While the singing lasts, the room falls quiet. It is not a formality: it is what makes a fado house different from a restaurant with background music, and it is what the table next to you came to hear.
Between fados you talk freely, you toast and you are served. Dinner happens at the same time as the night, and there is always room between the parts of the show.
If your group is coming to talk all evening, this is not the right house, and it is better to know now than at the table. If you are coming to listen and to eat well, then it is exactly the right one.
Photographs and video without flash are welcome, at any point.
What the night is like