Rome restaurant shut down after charging Japanese tourists 695 euros

Saturday 04th July, 03:56 PM JST

ROME —

A restaurant in Rome which presented a Japanese tourist with a bill for 695 euros (nearly 100,000 yen) after a meal with his fiancee has been closed down by the authorities, Il Messaggero daily reported this week. The young couple, who have not been named, were outraged by the bill on June 19 which included two plates of pasta, a bottle of water, a bottle of wine and a fruit salad. The service charge alone was 115 euros.

Their protests however were brushed off by the manager of the restaurant, located close to the tourist hub of Piazza Navona. Il Messaggero said that the closure notice followed a raid by health inspectors and pricing investigators, ordered by the Italian capital’s mayor, which found a series of breaches of hygiene and administrative regulations.

Wire reports

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Latest 15 of 40 Total Comments Show All

VoXman at 10:49 AM JST - 5th July

Yea! where did this Italian guy think he was Japan? Only in Japan would he get away with a clearly racist act like that.
smithinjapan at 01:42 PM JST - 5th July

Hope the people in question get charged (restaurant owners, etc). It's disgusting that they can gouge like that and think they can get away with it.
BBLeo at 01:45 PM JST - 5th July

In such places they will try to skin off tourists. Grid and hunger for wealthy SALAMI!!!
hellhound at 02:12 PM JST - 5th July

hahahaha that's funny
VoXman at 03:59 PM JST - 5th July

>

Many places in the world have local prices, tourist prices and Japanese tourist prices.

I've seen it in Thailand, Bali and Beijing. I see it also present in Europe.

Taka

Yea, in Guam too its called War reparations. Many Asians resent the fact that Japan got wealthy after the war while they remained poor in part because the IJA stole their treasuries and gold laden religious artifacts and shipped them off to Japan and the Philippines to be hidden and later dug up after the war. See Yamashita's gold. Great book.
Klein2 at 04:30 PM JST - 5th July

This should be reported more. Japanese people should just stop travelling to show people how shortsighted they are being. As we know, word gets around when Japanese tourists have problems.

I suppose the other side of the coin is that areas that cater to Japanese and many times the natives are nicer to them. That has been my experience anyway. Maybe Japanese only get picked off when they slum it.
Badsey at 07:23 PM JST - 5th July

A good Internet phone would have given you the price for the wine and I would have haggled from there. -If not a bottle over the head =What are they going to do? At worst you get the Police which is what you want anyway and you shut the place down.

=Don't encourage these folks by paying these outrageous prices. Report them to the Japanese embassy (bring the bill).

Work it the other way. Enlarge bill on sign and protest outside restaurant -only leave when you get 10,000 Euro. -That should pay for your trip.
Informed at 02:37 PM JST - 6th July

Rome is a dump.
Feekalmatter at 09:28 PM JST - 6th July

Japanese are known as 鴨 (kamo) when they travel abroad and it's always open season.
dracpoo2 at 09:27 AM JST - 7th July

Their protests however were brushed off by the manager of the restaurant

I guess they did speak up, even a little bit.
Sammi33 at 07:21 AM JST - 8th July

And this is exactly why you should do some research before traveling to a foreign country and remember that some things may be different from your own, such as the money and language. I had a part-time job at a restaurant when I was in Hawaii and it never failed to amaze me how close-minded some Japanese would be, they couldn't be bothered to remember what the values of the coins were so they would just give me a handful of change and say "is this enough?" they would be so shocked to find out that they can't use yen in America, etc.
Youdontknow at 02:41 AM JST - 9th July

Perhaps the guy had been ripped off in Japan and was looking for a little payback?
elbudamexicano at 11:57 AM JST - 10th July

What goes around comes around, but this Rome restaurant is just ridiculous! What fools this idiots at this restaurant! Now, this poor newly wed Japanese couple will have a terrible image of Italy. Shame! Shame! Filo da putana dell ristorante di Roma!
Fairne7 at 07:44 PM JST - 12th July

I find this episode terrible: it shows the worst side of a country as Italy. I guess dishonest people are everywhere and when they find a way to trick you, they will. But this isn't a excuse to worse Italy's reputation and position as I think every Italian felt ashamed of such a wicked act and it shows that not everyone is bad, otherwise a news like this would just be covered up as it is the worst publicity ever. So I think there's no need to use bad words or harsh judgements: such an event can happens everywhere, there's no need to critic or badmouth a whole country and population. This news is already bad enough for Italian people: I think they also felt bad for those tourists and for the restaurant's attitude.
BobbieWickham at 09:08 PM JST - 18th September

The greed of the Italians was only matched by the stupidity of the Japanese. Nobody wins.