Ordering Food in Italy (10 Things You Must Know)

Ordering food in Italy can be stressful, especially if you don't speak the language, you're not familiar with the local customs, and you don't want to embarrass yourself. But fear not, in this video we'll share some useful tips that'll help you have a much more enjoyable dining experience. First, let's talk about restaurant hours. The first thing you should know is that restaurants generally are not open all day and all night. They will open between 12 and 12.30 for lunch and stay open until about 2.30-ish and then they will close until about 7 or 7.30 in the evening. And that's because they generally only have one set of staff and so this would enable the staff to have a break between lunch and dinner. If you miss lunch and you want to have something to eat outside of these hours, you can either buy pizza by the slice on the street, or you can go to a tabola calda, which is kind of like a cafeteria style arrangement, or you can buy a pre-made sandwich in a cafe or bar. Now, when you go into a restaurant, what you should know is that you shouldn't just go and sit down at an empty table. Instead, you should wait up front, greet the host or the owner or the waiter, whatever staff is working up front, and you should greet them with buongiorno if it's daytime, buonasera if it's late afternoon, or evening. And you should wait until they tell you where you can sit. They'll ask you probably if you have a reservation, so if you do, you tell them you have a reservation and otherwise just tell them how many people are in your party and they'll direct you to a seat. The only time when this really isn't necessary is if you go to a cafe or a bar, especially like out in the piazza. If you see the tables are not set for a meal, maybe they just have an ashtray on the table, then you can just go sit down anywhere you want and someone will come and take your order. When you sit down at your table, the first thing the server is probably going to ask you is what kind of water you want. Italians almost always drink water with their meals and they will ask you if you want still water, naturale, or if you want sparkling water, bisonte or gasata. Now, you should know that the tap water in almost all of Italy is drinkable. There's no problem with it at all, but people do not drink tap water in a restaurant. It's just not done. They get bottled water, you get charged a couple of euro, and that's just the way it is. Let's talk about reading the menu. The menu is often in both Italian and English, but frankly it's a better sign if it's only in Italian because it's probably a more authentic Italian restaurant. And it's an even better sign if the menu is written out on chalkboard because typically that means that the menu is changing day by day, which is always a good sign. Now, most waiters will speak some English and enough English to take your order and answer any questions you have, but in the event that the menu is only in Italian and or the waiter doesn't really speak English, all you have to do is take a picture of the menu with your phone and Google Translate will tell you how it translates into English. So it's a very useful app to have. The menu is divided into five sections. There's antipasto, which is kind of like the appetizer section. Often there's salami or cheese, some other kind of things like that. And then you have the primo. The primo is usually risotto or pasta. Then you have a secondo, and the secondo is the main meal, and it's usually the meat or the fish dish. And usually that comes alone on the plate. And if you want vegetables with it, normally you have to order them separately. And that section, they are called the contorni. The contorno section has vegetables and salads like spinach or beans or insalata. And then finally at the end you have dolce, which is the dessert. A couple of good things to know about the menu is that the prices that you see on the menu are what you will pay in the end. So there's no tax. It's all built in. The second thing to know is you don't have to order one thing from each of these courses. You can order either an antipasto and a secondo or a primo and a secondo or an antipasto and a primo. Because if you ordered one of everything, that would be a very big meal. And people usually don't do that unless it's a big celebration or a long relaxed Sunday lunch with the whole family. But if you're hungry, go ahead and order everything. You will enjoy it. If you have allergies, be sure and tell that to your server and they will explain to you which of the dishes will address your allergies and which will be something you shouldn't order. But really don't ask for substitutions. That's not really a thing they do in Italy. They kind of expect you to eat the dish as they prepare it or choose something different if you can't or don't want to eat some ingredient that is in that dish. Now I mentioned that the salad is considered a contorno or a side dish. So typically the salad does not come before your meal like it often does in the United States. It will be served with your main course unless you specify otherwise. I mean if you want it first, you can ask for it and they'll certainly accommodate you. The other thing to know about salad is you won't have a choice of ranch and Russian and French dressing. In Italy it's olive oil and vinegar and they will either bring the olive oil and vinegar to the table so that you can dress your salad yourself and sometimes they do it back in the kitchen. The courses are served in a sequence. So according to how they're posted on the menu. Antipasto, primo, secondo, etc. Now let's say that both people order a secondo or a main dish and only one person orders a primo or a pasta. What will happen is the waiter will bring the primo or the pasta to the person who ordered it and the other person will wait until they are finished and then the server will clear the plate and bring both people their secondo or their main dish. And as I mentioned before if you want things in a different order or you want everything brought together you can ask them and they will accommodate you. And if you want things brought together all you have to say is insieme which means together. Let's talk about some basic dining vocabulary. First off to be polite you would like to say I would like or I'll take and the way to do that is to say vorrei which means I'd like and then whatever the dish is or prendo which means I'll take. Now let's talk about the main dishes and these are the types of meat that you can order. First of all polo is chicken, manzo is beef, maiale is pork, vitello is veal, agnello is lamb and pesce is fish. At the end of your meal when you want to ask for the bill that is called il conto so you would say il conto per favore which means the bill please. And of course it's likely that someone