What does coperto mean in a bill. Mistakes of tourists in restaurants in Italy: we read and do not repeat

Italian cuisine is one of the best in the world. This is a fact that does not require proof. I came to this myself, though not immediately.

My first encounter with Italian cuisine

When I started working with Italians as an Italian translator, I naturally came across Italian cuisine as well. Pasta was especially difficult. My Russian stomach, accustomed to potatoes with meat, did not want to take them.
But then I was hired as a translator for an Italian construction site in Vladivostok, where I began to live with the Italians at the base, and where purely Italian food was cooked from purely Italian products. There, pasta was given every day for lunch, and for dinner you could eat them a second time if they stayed after dinner. When I returned to Moscow a year later, I could no longer live without pasta.

Features of food in Italy

• Italians have a “scheduled” meal, that is, breakfast from 7 to 9, lunch from 12 to 14, and dinner from 19 to 22. Between lunch and dinner, you certainly won’t die of hunger - you can eat a sandwich at a bar, or at McDonald’s, at worst. But lunch or dinner in a normal restaurant - only at fixed times.
• Breakfast is light - cappuccino (in Italian cappuccino) with a bun. By the way, Italians drink cappuccino ONLY in the morning, and they laugh at the Russians who order it for lunch, or even worse (in their opinion) for dinner. In the hotel you will be fed a normal hearty breakfast - so don't worry.
• Lunch Italians "share with a friend." It is customary to eat either a serving of pasta, or pizza, or a salad.
• For dinner, the principle is "eat it yourself". It is customary to eat according to the full program: the first - the second - the third. And for the first they have - ... right, pasta. I traveled a lot to Italy, both as a translator and on vacation, and only once did I come across soup, except for Zuppa di Pesce (translated from Italian as " Fish soup", but our ear resembles very remotely).
• Strong drinks - only 50 grams, and only at the end of the meal. Of course, you can come with your charter and order moonshine (grappa in Italian) right away, no problem - the Italians are very flexible in terms of service, but do not be surprised if they look at you with surprise. When a large company of guests arrives, the owner of the establishment does not waste time on trifles, and does not count how many grams of strong drinks each guest will drink, but simply puts a bottle on the table. BUT! This does not mean that you have to drink it up, or take it with you!
• But water is given by default. Only ask Aqua Frizante(translated from Italian as "effervescent") or Aqua Naturale(translated from Italian as "normal").

Tipping in a restaurant

In Italy it is not customary to leave a tip. The bill already says " coperto"(something like a tip) usually 2 euros, translated from Italian about 150 rubles, for each person. After you have eaten, go to the exit, there is always a cashier, pay, you are given a check and change to a penny. This fine.

In Italy, it is customary to pay at the restaurant at the checkout.

What food to buy in Italy

Russian translator, when visiting Italy, buys the following standard set of products for Moscow:

• Italian sweets - for girls, but only in winter and autumn, in the rest of the year they will melt :(
• Italian wine for men; in Moscow, of course, Italian wine is also sold, but, firstly, it is at least 2 times more expensive (and if you want to buy VERY good wine, then a bottle costs from 20 euros), and secondly, while Russian dealers will bring the wine to Moscow shops, it very often turns sour.
• Italian cheese; grated and in pieces; from hard it is better to buy Parmesan ( Parmiggiano Reggiano), but Grana Padano is fine too; from soft - Gorgonzola ( Gorgonzola), with mold, but keep in mind that it can be stored without a refrigerator for 12 hours maximum;
• several jars of Italian sauces, for example, Pesto alla genovese, Pesto Rosso, Sugo alla Bolognese, ecc.
• package of italian donuts Taralli Pugliesi(typical food from the Puglia region).
• a stick of Italian sausage - the best in the world, a simple type sausage Salame Nostrano or Venetian Sopressa cost from 10 euros per kilogram, for the time being natural products, without any soy, etc. The higher level sausage is called Salame Felino.

It makes no sense to buy olive oil in Italy, because. Greek, Tunisian, etc., which are sold in Moscow, are no worse. Amaretto and Martini cost the same in the Moscow auchan; I don't like Limoncello.

