Tickets: show, tapas or dinner

What the ticket is

Flamenco de Leones is a flamenco venue and restaurant on the Plaza de la Independencia, right beside the Puerta de Alcalá. The ticket on the booking page is for its flamenco show, in which top-level artists blend traditional and avant-garde flamenco. You choose a form when you book, and the form decides how long you stay. The booking page puts the whole range at one hour up to two and a half. That range is wide enough that two people can book the same night and have very different evenings, so it is worth reading the option before you click.

• The flamenco show, whichever option you pick
• Tapas, only if you choose the tapas option
• Dinner, only if you choose the dinner option
• Drinks are not included on this ticket

Show only, tapas or dinner

The three options share one show and differ in what happens around it. Show only is the shortest way in and suits a late afternoon or a night with other plans. The tapas option adds food before the music. The dinner option turns the show into the centre of a full evening and is the one to take if you want to eat well rather than quickly. The venue's own text says its food starts with a selection of tapas and moves on to traditional Spanish cooking, so a dinner booking is a proper sit-down meal. The show is the same in every case, and the music does not change with the plate in front of you.

• Show only: the shortest evening, no food
• Show with tapas: food first, then the music
• Show with dinner: the longest evening, a seated meal

Read next: Getting there and what to expect

Which option to book

Start from your evening, not from the room. If you have already eaten or you are heading to a late table elsewhere, book show only. If you are coming straight from a day of museums and want something to eat with the music, the tapas option is the middle path. If this is the one big night of your Madrid trip, take dinner and give the venue the whole evening. All three share the same stage, so none is a lesser version of the show; the difference is the table. A couple celebrating something will usually want the dinner option, while a solo traveller on a tight schedule will be happier with show only.

Drinks sit outside the ticket

Drinks are not included on the GetYourGuide ticket, so a glass of wine or a beer is an extra at the bar or table. Madrid's tourism pages describe the venue's own show price as including a drink, so the sources differ. Check what the specific option on the booking page lists before you pay, and budget for drinks as a separate item if it says none are included. The calendar on the booking page shows what each option covers on your date. The venue's own website states the same thing about its dinner menus, noting that drinks are not included apart from a glass of champagne, so the practical advice is the same whichever page you read: expect to pay at the bar.

The dress code is formal

The booking page lists a formal dress code. For a day of sightseeing in Madrid that means changing before you come: a shirt or dress, proper shoes, nothing you would wear to the beach. The room has an interior by the Jouin Manku studio, paintings by Iván Floro and murals by Sergio Mora, according to Madrid's tourism board, and the dress code matches that setting. Smart clothes are a safer bet than smart-casual. Pack for it if you are travelling light: a day that starts with Retiro Park and ends at a formal table is easier with a change of shoes in your bag than with a trip back to the hotel.

Arrival and seating

The arrival time on your confirmation is earlier than the moment the music begins. Use the gap. If you have chosen tapas or dinner, the food comes first, so arriving on time is what lets you finish eating before the show. If you booked show only, arrive in good time to be seated rather than at the last minute. The calendar lists a start time against every date, and nothing on this page replaces it.

• Find the arrival time on your confirmation
• Reach the plaza a little early and look at the gate
• Be seated before the food or the music begins

The room and the square

The tablao is on the first floor of a building on the Plaza de la Independencia, above the venue's taberna-style restaurant, Patio de Leones. The street entrance is through a carriage passage on the ground floor, which is how Madrid's tourism board gives the address. From your seat you can see the Puerta de Alcalá, which is the reason many people book. The gate is the centre of the roundabout outside.

Read next: The Puerta de Alcalá, explained

Traditional or modern?

It is both. The venue describes its show as a homage to the history of flamenco, staged in a way that is traditional and contemporary at once, and Madrid's tourism board says the performances span all styles of flamenco with a modern approach. The room itself reinterprets the 19th-century café cantante, the café-with-a-stage that flamenco grew up in. Expect singing, guitar and dance, not a museum piece and not a fusion act. A visitor who has seen flamenco in a small Andalusian room will find the setting grander here, and a visitor who has never seen flamenco will find the format easy to follow, because the evening is built to be understood by people who have just arrived.

Read next: What is a café cantante?

Booking here or on the venue's website

The venue sells its show and menus on its own website too, and its pages list the dinner menus in detail. Booking through GetYourGuide gives you the options on the page above, a refund until 24 hours before the show and the choice to pay later. Booking on the venue's site gives you its own terms. The two can differ in what is included, as the drinks question shows, so read the description of the exact option wherever you book, and book where the terms suit you.

Who this isn't for

A casual night in shorts and sandals will not work, because the dress code is formal. It is not the one for a purely traditional programme with no modern touches, because the show blends both. It is also a poor fit if you must leave at a fixed hour, since the longer options run well beyond an hour. And if you want drinks included in the price, check the option first, because drinks are not part of this ticket. None of this makes the evening a poor one. It means the evening has a shape, and you should check that the shape fits yours before you book.

Changing or cancelling

A GetYourGuide booking can be dropped any time up to a day before the show, with the full amount returned, and held without paying today. That makes it cheap to reserve a night while your plans settle. Dates and start times live on the booking calendar, not on this page, so check the calendar the day you decide, and keep your confirmation: it carries the arrival time you will need at the door.

• Refundable in full until 24 hours before the show
• Held with no payment today
• Note the start time shown for your date