at your table is going to want to use the restroom during the meal and so you would say or they would say dove il bagno which means where's the bathroom. Now let's move on to beverages. I already talked about water which you'll be offered as soon as you sit down so let's talk about wine. Wine is the preferred drink of Italians during most meals the exception being with pizza usually they drink beer but when it comes to wine you can order a bottle of wine from anywhere in Italy or outside of the country but actually the probably the best thing to do is to order the local wine or the vino della casa which is the house wine. You can order a full liter carafe which is about 30% bigger than a bottle or you can order a half carafe which is a mezzo or a quarter carafe which is a cortina or of course you can order a glass of wine which is a calice. Obviously you can order white wine bianco red wine rosso or rosé which is risotto. When it comes to cocktails Italians really don't drink cocktails with their meal what they do do is they will go out for an aperitivo or a cocktail before dinner they'll go to a bar or a cafe and they'll have a negroni or an aperol spritz and then they will come to the restaurant to have their dinner and then they will order water and wine to have with their dinner. After they're finished eating dinner Italians often will have a coffee and it will be just a shot of espresso no milk because Italians believe that putting milk in your coffee interferes with digestion and so if they're having coffee after their meal they typically will not put milk in it and that's the same reason why Italians will tell you you shouldn't drink a cappuccino after about 11 30 in the morning for the same reason. Cappuccino is a breakfast drink you have it with a pastry and when you have coffee after lunch it's usually just a shot of espresso. Sometimes people will order a cafe macchiato which literally means stained coffee and that's just a little splash of milk for those who don't like an espresso with nothing in it. Now the next step or the next beverage in the meal is an amaro or a digestivo and that's like an after-dinner drink and it's usually made with some kind of local herbs and spices and it's often homemade and sometimes they will bring it to you complimentary sometimes you have to pay sometimes it's free but an amaro or a digestivo is meant to aid in digestion. One example is limoncello which has become very popular in the last 10 years or so. Often when you go to a restaurant one of the first things they bring you will be a basket of bread. Now Italians typically don't eat their bread while they're waiting for their meal because they believe that if you fill up on bread you won't enjoy or eat all of your meal. Instead what they use the bread for basically two things one is to help push the food onto their fork and the other is to mop up the remaining sauce from their pasta or their meat dish and that's called fare la scarpetta which means literally making a little shoe and they mop up the food that's very accepted to do that and then then you don't waste any of that delicious sauce. If you are in central Italy you will find that the bread is bland and pretty tasteless and there's a sort of a historical reason for that or at least the story goes that during the Middle Ages there was a trade dispute between Pisa who controlled a lot of the trade in that area and the rest of Tuscany and the surrounding areas and they wanted to raise the taxes on salt the other people didn't want to pay for that and so they just started leaving salt out of the bread recipes and it just became part of the the recipe and the upside of that is you're not as tempted to eat a lot of bread because it doesn't taste all that great on its own it's much better for mopping up the sauce. Now you'll notice that they don't bring butter with your bread and they also typically do not bring a little plate to put olive oil or vinegar in to dip your bread into that's really kind of an American invention so if you see them doing that it's probably a more touristy restaurant. Let's talk a little bit about your server now when they come over to take your order if you're in a new region or a new area of Italy and you're not familiar with the menu items you might want to ask the server what they recommend in fact you probably ought to ask them anyway because there may some be some specialty the house that they can recommend and the way you ask that is you can either say che cosa mi consiglia which means what do you recommend or che cosa c'è di buono stasera which means what's good tonight. So one thing you'll certainly notice when you're out to eat in Italy is that the server will not hover they will not keep coming back to ask every five minutes to ask you how is everything tasting how do you like everything is there anything else you want etc. They don't do that in Italy because they believe that when you go out to eat you are there to enjoy your meal and converse with your family and friends and they don't want to get in the middle of that but they're standing by if you want anything all you have to do is flag them down but don't think that the service is not good just because they don't keep coming over to your table all the time. Another thing related to that is that the waiters are not trying to rush you through your meal when you sit down at a table particularly dinner they expect that you have that table for the entire evening they're not trying to turn the table so they won't rush you and hence don't expect fast service because that's not how Italians dine they're there to relax and enjoy and savor their meal and to that point when you want to get your check you have to ask for it they will never bring the check until you ask for it. When you get your check you will see all of the items you ordered itemized on the bill and you will also see something called a coperto and what the coperto is not it is not a tip this is money that goes to the restaurant not to the server what it is a charge per person it's usually about two to four euro per person and it covers the table setting and the bread now that I know that sounds kind of weird but it goes back to the middle ages when people would travel from town to town and they typically would carry their food with them but they would stop at an inn or a tavern and the tavern owner would provide them with a table out of the elements with a roof over their heads and the table setting stuff the plate and the dishes and the glass etc and for that they would charge them a small amount of money and that became the coperto for whatever strange reason it is hung on and still there today and there's really no way of avoid paying for it if you want to pay for your bill with a credit card and most restaurants do accept credit cards typically visa and mastercard american