Day three started early - around 4:50

Drowsiness subsided quickly as soon as we reached the embankment. It turns out the city, well, or some part of it has not slept for a long time. There was a market in the street. Coming closer my surprise only increased: bargaining was for worn items. Blankets lay on the spit-stained sidewalks, worn sneakers, T-shirts, pants, camera-soap dishes, half-used shampoos were on them. For the most part, everything is old, in a bad state.

In both directions there was a dense movement of buyers. Not Italians. Something happened that I still don't know what to call it. We met this impromptu market on the last day of our stay in Genoa, somewhere at the same time. For myself, I made the assumption that this stolen items from tourists. But maybe I screwed myself up.

Tell me about Trenitalia tickets. If you are already familiar with the railway system in Italy, feel free to go down a couple of paragraphs. We'll start with the basics.

The Italian railway is a convenient (read - almost the only one for independent tourists) way to travel around the country. There are regional trains, there are interregional ones; trains have first and second class (you will feel the difference in price).

Tickets you can buy a) at the station in the window; b) at the station in an English-, French-speaking machine (for cash or with a card); c) on the Internet. Prices are the same everywhere.

There are several types of tickets. If you take tickets for the day or on the day of departure, you will probably only be dealing with a choice of second or first class. The price difference is about 50%. Usually tickets of both classes are always in abundance.

Tickets have an open date (something within 2-3 months). Only the time of departure remains strict. You can change it in the window with the cashier. Locations not listed.

On the platform or in the transition you validate the ticket. Get on the train and sit in your class car (this is written on the doors) in any free seat. If there is no free space, go further along the wagons. If the space is occupied by someone else's bag, don't hesitate to ask for it to be removed. Well, in the most extreme case - you are standing several stations over someone's head, and then you get lucky- the person comes out and you sit down.

However, if you are planning your trip 5, or better 25 days in advance, check out Trenitalia.com. They throw away class tickets super economy You can pay by credit card. Most often (or we were lucky), the difference with the price of a standard ticket is 40%. An e-ticket is sent to your email. It contains your last name, date and time of departure, and (attention!) Locations. The ticket is not bad to have printed out. We had nowhere to print, and I simply photographed it and showed it to the controller in this form. Everything went without problems.

During peak hours, tickets can be significantly more expensive. The cheapest tickets are in the early morning.

However, we left for Nice early (at 06:07) also for the reason that the road takes about 4 hours. There and back is 8 hours, i.e. 1/3 of the day. We took a ticket at the box office - 12.80 euros for 1 person.

By car, the same road will take about 2 hours. The train stops every 7-10 minutes, so be patient and enjoy the coastal scenery.

Now about the actual trip to France. The most common question concerns just the road. So (here I will repeat what you probably read more than once in the forums): from anywhere in Italy (in our case Genoa) you get to Ventimiglia (Ventigmilia). Get off the train at this border town's tiny train station and buy at the ticket office ticket to Monte Carlo, Nice, Cannes, Montpellier or wherever else you want. It is better to buy tickets to France in Ventimiglia, so you do not overpay for the mediation of the Italian railway for participating in the transaction.

Ticket Ventimiglia-Nice cost about 5-6 euros per person. The transfer takes 40 minutes.

We walked in Nice for about 5 hours. We had lunch at KFC and went to Monaco by bus (for 1 euro; the same journey by train will cost 3.70 euros). Drive 30-40 minutes on a very beautiful track. The bus stop (Tourist Office) is 200 meters from Monte Carlo Casino.

It is worth saying that there are sooooo many tourists in the city. After our Italian wilderness, it seemed to me that we were in the midst of an apocalypse: cameras, Chinese, cameras again, children, aunts, Mercedes, etc.

After losing 10 euros in the machines, we moved to the embankment.

And then you on ... for the first time I had a neck pain. Yes, so much. Looks like she pulled a muscle. My massage therapist in Kyiv once told me that in such cases it is good to put something warm on the neck. But where is there ... after half an hour, my back hurt, my head, in general, everything (I list it so that the stalemate of the situation is clear). The insurance policy, which, of course, was, remained in the suitcase in Italy. Painkillers were there.

We moved away from the center in the hope of finding a pharmacy. Found, and not even one. But on Sunday, in all pharmacies (and stores), as it turned out, v-s-x-o-d-n-o-d. I was horrified. In full out. To be in one of the most expensive cities in Europe and not take insurance, medicines…

We boarded a bus that we imagined would take us closer to the border (everything worked in Italy that day). So we arrived in Menton. Another coastal city on the very border of France.

