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Four Japanese tourists visiting Venice have sought help from the police after they were charged over $1300 for a meal consisting of four steaks, a plate of fried fish, water and service.
The men contacted police once they got back to Bologna, where they were studying, to complain about the €1100 ($1347) bill at the restaurant close to Venice’s famous St Mark's Square. It’s unclear why they didn’t refuse to pay the bill.
What’s more, three women who were with the group who had gone to another restaurant fearing a rip-off, were then charged €350 for three plates of fish pasta, Ansa reports.
In response to the story Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro tweeted: "We will thoroughly examine this episode, we'll check to see if the complaint was made properly. If this disgraceful episode is confirmed, we'll do all we can to punish those responsible. We are for justice - always!"
It follows a similar story last year, when three British holidaymakers were slapped with a €526 bill for lunch. One of the group claimed staff had taken advantage of their lack of Italian, brought dishes they hadn’t ordered and failed to make their pricing clear.
If you want to be safe, not sorry, check our our guides to affordable luxury in Venice and how to pronounce five popular Venetian dishes correctly.
Top photo: Sergey Ashmarin [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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