Miscellaneous Forum

Quite recently, a Japanese couple ate lunch at an upscale restaurant in the area of Piazza Navona...and were charged nearly 900 euro(!).

You can see the initial story in English at http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=7985050

In today's Il Messaggero (an Italian newspaper), there is a second story that the cooks and the waiters are ready to return the 115.50 euro tip, but that the owner of the restaurant is adamant about not returning any money. His attitude is that they ordered enough for 5 people, so they should have expected to pay a bill enough for 5 people.

Hmpf! The newspaper today quoted an account given by the management, "the couple was asked if they wanted to leave a tip to add the amount together with the bill on their credit card. The tourists asked how much was generally left, and the waiter replied between 15% and 20% of the bill. At this point, the Japanese nodded. That 115 euro tip, left with the consent of the two customers, was divided among the cooks and the waiters." [Note to those unfamiliar with Italy, this is NOT the normal tipping practice in Italy, but it is in the US, where the restaurant probably got the idea - in Italy, you might leave a few euro, and that's only if you liked the service]

Now, the restaurant has already been shut down for health code violations, and there has been a howling in the Italian press about how bad this makes the Roman tourism industry look. One Italian commenter on the article at Il Messggero had to say "Viva McDonalds".

Now, I have often stated here that the stories of rip-offs in Rome are overstated...but...this is just plain awful...off with their heads!

Bill

Sorry, that should be "nearly 700 euro", about $1,000USD...

Bill

oh dear oh dear!

280 for a bowl of pasta

Do Roman restaurants not put the prices on the menu?

Yes, they certainly put prices on their menus, but in this case, the couple just started talking to the waiter, and they never saw a menu (and never asked for one, either). While that may seem strange, note that even if they had, the Italian press is reporting that when the authorities compared the check to the prices on the menu, they weren't even close...so there may be additional legal action against the restaurant as well.

Another Italian commenter on the Il Messaggero website rather sarcastically noted that he foolishly went with his wife to a local restaurant and just talked to the waiter without looking at the menu and ordered this and that (but not lobster), and the bill was...21 euro. His point was that a lot of Italians don't bother ordering off the menu because they have a good sense of the level of the restaurant...but being surprised like this would have caused an Italian customer to go ballistic (obviously, the staff would never have tried this with an Italian customer)....this was a plain case of "the Japanese are rich, they hate public confrontations, and they wouldn't know any better anyway"...i.e., a scam on a certain class of tourist...

I can't imagine how the Japanese press is treating this (which is probably what has the tourism authorities in Italy running scared)...

Bill

"280 for a bowl of pasta "

I don't know, Jen, maybe it was TWO bowls of pasta??? ;-)

Bill

I can't imagine how the Japanese press is treating this (which is probably what has the tourism authorities in Italy running scared)...
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But maybe not too scared. As long as Rome has attractions temporal and spiritual, the visitors will turn up, regardless of the scams.

I'm pretty astonished that these people actually paid the sum demanded of them, but as suggested, the cultural gulf between Japan and Europe may have played a significant part. On occasion I have seen Japanese tourists (usually not part of a group) looking like deer caught in the headlamps when faced with potentially difficult situations. Just as I am sure most westerners would have no idea how do deal with a scam in Japan. It must be incredibly hard to fight your corner in a fundamentally different culture when the basics of human interaction in that place are alien to you.

I am reminded of a case where my band were playing a gig in central (i.e. touristy) London some years ago.

An American lady approached us and asked us to play happy birthday for her husband. No problem, we are getting paid by the bar anyway. 20 seconds work. The lady, obviously having no conception of the value of British money, tried to give us £50, which I suppose was about at least $80 US in those days. Our leader refused and suggested she might like to buy us a drink each instead, which is a common social practice in the UK.

We all got a pint and were happy with it, we got paid at the end of the night. Had we been different people we could have taken her for a lot of money for a very quick song.

I know that the Japanese have some very defined views about not making a fuss, losing face or whatever you call it, but this really is appalling, the waiter is taking the Mick.

fergy.

UNBELIEVABLE! I agree, off with their heads. Even half of that cost would have been ridiculous.

I wonder why it took them 2 days to make a fuss about it. My experience with the Japanese that have dined in American restaurants that I have worked in-they've never had an issue about demanding service and food here. I've actually found them to be a bit arrogant and dismissive. If you order food, and don't ask the prices, OH, well..it's back on you. Viva Micky D's? Oh, Please!! Perish the thought. ~

wow-thats up there with the cabbies that charge $300 to unsuspecting tourists to go from JFK airport to Manhattan.

That couple should have just gone to that big restaurant chain "Chiuso Lunedi" -I saw their signs everywhere......

I brought my father to one of those posh restaurants at Piazza Navona as a treat. It was one of my expensive resto bill in Rome but he and I had a fine meal. The bill was more than a hundred Euro, far from the couple's bill.