Meanwhile, the pain dulled, went inside. It was about 17:00.

Menton made us very happy. The city turned out to be completely devoid of tourist pathos. However, just like Nice and Monaco, he presented himself to us as the owner of all the charms of the Cote d'Azur - landscape, sea, air, kilometer-long embankments. In addition, Menton is equally close to the resorts of the Ligurian and Mediterranean Seas. Here you can stop and sorties a day or two long to explore almost the entire coast of both France and Italy. And for fans of the French avant-garde, a small bonus: the museum of the outrageous Jean Cocteau.

Around 18:30 we left for Ventimiglia to catch the last train to Genoa.

We arrived in Italy late in the evening. When I left the station, I was delighted to find that the pharmacies were still open. It was decided to have dinner in a restaurant near the house. We were attracted by pizza was cooked in a big oven right in front of passers-by.

Since we sat down in the restaurant, our bill immediately included a coperto in the amount of 2 euros per person, i.e. instrument cost. It was the only time in our entire stay in Italy when we were consciously ready to overpay.

If you are not yet familiar with the topic of Italian restaurants, then in a nutshell the situation is like this. Italians earn hard money from tourists. But you, as an independent tourist, have every right not to let them get into your pocket. 99% of restaurants (cafes, canteens are usually devoid of this type of perversion) have a flat fee like "for appliances" (this is not a tip!) in the amount of 1.5 to 2.5 euros per person. For example, you went to drink coffee for 1.5 euros, and pay 3.5 euros, because you took a seat at the table for 20 minutes. You will find out about the availability of coperto from the menu.

In addition, in the menu you can be notified about the fixed amount of servizio (tips). It can be 10 or even 20% of your order, which will be included in the bill. So, you haven’t eaten anything yet, but you already owe everything to everyone.

Do you think that the Italians themselves also pay according to this scheme? No matter how =) You can avoid coperto by ordering from the bar. In the same place, if there are chairs, use it or take it with you. It's not at all shameful. Fixed servizios are also not paid in this case.

It also happens that in a cafe or trattoria above the bar you can see two price columns: Banco and Tavolo. Banco prices, i.e. for standing ones, lower by an average of 50%, but sometimes more. For example, water for Banco will cost 0.30 euros, and for Tavolo, i.e. for "sitting", it is already 1 euro.

To clear the conscience of the especially generous, I will say that it is not uncommon for servizio to be available only in the English version of the menu. The tips themselves usually go not to the waiter, but to the owner of the restaurant. But you should not feel sorry for anyone: waiters in Italy (except for seasonal ones) have a decent fixed income + honey. insurance + paid vacation and sick leave.

Let's go back to our trip to the restaurant. We ordered one pizza for two (about 7 euros) and a decanter of young white wine (4 euros). It turned out to be a complex set a la the Kyiv restaurant "Mafia" for 99 UAH. That's just one pizza for two in Italy, apparently, is equivalent to asking for one plate of borscht for a company of 5 people. With the order, we clearly disappointed the waitress, and once again she did not come up to us.

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What to eat in Italy? It seemed like a strange question. However, contrary to the stereotype of the “land of pasta and pizza”, the cuisine of the north and south of Italy are as different as the mountains and the sea.

And it is the crown dish of the region that turns out to be the most successful and fresh. If you are in the south of the country, then choose pasta with vegetable sauces and seafood.

In Naples, try an authentic pizza.

Don't forget about Sicily sun-dried tomatoes and sweets.

In Florence and north, of course, steaks, as well as tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms.

In the cities of the north of the country, they eat much less pasta and more meat. By meat, Italians mean primarily beef, veal and sometimes horse meat. You can not look for chicken and pork (and even in our opinion, with potatoes) in restaurants.

As a side dish for meat, polenta will be imposed on you. It's okay, it's corn porridge.

There are many second courses of local lake fish served with lemon. Swordfish, shrimp, lobster, octopus are not recommended in the north. sea ​​urchins may not be fresh at all. For this, welcome to the south, in Sicily they are eaten within 4 hours after being caught.

