Has anybody visited the Cafe de Chinitas on C/Torija, I have read that it is the best place to see and hear the dancing and music.If so, how do you book? and how much does it cost? :p

Hi SuePycroft! Where in Spain is this place located? I didn't see a city location in your posting. It sounds familiar though.

Saludos, MadridMan

In '99, we took my parents and sister to a show there on a weeknight and found it to be a bit lifeless, but the establishment is elegant...It is supossedly where the royal family takes in a flamenco show...
I mean, the dancing was good, but you could tell they were not really "into it", they were basically going through the motions.
Definitely a tourist spot, and not a place to go if you want the spontaneous combustion that authentico flameco offers (guess you need to go to Sevilla for that).

laduque, where in Spain is this place?? No one's mentioned it yet! :p

I'm talking about the one in Madrid,near Palacio Real...

OOOooooooooooooh. I seee.. Well, why didn't somebody say so?? What are we - mind readers??

I revived this as I see someone posted a link on a Spanish language thread but I could only get so much info in English. Has anyone been here recently? (It's near Plaza de Oriente in Madrid). Even if it's a touristy site, is it a nice night out for dinner and a show or does Casa Patas still have the most authentic show and atmosphere?
MM..I see you were planning to go there in '01. How was it?

It was GREAT!! I swear I wrote about it somewhere on the message board.... Let me do a search... Search Done. My goodness. I didn't talk about it at all! So heeeeeere goes...

My ladyfriend and I went to Café de Chinitas over the Christmas/New Years holiday. I had ALWAYS wanted to go to a flamenco show in Spain, no matter HOW touristy, and I finally pushed to do just that. My ladyfriend, 100% madrileña, really had no interest. We went on a Saturday night, but the night before, Friday, I called around to make reservations. Originally, wanted to go to the famed Casa Patas , but they were booked for the late show only having space available for the... ?? .. 7:30pm Saturday show. This was WAY too early so I kept trying. Next, I called Café de Chinitas and I made reservations for the 10:30pm Saturday show.

You can see from their website that there are two sides to the room. There's a long seating side and a short seating side. I was SO happy to have been escorted through the restroom hall, by the dressing rooms, and past the kitchen to get to our "short side". We had a table in the back, about 3 tables from the stage. And while the dancers didn't face our "short side" very often, we were very close to the action and felt the full impact of each stomping heal onto the wooden stage.

It lasted until about 3:00am. It wasn't cheap, but it was cheaper because we didn't reserve for dinner, only for the show. (we ate earlier -- how UN-Spanish!) However, for the price of our ticket, (I don't recall the price now, but it's on their website) we got a pitcher of Sangria (which made me a little buzzed) as well as a small saucer of green olives (YUM!! Tara, are you reading this??!) as well as another saucer of crackers. This was all just perfect.

The show was absolutely GREAT! We were there for about 4.5 hours and they performed about 7 different "shows", taking short 10-15 breaks between each "show" and having different combinations of dancers.

If possible, I recommend trying to get this "short side seating". You're much closer to the action and it's more intimate with fewer tables. When we were there there was an unusually (so it seemed) high percentage of Latin Americans, mainly Chilean or Argentinian. We even saw one of the on-TV personalities from the US-based, all Spanish langugage station TeleMundo cable station. People were whispering around and then shaking his hand during the breaks. Even *I* recognized him early on, but I wasn't sure.