Japanese couple stung by Rome restaurant - €700 lunch bill!
 

"A Japanese couple have turned down a free trip to Italy as guests of the Italian Government .... offered to them to make up for an enormous restaurant bill served up to them while in Rome.

"Yasuyuki Yamada and his fiancee had dined at Il Passetto last month when they were hit with a bill for €700...)"

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-...0803-e6ha.html

Struth, Neil. Maybe that is the Italians taking revenge for the hideous prices that one notes in Japanese restaurents.

Hello Neil, the Il Passetto certainly has received a lot of publicity but not the type they relish I would imagine.

I don't know if you remember but my Rome born and bred son-in-law had a similar experience in Rome a few years ago and he is a native Italian of course and needless to say speaks fluent Italian. I don't know what he and my daughter were charged but I know they were overly stressed the entire night and didn't sleep very well.

Obviously, the mentioned couple were not the only one who had been ripped off by Il Passetto:

http://www.blogfromitaly.com/the-rip...passetto-rome/

There are two simple rules to avoid such frauds:

1. Never eat in a restaurant that is located at spot (e.g. square) which is highly frequented by tourists.

2. Prefer restaurants which are recommended by the Guide Michelin or another reliable guide (e.g. Gault Millau).

BTW, is it open again? The website says "Open every day of the year".

I have just looked at their website, the Japanese may not have realised that this is a very expensive place. You have to pay for the site and the decoration it is like the Piazza San Marco in Venice. The owners will also have to pay the city of Rome for their site. If you want to eat in a restaurant that hosted Charlie Chaplin and Queen Elizabeth II you would expect to pay.

It specialises in truffles, Porcini mushrooms. They will not have a cheap bottle of wine on the premises, except perhaps for the staff. The Japanese ate according to the Australian report
"They ordered 12 oysters, two kilos of lobsters, wine, 1.5 kg of seabass and even took photos with the waiters before leaving," owner Franco Fioravanti told Rome's Il Messaggero daily.

Fish, lobsters and steak appear on this type of menu by weight, it is not a priced dish you pay for what you eat.

Service charges are usually a percentage of the total. The cover charge is usually a flat fee and can be seen before entering the restaurant but for this location is will be high.

As a normal tourist I check the prices outside before I enter and if I can't see them I look elsewhere. I am sure they were very nice people but if they entered with shopping bags from all the right stores (Hermes etc. ) the restaurant staff would probably expect that they knew what they were letting themselves in for.

I don't know if Japanese guide books explain the pricing system in Italy but perhaps they should.

If you check out the website, http://www.ristorante-passetto.com/, it says

"With over 100 years of history in the heart of Rome, this is place for those who love to indulge in the culinary arts without limits. Its rich, traditional italian cuisine along with innovative international dishes, Passetto offers fresh fish and seafood daily, top quality porcini mushrooms, ovoli mushrooms, white truffles from Alba, wild berries etc".

I agree that 700E was very, very high, but it would appear that it is not all that unusual for what they had and where they had it.

((I))

While I understand that the couple ordered expensive items, EUR 700 is pretty ridiculous. This seems like some serious tourist inflation rather than a misunderstanding to me, and I can see why the authorities are so keen to nip this in the bud.

I'm also skeptical of the claim that it was the couple's decision to leave a tip, as noted by the owner. If these were Americans, maybe, but Japanese tourists? That seems kind of dubious, since tipping is simply not done in Japan. Not, uncommon like in Europe, just not done.

> since tipping is simply not done in Japan ..

In japan that's true but the Japanese that travel to Europe, North America, etc learn usually the custom of tipping by reading guide books and other means.

Anyway I read a couple of articles in Japanese last week. They seemed much more detailed than the article above posted by OP. That's not to say what I read was true BUT according to them, it was the restaurant who added €120 to the check of €580 so total € 700 with tips (tehy paid with C.C.). The Japanese couple argued with the restaurant to no avail then went to the police. I am a bit surprised that the police took it seriously but doesn't that mean the restaurant had been known for its dubious activities already? Also not mentioned on above artilces but those I read said the restaurant had been closed mostly because of the hygenic problems they discovered during the rip-off investigation. The mayor of Roma is angry with the restaurnat, the artiles added.

