3 steaks and a plate of fish – that’ll be £970! Tourists’ anger at rip-off in Venice

A STEAK supper near St Mark’s Square in Venice was never going to be a cheap night out.

But four students claim their meal at a restaurant in the tourist hotspot set them back an astonishing £ 70 – and it didn’t even include alcohol.

They were so dismayed by the 1,100euro bill for three steaks, a plate of fried fish and some mineral water that they contacted police.

The tourists say they were presented with the bill at the Osteria da Luca, in the Mercerie district close to St Mark’s Square on Friday.

Three women with them chose another restaurant – but even they ended up paying

£307 for three plates of seafood pasta, Italian media reported. It follows a string of similar cases of tourists complaining that they have been ripped off in the city.

The mayor of Venice has voiced his outrage at the bill. Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said: ‘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!’

The four Japanese men complained to police on returning to Bologna, where they are students. Their case has been taken up by Marco Gasparinetti, spokesman

for a Venice residents’ forum called Gruppo 25 Aprile. He described it as ‘the latest case of many of this kind’.

Questioned about the bill, the restaurant owner apparently said: ‘I don’t remember having any problems with Japanese customers.’

In November last year it emerged that Luke Tang, a university lecturer from Birmingham, wrote a letter of complaint to the mayor after he was charged 536 euros (£463) for a lunch.

He dined at Trattoria Casanova in the central San Marco district with his parents and was charged a reasonable sum for the majority of his order. But a platter of fresh fish that he alleges didn’t carry a price on the menu cost him 2 7 euros.