A furious diner has told how a restaurant in Italy put a hard-to-swallow extra on her bill for simply cutting a chocolate crepe in half.
The angry punter – not named in local newspapers – took to social media to reveal the EUR 1 (GBP 0.85) charge levelled on her by the restaurant.
She told how she had been eating near the central Piazza Sant’Oronzo in Lecce, a city in Italy’s southern Apulia region on Sunday, 20th August, when she asked for the Nutella pancake to be cut in two.
But when she got her bill – now shared on social media – she was choked to see an extra charge for ‘diviso’, or ‘divided’.
The crepe had already cost EUR 4.50 (GBP 3.85) before staff added the extra levy to the receipt.
Some netizens said it was outrageous that a service that used to be done for free as a courtesy is now something people have to pay for.
But others said that the halved crepe will have generated extra dishwashing for the cafe and it was right to charge more.
The new charge row follows a summer of complaints that holidaymakers in Italy are being ripped off by overcharging venues.
During the last month alone one upmarket bar near Lake Como, the Pace Bar in Gera Lario, charged a customer EUR 2 (GBP 1.71) to cut their EUR 7.50 (GBP 6.41) sandwich in half.
And in Sicily a restaurant charged punters EUR 20 (GBP 17.08) to cut a birthday cake into slices despite them blowing EUR 121 (GBP 103.36) on other dishes and drinks.
Then a mother dining at the Osteria del Cavolo restaurant in Finale Ligure was charged EUR 2 for an extra plate, so she could give her child a taste of her food.
And one punter named only as Francesca was charged extra to have less froth on her coffee at the Old Station Caffe on the Piazza della Stazione Vecchia in Ostia, just outside the Italian capital Rome.
