A review of Teatro del Sale.....well, it is unique and quite a lot of fun. It requires a yearly membership as it is a club - so 5 Euros per person to get a card which is good for one calendar year. Then, you are entitled to eat breakfast, lunch or dinner. Each is buffet style, breakfast is 7 Euros, lunch 15 or so and dinner is 30. They are open Tuesday through Saturday.
Dinner is a long event lasting from 1900 until they move the chairs and table around for the show at around 2130. Ours was a combination of live music, Tango and poetry. it can be opera, it can be comedy or just music. But it is ALL in Italian.
If you attend dinner, which I highly recommend, you need to go in and immediately grab seating. Ignore the signs which appear to be reservations - they are not. Grab seats. GRAB seats. :-)
As a buffet, it is a free-for-all...not for the timid as you must go get food as it is released very 10-15 minutes at a table. The main guy SHOUTS out the meals and makes a ton of Italian jokes which no one seems to pay any attention to....I watched the local men and got up when they did, etc.
We ate breakfast and lunch in addition to dinner (why not?), and the food is exceptionally good.
So in summary - for dinner it requires reservations (in Italian only) as they seat 99 only. You must get there early - I would say 1830 is far less of a mess than arriving at 1900 like we did as I had to get the memberships taken care of. The food is exceptional. It's an interesting place, wine and books all centric to the place but that's really no surprise - and it was friendly and utterly unique.
I would say it's on the border of being a "must see and do" but it is not for everyone due to the casual approach and, like I said - it's a free for all to get food! Breakfast and lunch are normal, as they are not time-driven like the dinner show. At least 85% of the people attending were local or at the least native Italians.
We've never seen or experienced anything like it and we have traveled quite a few places. Good stuff.