Prelude at the Opera House - Lower Level

Service was attentive and friendly. Buffet was tasty, especially the salad options. Desserts were excellent. Greater variety is needed. Expecting to experience a little something different.

Super convenient. Great food and outstanding service. Always a pleasure!

2/23 lovely and so convenient for performances.

Service accomplished and professional as usual. Cocktails excellent, including a masterful
Vieux Carre reminiscent of New Orleans. Crab Louis salad was fresh and bountiful, but would have welcomed just a bit more of the in-season, delectable Dungeness itself.
Appreciated being seated at Table 54 with waiter Luis.

Food not as good as Patina catering.
Tables too close together. Had two girls practically in our laps - chatting loudly.
Service still excellent.

The parking around the Veterans Building can be tough but getting there at 6 pm to dine downstairs at the Opera house before the ballet makes it much easier to park; especially if the symphony or other events are going on the same night.

Also the ease of just finishing your dinner and a final sip on your wine and just visiting the nearby restroom and then sauntering upstairs to my seat is quite seamless and relaxing.

I almost always get the buffet instead of a la carte because the variety is good and so is the food. And I get to pick my portion sizes; more of what I like and less of what I don't. :-)

Excellent service, wonderful food and food variety, reasonable price, very pleasant, unique setting. For what more could one ask?

Nice, As Always! The food and service are good, and the location is convenient when attending events in the Opera House.

Always enjoyable, buffet excellent, food fresh, live the carving station. So convenient if going to the ballet or opera.

Convenient with pleasant service, but very expensive for a marginal buffet.

The buffet as always was excellent but expensive. WIne is simply outrageous in price. Cheese is offered along with dried fruits and grapes. I think the cheese selection is very poor; mostly lacking in flavor. As alway there is no expresso because they are frightened of the high demand at the intermissions. We not just offer it at dinner?

The buffet was very good. Excellent salads,roast vegetables and sugar snap peas. Perfectly cooked roast sliced to order. Ala carte short rib was large and very rich. The polenta and carrots were better than last time. A sweet at the buffet to end things would have been nice but fruit and cheese were the only offering.

Convenient for ballet or opera, food mediocre
Salads soggy, warm veggies too oily, main courses ok

Going to Prelude before the Ballet rounded out a special afternoon for me and my friend. It reminds us of the wonderful history of San Francisco.

We loved Red and her wonderful welcome s as bd service. The meal was delicious and the drinks tasty. It was fun to return at intermission for an Irish coffee and dessert. Four stars! Even five!

We come here for most of the ballet season. Loved the Valentine's menu this time around. The heart shaped pasta was great! Noticed the sherry/port menu has shrunken. Still had great cheese and aperitifs!

Getting to the opera house at 6 pm to have a leisurely dinner before the ballet and then just walking up one flight to the performance is quite civilized and easy.

The buffet is always great and there are always things that I enjoy.

We weren’t very happy with the table we were seated at. It was in the space between the dining room and the bar, not in the bar, and not in the a Dining Room. I don’t think the hostess should seat a couple there until all the other good seating is filled up, which clearly wasn’t the case when we arrived.

I took my wife here on date night - we couldn’t figure out what was playing at the Opera House, so we came just for dinner at this restaurant and not for any accompanying show.

The food, drinks, and ambience were EXCELLENT - great wine selection and awesome food (we got the crepes and the duck confit, both of which we demolished). Quiet and easy to talk to others.

I’m giving this a 4-star review instead of 5-stars because the opera house staff (outside the restaurant) treated us like we were out of our minds for eating here without ballet tickets. They made us drop off our driver’s licenses as collateral and literally blocked us from walking around the magnificent lobby and instead accompanied us out of the building. Also, on the way in through the south entrance on Grove St, the greeter had no idea what restaurant we were talking about (so enter through the north entrance instead). Just felt weird - but once you get into the restaurant on the lower level, everything is amazing!

Waiters behave like kings and queens, are downright rude!

The buffet on Wednesday night was definitely not up to par. I was very disappointed and am trying to see what other options are available. I notice that the dining area was very sparsely filled, so I assume that others have shared my disappointment.

The young woman at the host stand and our server were outstanding!

The salad with the steak is wonderful..the steak med/rare, tender, tasty, sufficient quantity....the salad dressing also very good.I would have this item again....I might have added blue cheese to the salad to go with the steak and apple slices

Please support this pre-performance offering; it was very slow Tuesday night, at 6:30 pm. Very nice crab Louis salads and 2 wines for about $50 each isn’t bad. Service was excellent and we only had to park once.

We were seated just outside the men’s bathroom!
Our dinner arrived before our cocktails.
The food was fine and server polite

Very comfortable setting and able to talk without shouting. Martinis were perfect but pricey. My salad with salmon was great but my companion’s added chicken was dry as mine was last time. The service was perfect.

Cold food, bad service... would never come here again

Great. Buffet was excellent and Very convenient before show

HIGHLY recommend. It was a perfect way to start a lovely day at the ballet.

Birthday for my Daughter & Grand daughter💐First time to Ballet ! Very Special Day❤️

Wonderful lunch before the ballet!!

Ordered a la carte, got a cold pre-cut steak likely pulled from the buffet line and a room temp ahi tar tar. Girlfriend got cold shrimp and an appropriately hot short rib, which was the "highlight" of the meal. Really nothing special, but it was tender. Service was slow, which is probably why the food was all the wrong temperature. I believe they were short staffed, but it was abysmal. Definitely nowhere near the being worth what I paid for. I wanted to give it a shot for the convenience of being right in the hall, but I will never waste my money there again. If you are on the fence, the convenience factor does not outweigh the the poor quality and high price. Perhaps it would have been different for the buffet menu, but definitely not for a la carte.

The convenience is obviously excellent for Ballet attendees. Food is OK , nothing special and thus the value proposition is horrible!!! Two simple crab salads for $27 each is outrageous and then charging $3 for two small rolls is an insult. Starting with a Negroni at $17 is beyond cocktail prices at most good bars even in hotels. $48 for a buffet is likewise too high.

For Ballet subscribers as well as visitors this is a SF travesty. We would never go again unless prices changed. There are way too many good choices in the area.

This was gouging at its best.

Reliably wonderful. I especially liked our server who was the novel professional. We came back at intermission for strawberries and coffee, which is just a sensational perk of dining there!

Food was exceptional and service was outstanding!!

Although the buffet is always excellent, the carving station roast is ALWAYS TOO RARE. I think it should be roasted to a medium to medium on the ends to medium rare inside. It is borderline raw. I heard two others ask for something more medium, as well. The flavor was very good but too, too rare.

Very convenient, food is quite good. Gracious staff,

Lovely place to eat before attending an event at the War Memorial Opera House.

Not worth it. Expensive and unappetizing with very slow and careless service. You can do better and they should do better. Wait times are long, tables are jammed together. Only real benefit is marginal convenience.

Very convenient for a quiet meal before the ballet