Buon giorno, American-style tips. Arrivederci, Italian small-tip culture

For fans of Venice, a visit to Caffè Florian on St. Mark’s Square is essential and glorious. Established in 1720, it is the oldest coffee house in continuous operation in Italy and was a favourite haunt of Casanova, Goethe, Charles Dickens and other notable artisans, writers and intellectuals in the 18th and 19th centuries.

About a decade ago, as I sat inside Florian relishing its art and history, I also got a crash course in Italian traditions.

I was sipping an outrageously priced cappuccino when an American couple sat down at the small table right next to me. They were dressed well and obviously wealthy. They gulped their coffees and, when the waiter cleared the table and presented the bill, they left a truly massive tip. I remember being shocked by the amount – 20 or 30 euros, more than the price of the actual drinks.

Instead of smiling, the waiter scowled and said, in broken English, “We don’t tip so much in Italy – that is not necessary or welcome.” The waiter handed the money back to the couple, who could not believe their lavish act of generosity had been rejected. I had just witnessed a clash of cultures.

To be sure, tipping in Italy and other Mediterranean countries happens, but the tips are fairly small – one or two euros a head. And leaving no tip is perfectly fine, or at least was until recently. In no Italian restaurant, café or bar have I seen a payment terminal that includes buttons for set tips like you see in Canada or the U.S.: 15 per cent (an insult), 20 per cent (well, okay) or 25 per cent (a smile from the waiter, maybe).

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There is a financial reason for the small tips tradition in Italy. Restaurant and bar employees receive regular salaries and paid holidays, plus state benefits such as health care. Employers have a contractual obligation to pay their restaurant staff a modest wage.

Another reason is that many or most of the restaurants in Italy (at least the ones I go to) are family-owned, with the proprietors often doing the cooking and the serving. They expect to make their incomes from the menu prices, not tips.

But the tipping culture is changing in Italy, and I blame the tourists who come from countries where fat tips are considered par for the course, as if the customers, not the bar or restaurant owners, are responsible for keeping their staff fed and clothed. In North America, excessive tips are expected even for takeout coffee in paper cups – that is, for no table service – a hangover from the pandemic.

Fine, but the problem is that, once Italian restaurants get used to high tips, they might expect them from their Italian customers too. Italian families, generally speaking, are not wealthy – certainly not as wealthy as many of the free-spending tourists who flood into the country. Expectations for a 25-per-cent tip might put them off a great Italian tradition: eating out with the kids in tow (no children’s menus here) on a warm night under the stars, with bottles of perfectly fine cheap house wine plunked on the table.

Jenifer Vinson, an American-Italian massage therapist who has lived in Rome for more than 20 years and is a frequent restaurant patron, hopes the American tipping system does not keep spreading.

“You cannot expect Italians making under €2,000 a month to eat out if a 15- to 20-per-cent tip is automatically expected to be added to the check,” she said. “It’s fine if high earners want to leave a 10-per-cent tip for exceptionally good service. But that’s enough.”

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Filippo Dell’Aquila, the manager of Ristorante Jole in Rome’s semi-touristy Testaccio neighbourhood, says Italians, along with the Spanish and the Portuguese, usually leave only small tips, maybe five per cent, sometimes nothing at all.

“Americans are leaving big tips, as if they have to pay a set percentage,” he told me over a recent meal on a swelteringly hot night. “Italians don’t do that. They leave tips depending on what their heart says, if they loved the meal or were surprised by the quality of the wine.”

In the U.S. and Canada, tipping is so common that it has essentially become de rigueur. A recent Pew Research Center report found that more than 80 per cent of Americans who go to sit-down restaurants (as opposed to fast-food chains such as McDonald’s) always leave tips. About 70 per cent leave tips at bars. The survey said 57 per cent of restaurant patrons would leave a tip of 15 per cent or less, while a quarter of the respondents said they would tip 20 per cent or more.

I am not aware of a similar survey in Italy but am confident the tip ratios would be much smaller. I fear this will change as Americans and Canadians throw tips around like confetti.

The good news is that it appears the high-tipping culture has yet to infiltrate the non-touristy, rural parts of Italy, such as Umbria, where we rent an old farmhouse. There, tips are virtually unheard of and – get this – we have actually been tipped as customers by the restaurant owners, a charming reversal.

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It happened a few weeks ago, when two of us were eating a simple, rustic meal at Il Belvedere, a country restaurant about a 20-minute drive from the medieval town of Spoleto, deep in farm country. The owner, Luca Luzi, treats repeat customers especially well and always seems flattered that one of the few foreigners near his place – me – is a devoted patron.

Our meal came to €50. When I went to pay, Luca cut the bill to €45, but I insisted on handing him 50. At that moment he said, “Aspetta” – wait – and disappeared into the kitchen, only to return with a chilled bottle of local white wine. He handed it to me, no charge. “Grazie,” I said.

No, he replied, “Grazie a voi” – my thanks to you.