The unsuspecting British couple were looking nervously at their bill. “How is it possible we just paid over €25 for two pieces of cake, a cup of tea and a coffee?” asked Paulene Green, 73, a retired office manager from Kent, unaware of the scandal that erupted this week in the very restaurant they had wandered into to escape the freezing fog outside.
“No one’s naive, you know you are going to be ripped off in Venice,” said her partner, Michael Cousens, 69, a retired barrister.
Customers were otherwise thin on the ground at the notorious Osteria Da Luca, which faces a steep fine and possible closure for charging four Japanese students €1,100 for steak and fried fish last month. Behind the counter, the Egyptian manager refused to discuss the bill, which prompted a police complaint and a visit from health inspectors who fined the restaurant about €14,000 for hygiene violations.
Italian tax inspectors also want to know why the tourists were not given a receipt and are trawling through Trip Advisor posts from other diners who were charged €83 for plates of risotto.
“Hospitality is sacred in Venice and we will punish the dishonest,” said Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor, after hotel owners offered the students free five-star accommodation to lure them back.
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The question, however, is why anyone was shocked in a destination where some of the 25 million annual tourists are conned into €200 for 20-minute rides in unlicensed water taxis or lured to the island of Murano to buy overpriced glass trinkets.
“The €1,100 steak lunch reflects a city out of control,” said Sebastiano Giorgi, an activist with a Venice residents’ association, Gruppo 25 Aprile, which revealed the story. “There is an idea here that you don’t need to treat tourists well because others will take their place.”
His fellow activist, Carlo Betrame, added: “We’ve been merchants for centuries, diddling customers — it’s an old mentality.” Today is the start of Venice carnival and the group has posted a warning about the scams online.
Guides escorting the students said they had left them at the Rialto bridge to find lunch, having steered them away from the tourist traps around St Mark’s Square. Some wandered back there anyway. “I am so ashamed,” said one of the guides, who declined to be named. “When the Japanese students told me what they had paid I rang the restaurant to complain, but was told, ‘Call the police! What’s it got to do with you?’ ”
The restaurant, on the route back to the square, has a sticker in the window which recommends it as a member of the Venice association of restaurateurs. Ernesto Pancin, the association director, said: “Venice restaurants are top quality. We still don’t know the full details of what the Japanese ate.”
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This did not satisfy Arrigo Cipriani, owner of Harry’s Bar on the Grand Canal, who said he was tearing up his membership of the association.
Osteria Da Luca was not the only restaurant that allegedly ripped off the students. Three members of the party said they paid €314 for grilled fish at Trattoria Casanova, the restaurant a British tourist condemned as “horrible” last year after being charged €526 for lunch for three. Back then, Mr Brugnaro was less sympathetic, decrying Luke Tang as a “skinflint”.
This week Juljan Musabelli, the Casanova’s Albanian owner, was keen to talk about what he claimed Mr Tang and the students had ordered. He got his waiters to produce a large plate of grilled lobster, scampi and sea bass, costing around €300. The problem is that the price on the menu says €9, though this is per 100g of fish served, the “100g” appearing in small letters.
Paolo Balaj, who served the group, said he offered them the chance to weigh their fish but they declined.
Scathing Trip Advisor reviewers tell a different story, claiming that the 100g small print is not explained. Those shocked at the size of their bill say they were bullied into paying by surly staff.
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Avoid tourist traps
● Steer clear of restaurants that put pictures of food in the window or waiters in the street. Look for Slow Food and Gambero Rosso stickers. Avoid the tourist traps
● A cheap drink can be had in Venice. In Campo Bella Vienna, a square tucked away by the Rialto bridge, locals gather at a hatch in the wall called Al Merca to buy glasses of wine for €2
● Instead of a gondola ride on the Grand Canal, hop on the ‘traghetti' that serve as ferries. A snip at €2