with wine and people watching.)

We had a perfectly satisfactory though not exceptional meal; steak frites for both of us, preceded by goat's cheese croustade for me and a terrine for him. We had an ample 90 minutes to eat. The starters would have been pre-prepared and taken five minutes to plate up. The mains, especially given my husband's predilection for meat so rare it's simply been scared by a candle at 10 paces, could have taken no more than 10 minutes. We should have had ample time. An enterprising waiter might have even made time to push dessert on us. Saving us from those pricey yet wonderful brownies in the opera house. Yet at 40 minutes before curtain up we had to ask after our absent main courses, then had to push for the bill and pay while we were still eating, dashing off with little time to spare.

Some excuse about the waiter not putting in the mains order until we'd finished our starters. Silly, and avoidable. Surely, it's a safe assumption that anyone eating in this restaurant this early is a pre-theatre diner, and in a hurry? The experience wasn't enough to strike them off my list ... the place is just too convenient ... but it did set up an interesting contrast between average and exemplary.

And what of the opera? Don Giovanni. Wonderful. But I'm going to make you wait for more. It's the Mozart/DaPonte series at the ROH, and we've booked two of the three. (Skipping Cosi Fan Tutti, since we just saw that at Longborough last summer.) We see The Marriage of Figaro in two weeks. Expect a combined review then.