Outrage in Italy after restaurant charges shocked diners £50 to cut their birthday cake

A restaurant in Italy has sparked outrage after charging guests a whopping £50 to cut their birthday cake.

A family visited the restaurant in the south of Arezzo to celebrate their mother’s birthday. They had asked in advance if they could take a cake from the pastry chef.

But after we had eaten quietly on Thursday, it turned out that the bill of €659,- included the costs of €58,- for cutting and serving the cake.

The cost turned out to be even higher than the birthday cake – which cost €45 – with an expenditure of €4.50 for each of the 13 guests, Corriere Fiorentino report.

This comes after it was revealed that guests in London were being charged for the ‘privilege of settling their bill’, on top of a 13.5% service charge.

A look at the €58 fee a restaurant in Italy charged for cutting a cake for a family birthday

The cost of the cake turned out to be more expensive than the cake itself (stock image)

The mother’s daughter told her story in a post on a Facebook group in Arezzo, which caused a storm on social media.

She claimed that the restaurant said this was the rule of their establishment and that they were obligated to pay.

The restaurant’s owner told the Italian news agency: ‘We don’t charge an entrance fee and we mainly serve dishes that we have prepared ourselves. That’s why we try to discourage guests who bring their own food.’

‘If we consider that in Arezzo the average entrance fee is 2.5 euros per person, the difference is not that big.

“My restaurant has to pay for the waiter who serves the table, the dishwasher and other related services. We have to earn them back somehow.”

However, the owner did admit: ‘I was not there that night and my staff may have been too picky in dealing with the situation. They may have lowered the usual price a little or even not charged anything for the cake.

‘I’d rather have 50 euros less and people going home satisfied than this misunderstanding that damages us all.’

Last August, another restaurant in Italy surprised its customers by charging them €20 to cut a birthday cake.

The family had taken the cake to a party in Palermo, Sicily.

But partygoers were stunned to discover they had been charged €20 (£17.26) to cut the cake into pieces.