Toro y La Luna tickets

What the ticket is

The ticket opens a flamenco show at El Toro y La Luna, a tablao on Plaça del Mestre Ripoll in Valencia, with a dinner option on the same page. The show lasts an hour and a half, features seven artists and runs from Wednesday to Sunday. You choose between show only and show with dinner when you pick a date. Guests' reviews praise the passion of the performers and the close, intimate room. What follows explains the choice using the venue's own site, the city tourist board's entry and guests' descriptions, so you can settle the option before you settle the night.

The venue in a paragraph

The venue's history page describes a family troupe: Pepe Esteve and Maribel Arrué founded the tablao, and their children perform alongside them. The site calls it the oldest flamenco tablao in Valencia and says it opened in 1977, while the show is billed as coming from the first tablao to open in the city. Wikipedia says only that tablao venues developed across Spain during the 1960s. The same page says the venue also works as a Spanish tavern for dinners and celebrations, which fits a room built around tables as well as a stage. Treat 'first' and 'oldest' as the house's own claims.

Read next: The family behind the tablao

Show only: what you get

Show only gets you into the performance and nothing more. The venue's own site says show-only places are limited, with no table guaranteed, and that a guest who wants a drink can watch standing at the bar, depending on capacity. Guests' reviews describe bar-stool seating with a limited view. That makes it the lighter way to see the show, and the right pick if you do not mind where you sit or stand. Because places are limited, choose a date early; the booking calendar shows which options are still open on each night.

With dinner: what changes

The dinner option puts you at a table for a meal before the show. On dinner tickets the meal comes first and the performance follows. The venue's site lists one drink per person with its dinner menu and says vegetarian, vegan and children's menus are available if you mention them when booking. Guests describe the dinner as plentiful, with large portions, so arrive hungry rather than already fed. The booking page shows the dinner option's description for each date, which is where to look if you have a dietary need beyond the menus the venue names.

Seating, the bar and sightlines

Dinner guests sit at tables, and the venue says tables are mostly kept for them. Show-only guests have limited places and may stand at the bar if space allows. The stage sits a few steps from the tables, which puts a table close to the dancers. If a clear view matters more to you than the lighter fare, the dinner option is the safer choice, because it is the one that gives you a seat. Some guests with show-only places ask for clearer sightlines, which tells you where the compromise sits.

Drinks and the rest of the bill

Do not assume either option covers everything you will want to drink. The venue's site lists one drink per person with the dinner menu, and the show-only entry covers the performance. Anything beyond what your option lists is bought at the venue. The booking calendar shows what each option includes on the date you choose, and that text outranks any summary, this one included. A guest who wants a drink on a show-only ticket can order one at the bar, which is also where the venue says some show-only guests watch from.

How to choose

The decision comes down to three things: where you want to sit, whether you want to eat there, and how long you want the evening to run. The show is the same for everyone on a given night, so the difference is comfort and appetite, not content. What changes is the table, the meal and the length of the evening, and each of those is easy to weigh against your plans for the next morning. These pairings cover most travellers:

• Show only: a short, lighter evening, if you accept limited seating.
• With dinner: a table, a meal and the show in one place.
• With children: dinner, since a children's menu exists.
• Either option: the same seven-artist house show on the same night.

A word on the programme

The venue says a different group of house artists and friends takes the stage each night, so the programme is not fixed. Valencia's tourist board lists singing, dancing, zambras, tangos, rumbas and sevillanas among the contents, and the venue's site names bulerías as the joyful style that contrasts with the deepest palos. Take these as the range of the show, not a running order. UNESCO notes that flamenco also belongs to festivals, rituals and private celebrations; the tablao is a kind of venue that Wikipedia says developed across Spain during the 1960s.

Read next: Flamenco palos to listen for

Your night, step by step

The shape of the evening differs by ticket, but the end of it does not. Whichever option you book, the show lasts an hour and a half, and the confirmation spells out your start time and meeting place. Here is how the two options run from the moment you arrive, with the details that stay the same on both, so you can picture the evening before you commit to either:

• Show only: arrive for the performance, find a place (limited, no table guaranteed) and watch.
• With dinner: take your table, eat, then watch the show from it.
• Both: at the end, guests can go up on stage and dance with the artists.
• Both: check the last metro or bus home before a late night.

Booking, cancelling and paying

Pick a date on the ticket page, choose show only or show with dinner, and check the start time on the booking calendar. Cancelling costs nothing until the day before, and the fare can be settled afterwards. Hosts work in English, French, Italian and Spanish. The ticket page flags the show as one that tends to sell out, so reserve early for the nights that matter to you. Keep the confirmation handy: it states your option's start time and meeting point, and either can differ between the two ways of booking.

Who this isn't for

It is not a theatre recital. One guest wrote that it was engaging for a newcomer rather than high art, and less spontaneous than flamenco in a theatre, a tablao or a cave. The programme leans lively, with a chance to join the artists on stage at the end. It is also not in the old centre: the address is on the sea side of the city. Look elsewhere for a quiet dinner, a purist's concert or a guaranteed table on a show-only ticket.