A good choice for lunch in the north would be gnocchi or risotto. Do not be surprised if you go to eat between 17 and 20 hours, and in restaurants you will be looked askance. Between lunch (from 12 to 15) and dinner (from 20 to 23) they do not cook anything and generally close the restaurant.

At this time, you can only intercept street pizza, which is sold in pieces by weight. A classic lunch or dinner consists of two courses and a dessert. If you order greens and lettuce, they will not be served at the beginning, but with meat.

Italians have a complicated relationship with cucumbers: there is such a word, but I have never seen the product.

Aperitivo as such, the Italians do not use, unless of course it's a dinner party. The restaurant may offer "wino frizzante", which is not really champagne, just sparkling wine, usually white or rosé. But more often it is customary to order water without gas. There are no freshly squeezed juices in restaurants, only in bars.

While waiting for your meal, you may be offered a compliment from the chef, most often this bruschetta(white bread fried in olive oil with tomatoes and garlic. Yum-yum).

In general, bread in Italy is hard, soft and black, like ours, you will not find. Soft rye bread can only be in stores healthy eating or in pharmacies.

Restaurants serve sliced ​​ciabatta or wheat sticks. Generally ciabatta- these are originally rubber slippers like slates, apparently a hint that the bread will be hard, like a sole.

Dry wine is ordered with the main course. If the restaurant has homemade, I highly recommend it, it will most likely turn out to be better than bottled.

Ice cream is again only eaten at the bar. There you will be offered granita di lemon. It's lemon juice with crushed ice - delicious.

In the restaurant, instead of ice cream, you can order semifreddo - soft ice cream.

At the end of the meal will be offered digestivo- for digestion. Italians understand this as 50 g of grappa or liquor (amaretto or limoncello).

And one more moment, sometimes causing confusion. It is not possible to order cognac or cocktails in the restaurant. In Italy, everything is clearly structured, such drinks are served only at the bar, they are simply not available in the restaurant. Or, for example, a decanter of vodka on the table - this is a huge stress!

Even in the restaurant bill you can find the word coperto, the amount of the order of 2-3 euros in front of him and indignant about this.

It has nothing to do with tips. Coperto means "table setting service" and refers to the use of cutlery and the soiling of the host's tablecloth.

They take coperto not everywhere, but if they take it, then this cannot be avoided. This tradition has been preserved since the Middle Ages, when pilgrims entered taverns in cold weather to eat the food they brought with them.

The owners of establishments, in order to somehow earn some money, had to charge a fee for using the table.

AT last years Italians are fighting to the death for the abolition of coperto, but despite the directives of the governments of some regions, things are still there. The institute of Italian bureaucratic red tape will give odds to the Russian one. But this is a separate issue!

Everyone knows that in Italy there is a real cult of food, and the verb “mangiare” (Italian “eat, eat”) is the second word after Ciao that every person who decides to learn Italian learns.

By the way, the study of the Italian language and Italian gastronomy are generally similar processes, because each region of not only Italy has its own cuisine with its own characteristic dishes, but also its own dialect, and the dialects of some regions of the country differ from each other no less than the Serbian language from Russian. However, like Italian grammar, Italian gastronomy has general rules, but there are also characteristic mistakes that tourists often make when they first come to this country. Today's post is about typical travel mistakes.

ERROR FIRST. DO NOT KNOW RESTAURANTS OPENING HOURS

In Italy, they eat by the hour, and the work of Italian restaurants is tied to these hours. For lunch (pranzo in Italian), restaurants open at noon and remain open until 2.30 pm. Of course, in Milan you can find an institution with a kitchen open at any time during the day, but even in Rome, in good restaurants, the kitchen is almost always closed from 14.00 to 18.00.

ERROR SECOND. TRY TO FIND WINE FROM CHIANTI GRAPES

Chianti (Chianti) is the most famous Tuscan wine, but carefully looking at the label in an attempt to find Chianti grapes in its composition is a stupid and pointless exercise. The fact is that for the production of Chianti, Sangiovese grapes were used, are used and will be used, from which, by the way, all red wines are produced in the province of Emilia-Romagna, neighboring Tuscany.

But Sangiovese is a very capricious grape, and cunning Tuscans have learned to make a blend using Sangiovese (70%), Canailo (15%) and White Malvasia (15%). In Tuscany, you can find Chianti made only from Sangiovese, but Chainti grapes do not exist in nature.

