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 organizing illegal private meals, charging 15 euros (US$18) a head for parties of up to 40 people.
`fai da te'
The authorities have taken a dim view of the practice -- known as "fai da te," 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. However, that has not stopped the movement.
The trend started in Milan with groups of young people organizing do-it-yourself restaurants in private clubs or halls and apartments. In the past few months, the phenomenon has spread and "private trattorias" are springing up in central Italy.
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 since the introduction of the euro.
Groups of young Italians have been the driving force, the newspaper says, and 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.
"Depending on the type of clientele, the evening's entertainment might just be people sitting around talking after dinner or they might dance and have music," says Luca Goldoni, who has attended such evenings. No one protests, he says, because in summer they usually take place in isolated spots in the country.
The menu for one of the meals included home-cooked antipasti of salumi (cooked meats) with freshly baked bread, asparagus risotto, chicken with olives or wild boar stew, followed by freshly picked peaches with ice cream.
Entertainment is provided by someone who plays a guitar or accordion, and people can smoke freely and remain at table until the small hours.
private trattorias
Organizers of a private trattoria can make significant amounts of money. Forty people paying 15 euros a head means a take of 600 euros an evening. Ten such evenings a month adds up to 6,000 euros.
The Italian authorities point out that, as well as the tax evasion issue, it is against the law to charge people for food cooked in a private home.
Real restaurants also have to undergo hygiene inspections, are subject to health and safety regulations and have to pay for insurance cover and properly trained staff.
The police have said that anyone setting up a private trattoria will get a warning but will face prosecution if they continue.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS