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How the Metropolitan Opera Feeds Its AudiencesOpera is an art form that favors extravagant appetites. The marriage of music and cuisine is nowhere more evident than at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, where feeding about 3,800 audience members and 3,000 employees each performance is itself a production of operatic proportions.
We’re here at the Metropolitan Opera because the Met Opera seats about 3,000 people per night. So we’re taking a behind-the-scenes look to find out how everyone is fed at the Met. The employee cafeteria serves all of the 2,000 employees who work here, not to mention the singers who come and the orchestra. Then, there are 13 bars spread across all of the floors. There are 3,000 people who come to see an opera on a typical night, so they disperse among the 13 bars to get a glass of champagne and a sandwich during intermission. Then, there’s the Grand Tier restaurant. The Grand Tier restaurant is the formal sit-down restaurant where you can have a three- or four-course meal. You’re served before the show and during intermission. It’s $118. If you did a four-course prix fixe, or you can order à la carte. And then there’s the members-only room, which has its own special hors d’oeuvres and its own bar. I’ve been coming to the Met practically my whole life. Usually I go to one of the bars and get the smoked salmon sandwich.
Opera is an art form that favors extravagant appetites. The marriage of music and cuisine is nowhere more evident than at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, where feeding about 3,800 audience members and 3,000 employees each performance is itself a production of operatic proportions.
By Nyt Cooking
November 7, 2025