Granting that the Japanese couple chose the most expensive bottle of wine (US$ 140), who would ever charge pasta for Euro 200? Clearly, no matter if they ordered oysters, that bill for two people is just way over the top. 115 Euros as tip is ridiculous. They shouldn't have been asked to leave a tip in the first place. Customers may or may not give tip. That should be up to us. If the service is great and we have a very good time, then we may give 10%. I hope whoever deserves to learn a lesson from this story, learns his/her lesson.

Viva McDonalds? Now, now, let's not go to the extreme.

I am glad that restaurant has been named and shamed in the Italian media. I hope it will teach a lesson to others.

Gillian McLaughlin and I had lunch in Piaaza Navona - and the waiter cheekily reminded us that service wasn't included in the bill.

And I also went with my mother and sister to another restaurant here and the waiter did that trick of pretending a 50 euro note for a 30 euro bill meant he got a 20 euro tip.

I got so sick of that trick.

It could depend on the people themselves, whether they are honest or not. I remember a waiter in a small, nice resturaunt in Rutigliano who thanked me repeatedly for leaving him a tip after our meal. It was a normal 10% tip. But I also observed that many of the locals didn't seem to leave any tip. Rutigliano is not exactly a tourist town, so we were 2 of the few tourist there.

We had only one bad experience and that was in Bologna. The waiter, who spoke very good English, priced us a 15 euro bottle of wine. He went off duty before we were done and the owner tried to charge us 25 euro for that same bottle of wine. We were dining outside, but after he brought us the bill we ended up in a shouting match inside of the returaunt. Me in English, my wife in Spanish, and the owner in Italian. The owner pulled out his cell phone and threatened to call the police, to which we replied, "Go ahead, you crook!" He finally ended up dropping the price down to 15 euros. The pisser was that the meal was fantastic, with the weather being beautiful for an outside dining experience.

yeah these things happen Jim

manara pointed out to me the reason the waiter would not give us a bill but just told us the price of our coffee and sandwiches in camogli was that they were probably cheating the fiscal police and not putting it through the till

we paid because we knew from the menu the price was right - but he just refused to give us the bill

oh now jim i am laughing at what kind of fight you would get into if they told you your bill was 700 euro

http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/4dd39/33/9/

i don't usually give people links but here i wrote up a story of how the waiter in the eurostar dining car just tried to hustle us into the most expensive option and acted like we were being so difficult when we insisted on looking at a menu

"Viva McDonalds? Now, now, let's not go to the extreme. "

Heh, heh, Penelope, I don't write 'em, I just report 'em...it was very instructive reading what Italians were writing on the comment page for Il Messaggero...they weren't any happier with this than visitors would be...

As for me personally, I am aghast that there has been a McDonald's at Piazza di Spagna for 40 years (well, it was there when I lived there the first time in 1972)(!)... :-(

Bill

yeah it is still there - last time i looked

That is shameful treatment toward visitors. It reminds me of the time when my just-married hubby and I were living in Manhattan, and my parents came to visit for a long weekend -- their first time-ever visit to NYC. They wanted to take us out for a special dinner, so I booked the famed Cafe Chauveron on the Upper East Side. We had a terrific meal, but when the bill came to my father -- there were two rounds of drinks for about $200 that none of us had ordered. My father had been very friendly to the French waiter, and said he was delighted to be in NYC for his first visit (maybe that's a clue to waiter to overcharge?). My father refused to pay the extra $200, and we were literally chased out of the place by the owner and several waiters. I was embarrassed to death, but later reflected that my dad did the right thing. Cafe Chauveron no longer exists, BTW.

Anna Maria, as I was reading today's Il Messaggero article, I saw this: «Tra l'altro - prosegue l'assessore - la legge prevede anche la soppressione dal menu del 'copertò, un balzello anacronistico, che in altre capitali europee non esiste. Molti ristoranti di Roma e del Lazio, attuando la nostra legge, l'hanno soppresso, ma talvolta, purtroppo, ancora si trovano locali che violano la normativa, e i consumatori devono sapere che tali violazioni sono sanzionate a livello pecuniario».

"Among other things, the councillor continued, the law also provides for the suppression of the 'cover charge' from the menu, an anachronistic frill(?), which doesn't exist in other European capitals. Many restaurants in Rome and Lazio, carrying out the law, have removed it, but sometimes, one still finds places that violate the rules, and the consumers should know that such violations are punishable by a fine."

Anna Maria, is this true, that in Lazio (at least), there is no more (legal) cover charge in restaurants?

Bill

I don't know if the 'coperto' has been suppressed in Rome, because I have not been there for rather a long time. It would make sense, because it is a peculiarly Italian thing that tourists do not understand.
In the part of Italy where I live it still exists.