The case by the door, a proper table, and the hour to put the fork down

Why the table beats the gate

The late evening departures from this airport, the long haul flights to Asia, Africa and the Gulf, leave travellers with the same choice every night: eat at the hotel, or eat airside. Airside has the obvious attraction of being past security already. It also has hand luggage wedged under a small table, a departures screen in the corner of the eye and a meal eaten with one ear open for a gate call.

The hotel has the opposite. A table that is yours for as long as you booked it, food nobody is hurrying and a conversation that is not interrupted by boarding announcements. There is a practical reason too. Only passengers holding a boarding pass go through security, so a companion cannot come to the gate with you. The evening ends at the terminal door whatever you decide, and it may as well be spent at a good table rather than in a queue for one.

Pack before you sit down

The evening works only if the leaving has been done in advance. Check in online, put the boarding pass on the phone, pack the case and close it, and leave it with the concierge or by the door of the room. If there is a bag to drop, find out when the airline closes bag drop, because that comes a long time before the gate does.

Change into the clothes you will fly in before dinner rather than after it. The quarter of an hour most guests lose at the end of a good evening is the quarter of an hour spent hunting for a charger and folding a shirt. Done at six, it takes ten minutes and nobody notices. Done at half past eight, it becomes the end of the conversation.

Fork down: the hour for each terminal

These are the desk's own margins for a long haul departure, for a guest whose boarding pass is already issued. They are generous on purpose. Take half an hour off each for a short flight within Europe, and add half an hour if there is a bag to drop.

Terminal 5, dining at TW6 2GD: fork down two and a quarter hours before departure. The walk to the terminal is under cover and quick, but the security hall is large, and gates in the B and C satellites need the transit train on top. For a ten o'clock departure, the last mouthful is at a quarter to eight.

Terminals 2 and 3, dining on the Bath Road: fork down two and a half hours before, because the road into the central area dips under the northern runway and can crawl in the evening, and the piers inside are long. From the hotel beside the central terminals, two and a quarter will do.

Terminal 4, dining at TW6 3AF on the walkway: two and a quarter hours. Dining on the Bath Road and flying from Terminal 4: three hours, because the road round to the southern side is the longest transfer on the airport, and at the wrong moment of the evening it behaves like it.

An evening shaped around the flight

The dinner between flights is the £900 line on the ladder, which pays for the meal and the unhurried hours around it. For a departure at a quarter to eleven from Terminal 5, a typical shape is a drink in the bar at half past five, the table at half past six, the fork down at half past eight and ten minutes in the lobby before the walk. Nobody looks at a watch before eight, because the finish has been agreed and she keeps it.

Order for the flight rather than the occasion. Something lighter than you would choose in town, one glass rather than a bottle, and a jug of water on the table. Reserve the table at the front desk on arrival rather than waiting for appetite to remind you, because the hotel kitchens on the northern row close earlier than their guests expect, and one delayed flight can fill a restaurant in twenty minutes.

The goodbye happens downstairs. Nobody in an airport lobby looks twice at a guest wheeling a case towards the door, and a farewell there is more graceful than a hurried one at a terminal kerb. How to end an evening against a fixed time without it feeling like a dismissal is covered in ending on the minute.

When the flight moves

A delay announced before dinner is good news for the table. Tell the desk as soon as the airline tells you, and the evening can stretch with it if her night allows. A delay announced during dinner changes nothing. Keep the fork down time you set, go through security and let the airline keep you waiting in a lounge rather than a hotel bar. A delay can shrink as quickly as it grew, and the gate will not reopen because the screen said something different an hour earlier.

A cancellation is different, and it usually means another night at the airport. Tell the desk that too. An evening that was meant to end at half past eight can often become one that ends in the morning instead.

Company at a timed table

Three of the ten on the slender list suit a dinner that ends on a fixed minute. Stacy knows the western side of the airport and aims for the hour when the roads clear, which makes her reliable at the Terminal 5 end. Vanessa works the Bath Road strip and puts her best effort into the opening hour, which is exactly what a short dinner needs. Samanta has the southern side and the Terminal 4 hotels, and no interest in rushing anything, a goodbye included.

Give the desk the flight, its terminal and the dining room you have in mind, and it will set the start from the fork down time rather than the other way round. The figures are on rates.