The venues are kept secret to bamboozle the police, and the guests are told where to go by text message. But the latest underground movement sweeping Italy has nothing to do with drugs or dance music: it is fuelled by home-made sausages, mouth-watering risottos and freshly baked bread.
Fed up with the high cost of eating out, and the recent ban on smoking in restaurants, Italians have taken to organising illegal private meals, charging €15 (about R120) a head for parties of up to 40 people.
The authorities have taken a dim view of the practise — known as fai date, or do-it-yourself — because the hosts avoid paying taxes and sidestep health and safety rules that restaurant owners have to abide by. It is also illegal to charge people for food cooked in your own home. But, that has not stopped the trend that started in Milan with groups of people organising do-it-yourself restaurants.
According to the Corriere della Sera newspaper, they have become popular because of the dire state of the economy. Many Italians cannot, or will not, pay to eat out any more because prices in restaurants have soared.
All that is needed is a venue, such as a country house with a large wood-burning oven and a barbecue. Once the number of customers is known, the group of amateur cooks devises a menu and brings dishes, cutlery, pots and pans.
Organisers of a private trattoria can make significant amounts of money. Forty people paying €15 a head means a take of €600 an evening. Ten such evenings a month adds up to €6 000 (R48 000).
The police have said that anyone setting up a private trattoria will get a warning and will face prosecution if they continue. —