We returned from a trip to Italy, Greece and Turkey. We paid $550 USD for a tour, $250 for lunch most days and an astronomical price for taxi rides.
Good luck. Most taxi drivers won't give you a ride unless you agree to book a 3 or 4 hr tour w/them.

What?!?!

If you want to spend $250 for lunch every day, that is your business -- and waistline, but where did you meet these taxi drivers? Did you carry a sign saying, "Rich Sucker"?

:-(

$250 for lunch? 700E for lunch?

Do you not read menus and check prices before you enter the restaurant? How daft are people?

If I can't see a menu, which includes prices, then I don't eat there. I'm not going to be the sucker who was born at the minute of my birth -- leave that to someone else.

And Peter S Aus -- we ate well and not expensively in Japan. It's not that hard.

> Do you not read menus and check prices before you enter the restaurant?

I don't think it's that simple with this restaurant's case. After all, why did the police take the complaint seriously?

> And Peter S Aus -- we ate well and not expensively in Japan. It's not that hard.

There I completely agree. Maybe Peter S Aus has not been to Japan or cose to take only expensive meals there.

Mar35ge - I went and checked your profile - this was not your first trip to Europe. Maybe it would be good to do a trip report for us. I don't mean to be contentious (as some posters can be at times) but I really do not understand how it could be so pricey for you. At first I thought you were on a cruise where often taxi drivers in port do not want to do short rides, but almost insist on tours) - and what restaurants were you eating at? We were in Greece and Trukey in May - we did not spend that kind of money - I could never afford Europe if that was what normal prices are. Please, you are scaring the first timers!

700 seems excessive for lunch, regardless of the type of restaurant or clientele it serves. I have seen inflated prices on my receipts, although only a few euro, in Rome.

Mar35ge, I think your post is very misleading as well. I'm sure one could certainly choose to eat at places that charge 250 euro for lunch, but that is absolutely not the norm. And I've never been turned down by a taxi driver for not wanting to take a tour. I have been to Italy and we were in Turkey in February and the prices for food in Turkey was, imo, very reasonable.

Tracy

Why should anyone be scared of Mar35ge's post? It's patently ridiculous to pay $250 for lunch on a daily basis in Europe unless your whole trip is an Abercrombie & Kent style luxury tour. If you have that kind of disposable income and wish to dispose of it, enjoy. If not, it's easy to discover that Europe is by no means that expensive -- how could the Lonely Planet crowd survive if that were the case?

Considering that Turkey is very inexpensive and Greece is not bad in the least, the notion of paying such prices in those countries as an average or normal meal is ludicrous on its face.

Besides, are you really seeing the country and enjoying the culture if you're having a sit-down three-hour seven-course lunch -- which should be the only way you're doling out $250 for lunch? (If you're paying $250 to get a gyro and a coke at a sidewalk gyro stand in Greece, you're just a dope).

Maybe Mar35ge was traveling with 10 people, thus, each person spent $25 on lunch, which is reasonable for Italy, IMHO. Cannot comment on the other two countries since I have not been there yet.

I am startled by some posters' attempts to justify the restaurant's bill.

The Italian Police, the City of Rome and the Italian Government have all declared that it has been outright fraud. The restaurant was closed by the authorities and the Italian government has offered the Japanese couple a generous compensation (which they stylishly declined).

The normal price for a menu in this restaurant is 50-60 Euros - and this is already overpriced. Il Passetto has no reputation of being a gourmet restaurant.

It was a rip-off. Period. If you read this forum regularly, it will not happen to you.

€207 for a pasta dish ??

Sure makes that $100 manhattan Kobe burger look like an alternative

Cannot imagine that anyone thinks you need to pay $250 for a lunch in any city it Italy, Greece or Turkey. If yuo go to all Michelin starred places and order bottles of fine wine - of course you will. But there are hundreds of places to go and eat a casuale lunch for $25 - unless you're a ravenous teenage boy that has to have 3 or 4 main courses.

Almost all restaurants post prices outside - so you know going in approximately what your lunch will cost. If you can't add - well then you have a bigger problem.

As for this taxi nonsense - perhaps it's true of cabs that hang aorund ports - I've never done that. But have take cabs in europe hundreds of times and only had a problem once (he tried to overcharge us in Prague - by about $10 - and lost).