Our trip to Tuscany and Portovenere is 7 weeks away and we could use your guidance! My husband and I like to eat several courses and we share each course. We cannot consume large amounts of food and find this is a great way to sample the menu in a restaurant and still have room for dessert. Is this going to be frowned upon when we dine in Italy?

Thanks in advance for your Italian expertise!

Sheila

No problem at all in Italy, nobody will give you a second look. I share all my dishes everywhere I go in the world. I never understand this "frowning" upon paying customer, is this some cultural cues I'm missing?

In some American restaurants they charge you extra to share a dish, but I've never seen that happen in Italy. We do it now and then, and I've never even seen an eyebrow raised. In fact, if one of us orders a course that the other doesn't, an extra plate is often brought for sharing even if we don't ask for it.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sheila E.:
Is this going to be frowned upon when we dine in Italy?

---

Not at all, but consider that italian restarants' servings are much smaller than the US ones. They are already planned so that a person can have at least a primo (pasta, rice or soup) and a secondo with contorno (meat and fish with a side serving of vegetables). At lest means that often enough people at restaunrants (for dinner at least) will also have antipasto (entrèes) and dessert.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alice Twain:
Not at all, but consider that italian restarants' servings are much smaller than the US ones.

---

The servings are smaller than some US restaurants, but not all. They are actually quite comparable in my mind. If I were dining with my wife, we'd order a primo and a secondo, plus a half bottle of wine and something we find interesting on the menu. I've never felt hungry after the meal.

Sheila,
You shouldn't have any problems. If you know in advance you want to share a dish, order it "uno per due" so they know to bring an extra plate or serve it on two plates.

I've only ever been charged once in Italy for an extra plate - it was at the icky La Grotta restaurant in Venice. (Don't go there!)

quote:

---

Originally posted by bubba:
I've never felt hungry after the meal.

---

Probably your stomach is msllaer than mine, I happen to walk out of a restaurant feeling unreplete more and more often, especially since the current Health Minister asked the restaurants to reduce the (usually) already modest portions for a meningless "fight against obesity" as though the Italians are getting fatter due to the once or twice a month occasions when they eat out!

Wow,Italians Obese? you have got to be kidding.
Compared to the USA Italy looks like the land of the very thin!I can't remember a obese (100 lb+overweight Italian among the folks we met,Ok Pavorotti)RR

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Rainey:
Wow,Italians Obese? you have got to be kidding.

---

Not me, the Health Minister.

Here you can read this:

Negli ultimi anni l’obesità è drasticamente aumentata, anche per l’alimentazione divenuta ipercalorica e non sempre bilanciata in rapporto alle effettive esigenze energetiche.

And here you can read an article from the on line version of the newspaper Repubblica.

I'm a pretty big guy and I've never found Italian portions deficient in any way, nor have I seen the kind of excess that is routinely piled onto the plate in the U.S.

The only time I've experienced an odd look in a restaurant in Italy came when my then-partner wound what must have been 1/3 of his pasta onto his fork and started chewing. The server gasped.

On our trips, eating in restaurants is a major part of the process. We often ahve a meal wher eone of us has an antipasto, the other a pasta, both have secondi or one might have a pasta for a secondo. The biggest difficulty we eveh have usually is figuring out how the dishes will come out!

FOr example at Vini di Gigio, our fist meal we both ordered antipasti, I had a pasta for primi followed by a fish secondo. Kay had a rabbit secondo. We obviously both got our antipasti at the same time. Next up was my pasta and Kay's rabbit. Finally my eel came out by itself.

On another meal, Da Rioba, we both had antipasti witch came out together. I ordered a pasta which came out by itself and Kay helped me finsih it. Then we both got our secondi together. If we had ordered the pasta "Uno per due" we would have either got another plate or the serving would have been split.


At La Frasca, we did order our pasta split and the portion was served up on two plates and larger than a single protion would have been!

And with us, planning the meal is more enjoyable when not rushed to order everything all at once, as well.

Alice,
I heard on the radio on Monday that the government is going to try to pass a bill where restaurants are to serve 'smaller portions' to fight our obesity issue.
And as far as the Italians go, I can't think of ever seeing an obese Italian, German yes, American yes, and English yes, but the Italians are always amazingly small.
We figure it is the purity of the food and all the walking Italians do. Maybe it is just all the passagiara each evening that does it.
To everybodies health-CinCin
W.

Yes, these are the magic words: "uno per due." We usually share either a primi or a secondi, depending on which strikes our fancy. And dessert is almost always gelato after the after dinner or lunch stroll. Have a great time.

my wife claims most Italian women only eat tissue paper as their trick to keeping so svelte!

Hi, Sheila. You will have no problem, I'd predict. Italian restauranteurs seem to understand that Americans tend to eat differently. I've had waiters tease me about not ordering all the set courses, but it's good-natured teasing.