express is not so popular so I wouldn't rely on that as my only credit card but if you want to pay by credit card what will happen is server will bring a little machine to the table and it'll read your credit card and it will spit out the the receipt sometimes if you tell them you're paying by credit card they'll ask you to go up to the front of the house to the casa which is the cashier that sits up by the door and you can pay there in Italy it's really not a thing to order separate checks so let's say you're out to dinner with five people you really can't ask for five separate checks what you might ask for if there's two married couples you know to split the bill in half between the two couples that they probably would be willing to do but separate checks not so much tipping in Italy is a thing that Americans in particular are not accustomed to it's very different for one thing tipping is not necessary and the reason is because servers are on their salaried employees just like employees of any company so they make a living wage now having said that they very much appreciate tips and so what people typically do is they'll leave a few coins they'll round up they'll leave two to five euro but they will not give a percentage of the bill you won't see you'll never see an Italian leaving 15 or 20 percent of the bill or even 10 percent of the bill and many Italians don't tip at all but I would say most people in experience round up or leave a few coins another thing about tipping if you are paying by credit card they don't have the ability to add a tip line on the credit card receipt it's just not a thing that they're equipped for so in order to leave a tip you're just going to have to carry some cash carry some coins with you and that way when you finish your meal you can leave a few coins for the server when you're planning to go out to eat in Italy there's a variety of eating establishments and sometimes it's a little confusing to know which one to choose and what to expect when you get there so why don't we go through the different types of eating establishments and we'll try to explain the differences now having said that there's a big caveat and that is some of the differences particularly between a ristorante osteria and trattoria have really become blurred over time and there's not as big of a difference be that as it may I'll try to give you the sort of traditional breakdown and hopefully that will help so we'll start maybe with the most potentially expensive and formal and that is the ristorante those are the places that typically will have tablecloths and fancier setting it has a bigger menu with a wider variety of dishes some traditional some more innovative some sort of fusion type things they usually have a more extensive wine list and often they're more expensive than a trattoria or an osteria next we have the trattoria that's typically a smaller and historically that's a smaller family-run restaurant that's kind of got a cozy and informal atmosphere it usually has a more limited menu than a ristorante and the prices are pretty moderate and off of the menu dishes are recipes passed down from generation to generation and often in the family-run trattorias you'll see the mom and the dad and the kids and the grandmother all working there in one capacity or another now an osteria is similar to a trattoria it tends to be a little more rustic and even more casual than a trattoria historically its origins kind of go back again to the middle ages where they were more like taverns or inns and travelers going from town to town might stop there for a meal and even to stay sometimes they in in the old days they had a few rooms upstairs for travelers that's not really the case anymore for the most part but that's the history like the trattoria the menu in the osteria is a little bit more limited and it tends to focus on hearty rustic dishes and their goal is to preserve culinary traditions next we have the pizzeria and often pizzerias only serve pizza sometimes they serve other items as well they usually have a wide variety of types of pizza they either have red pizzas with a tomato sauce base and white pizzas they often will have maybe 10 or 15 choices of each next we have the tabula calda which literally means hot table kind of like a steam table and what that is is kind of a cafeteria type arrangement where you take a tray and you slide it along and you point to the things that you want usually there's a limited number of items and this is really popular among working people who want to have a substantial lunch but something that's convenient and affordable then we have the bar or the cafe normally people go there to have their coffee in the morning particularly working people on their way to work they'll stop there for a quick coffee and a bar will always have a couple of pastries and usually some pre-made sandwiches that are delivered every morning to the bar so if you need a quick bite to eat that's a great place to go because they're open all day and finally we have the pasticceria or the pastry shop now a pastry shop will have an espresso machine and tons of the most delicious pastries ever so it's a great place to go for breakfast because you can have your coffee and your pastry but they're open most of the day and so you can also get a snack there let's talk about pizzerias for a minute because of course pizza is the popular thing to have when you're in Italy but the things that you should know about pizzerias is typically they are not open for lunch they are only open for dinner except perhaps in touristy areas or where you can buy pizza by the slice on the street the second thing to know is that in pizzerias in Italy you can't get various sizes you know small medium large extra large etc like we can in the United States pizzas come in one size it's an individual size now it's a big individual size and I think big enough for two people but people tend to order each person orders their own pizza with the things that they want on their pizza and then feel free to share your pizza the other thing is when they bring your pizza it's not cut up it's not sliced in any way it's to be eaten with a knife and fork and that's just how they do it a couple of final things to know about pizzerias first of all while they do have lots and lots of ingredients on their pizzas that you can choose from pepperoni is not a thing if you order pepperoni pizza in Italy you will get a pizza with bell peppers on it because that's what pepperoni means it means pepper also don't order pizza with pineapple that's just not a thing in Italy and they will give you a very odd look if you ask for it the other thing to know is pizza is most often accompanied by beer or sometimes soda particularly for kids because in some parts of Italy even drinking wine with pizza would be considered a little bit odd