A customer left a one-star review on Tripadvisor after a bar in Italy charged them €2 (R40) to serve a toasted sandwich on two plates.
The disgruntled visitor, who was with a friend, ordered the snack at Bar Pace in Lake Como and requested it be served on two plates so they could share.
They later shared a photo of the receipt showing the charge for serving two halves separately.
The receipt shows that Bar Pace added the cost for slicing their sandwich – labelled as “dives da meta”, which means “divided in half”. The customer had also bought a “toast vegetariano e patatine” – a vegetarian toasted sandwich and crisps for £6.46 (R150).
Writing on the review, they said the charge was “unbelievable but true”, adding: “This has never happened to me in any of the places I have visited in the world.”
Meanwhile, reports suggested that the owner of the restaurant defended the extra charge for cutting the sandwich.
“Additional requests have a cost. We had to use two plates instead of one and the time to wash them was doubled, and then two place mats. It wasn't a simple toasted sandwich, there were also French fries inside. It took us time to cut it in two,” said owner Cristina Biacchi to Italian daily “La Repubblica”.
She further said that if the customer objected to the bill there and then, they would have removed the charge.
Since international travel returned to normal at the end of the pandemic, several dissatisfied holidaymakers have taken to the internet to express their shock at being presented with exorbitant bills in bars and restaurants in a number of holiday destinations.
Several customers have slammed a café near Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome for being a “tourist trap”, with one customer saying they were charged €53 (R1 000) for “two triangular toast bread sandwiches and a ham and Mozzarella ciabatta”.
In June, one tourist took to Reddit to express their shock after being left with a bill of €360.80 (R7 000) for a light lunch on Greece’s island of Mykonos, at a beach-side restaurant called Eclipse.
You can read the latest Food digimag here.