ERROR THIRD. ORDER SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE

Spaghetti Bolognese is a dish that every self-respecting resident of Bologna hates. The fact is that such a dish simply does not exist in Bologna, that is, it, of course, is found on the menu of restaurants aimed at tourists, but the inhabitants of Bologna themselves never order it.

According to the inhabitants of this city, spaghetti bolognese is a parody of their traditional National dish tagliatelle with ragout. This is another type of pasta with minced meat, only the pasta is completely different, and therefore the taste of tagliatelle con ragu is very different from spaghetti bolognese. Yes, spaghetti bolognese was rumored to have been invented in America by Italian immigrants, it was just that a different kind of pasta was hard to find in the US at the time.

ERROR FOUR. LOOK FOR SEAFOOD IN MARINARA PASTE

Despite the very maritime name, Marinara pizza has nothing to do with seafood at all. In contrast, Marinara is a simplified version of Margherita and the cheapest type of pizza. Only tomato sauce, olive oil and garlic are used as ingredients for it. No seafood is included. .

By the way, one more nuance, in Italy it is customary to order pizza per person, and not one pizza for the whole company. Of course, if your physical capabilities do not allow you to break the whole pizza, you will also be served it for the company, but you need to immediately tell the waiter that you will not eat the pizza alone so that you bring additional plates.

ERROR FIVE. ORDER FOCACCIA AS BREAD

In Moscow trattorias, focaccia is most often sliced ​​bread with rosemary or some other spices, so it is often ordered as an addition to the main course. In Italy, things are more complicated. In the region of Liguria, where focaccia was invented, it is a large and thick flatbread to be eaten for breakfast.

If you see Focaccia with Pesto on the restaurant menu, then you should know that this is a full-fledged dish: a pizza-sized tortilla, generously sprinkled with pesto sauce, and it is supposed to be eaten with a knife and fork. In the north, for example, in the Veneto region (Venice, Verona), everything is even more interesting, here focaccia is a pie that is prepared for Easter, and most of all it resembles our good old Easter cake. In a word, in order not to get into trouble, first find out what kind of focaccia we are talking about, and only then place an order.

We will talk about three Italian words that our people usually encounter when visiting catering establishments in Italy. In the text, I will use these words in Italian for their recognition in the future, so I will give their translation into Russian.
coperto - serving
pane - bread
servizio - service

Russian tourists often have the question of how legal are additional articles that Italian restaurants included in the bill, such as "coperto", "pane e coperto" or "servizio".

01. These words are of historical origin. The word "coperto" refers to the use by customers of tablecloths, napkins, dishes and cutlery, which must be put in order after each use.

The term originated in the Middle Ages, when many restaurant goers brought their own food and used public utensils and tables.

When using the article “pane e coperto”, it is implied that there is a need to pay for some additional services that are not included in the article “coperto”.

The term "servizio", which can be 15-20% of the bill, arose at a time when waiters did not have a fixed salary, and their salary was paid precisely from the additional income of the restaurant, depending on the amount of the bill. Currently, waiters always have a fixed salary, but the article, however, has not disappeared from the accounts.

While these extra charges are now considered unfair and illegal by many food service patrons, there are no nationwide laws that prevent restaurants from including them on the bill. The only condition is to indicate in the menu what additional fees exist in this institution. The regulation of the application of these articles is entirely at the mercy of local authorities.

Consider the regulation of this issue on the example of Rome. In 1995, an ordinance from the mayor of the city prohibited the use of the article "coperto" when issuing invoices to customers. Instead, it was prescribed to include either "pane e coperto" or "servizio" in the bill. The next legislative act of the city administration from 2006 banned the use of the article "pane e coperto", but left the possibility of using the article "servizio". At the same time, it was once again emphasized that the existence of additional fees, no matter how they are called, should be known to the client before the moment he places an order.

In order for our tourists in Italy not to be surprised about additional items on the bill, we can advise them to carefully read the menu before ordering in a restaurant. In case of any doubt, you can contact the waiter or the restaurant administration with clarifications.

02. This check shows another version of the additional article "coperto e acqua" - serving and water.

According to the Italian media.