“Pane e coperto” literally means bread and tableware but it is essentially a service charge that restaurants add to the bill for each guest.  It can be as little as 50 cents and as much as 3 or 4 euros in more touristy places. If the restaurant applies these service charges, the amount is always indicated in the menu. Please note that it will be charged at village festivals too.

Up until a few years ago, restaurants were obliged to charge for “pane e coperto“, but now restaurant owners may decide whether to charge their clients or not. As a matter of fact, many of the restaurants that cater to locals or where people go for lunch on work days don’t charge it anymore. In Pisa, I haven’t paid any service charges for a long time at either Vineria di Piazza or Osteria dei Santi.

The most common complaints I have read online are…

Why should I pay for bread if I don’t eat it or if I didn’t order any?

The fee doesn’t really have anything to do with bread per se, even if the word pane is in the name. It’s is simply a service charge. It is part of the Italian way of life… you simply have to know that you might be charged for it, so make sure to check how much it is on the menu and deal with it.

Bread is brought to you whether you eat it or not. If you ask for more bread, you will not be charged extra, similarly to what happens with water in most north American restaurants.

Why should I pay for unsalted bread that I don’t like?

Bread in Tuscany is mostly unsalted. Restaurants serving you with unsalted bread are not trying to give you the cheapest stuff they could get: that’s what people eat here. Tuscan bread is not to be eaten alone. It is meant to accompany savoury food, such as cured meats, game meat, or crostini sauces.

The charge is too expensive

Charges will be higher in the most touristy areas. Restaurants have the right to choose their own prices. The only thing you can do is avoid restaurants in very popular spots (where people invite you in, or where you can see pictures of food…) and always check the prices on the menu before sitting down. Many restaurants publish their menu outside, and there is nothing wrong with asking to see a menu if this is not the case. Most smaller restaurants or restaurants outisde the touristy areas will in fact not have menus on display because they assume you know the average price for food in the area. If you sit down and you order, you commit to paying the service charge if applied.

I had no idea that I would be charged for pane e coperto

As I always tell our guests, if you don’t like finding out about cultural differences once you are already here, you need to “do your homework“. Most guidebooks will mention these charges. Every country has its own habits: when you visit you need to adjust to the local way of life. Please see my post about “Expecting the Unexpected” for further cultural differences which might come as a surprise to you.

Being charged for service is unacceptable

It always amazes me when I hear this comment from North American guests. I always need to point out how tricky it is for an Italian to go to a North American supermarket or restaurant and find out that the prices advertised are before taxes and that tips are mandatory, only when the check comes. All in all, pane e coperto is incredibly cheap compared to adding taxes and a tip to the final bill, and this way the price list is much more transparent.

It’s the way things are done in the States and Canada though, just like pane e coperto is how things are done in Italy. As we say… paese che vai, usanza che trovi, that is, when in Rome, do as Romans do… which is particularly appropriate in this case!

But at least at home I can choose not to tip for bad service

The “pane e coperto” service charge is not a tip.  The money goes to the restaurant, not to your server. Tipping your waiter is optional in Italy. Waiters, as a rule, don’t expect tips although they do appreciate them. If you get bad service you can choose not to tip your server just like you would back home, but you’ll still need to pay the “service” charge. It’s just the way things work here.

Italians apparently eat 66kg of bread per person every year. My grandparents ate bread with anything: pasta, vegetables and even fruit. I remember being served bread and figs and bread and wine with sugar during festive family meals. And every time I go to my parents’ place in the countryside, I cannot but remember my grandfather sitting on a half-broken wooden bench, slicing a stale loaf of bread with his pocket knife and eating it with ripe grapes or peaches.

Often guests ask us about Tuscan bread: how it is made, why we don’t use any salt, whether it is a typical thing of Italian bread, etc. So I started looking into these matters and I discovered a rich and diverse reality. In Italy there are 200 different types of bread (which can be classified in 1500 subtypes): every region has its own special types.

Bread is generally made with flour, water and leaven. However, there are many different types of bread made with flour obtained from cereals other than wheat, such as maize, pulses, or soy beans. In the past, the dough was prepared and left to rise for a couple of days in a cool and dry place. The freshly baked loaves were generally made once a week and preserved in a similar way.

There are three different procedures to make bread: the so-called “direct” method, which consists in mixing all the ingredients at the same time; the “semi-direct” method, consisting in mixing all the ingredients but some leavened dough which is added later; and the “indirect” method, which consists in making a mix of water, leaven and flour called “biga” and then, 48 hours later, all the other ingredients are added to this leavened dough.

The southern and northern regions of the country have the largest number of officially recognized types of bread, most of which have received a D.O.P. (Di Origine Protetta), D.O.C. (Di Origine Controllata) o I.G.P. (Indicazione Geografica Protetta) certification.

Tuscan Bread

Bread with no salt is by no means a national thing: on the contrary, it’s the distinguishing feature of the bread made in Tuscany, and in some parts of Umbria and Le Marche. This makes it particularly suitable to accompany tasty and salty cured meats, “crostini” sauces, and aged cheese typical of the local cuisine, but also to be used as a base for traditional soups like “minestra di pane” and “ribollita”.

This peculiarity of the Tuscan bread goes back to the 12th century, when the Pisans hampered the salt trade to damage their worst enemies, the Florentines. This made it too expensive for the humble people of the region to buy salt.

There are many local varieties of bread in Tuscany, all of which tell of an ancient culinary tradition. Besides the typical “pane toscano“, other delicious types of bread produced in Tuscany are:

• “pane di farro” made with spelt flour and “pane di neccio” made with chestnut flour, both typical of the Garfagnana, the mountain area north of Lucca;
• “panina gialla aretina“, bread with saffron typical of the Arezzo area and produced during Easter time;
• schiaccia maremmana, a type of focaccia made in the Maremma, sometimes with pork fat.

Other popular Italian breads

Some popular types of bread from Northern Italy are:

• Pan nér (black bread) a dark bread made with oats, typical of the Valle d’Aosta. It was made once a year at Christmas time and preserved to be used throughout the year.
• Grissino, breadsticks made in Piedmont.
• Michetta or Rosetta, Lombardia, a small round loaf of bread typically used for panini. A curiosity: in English the word panini is often used to indicate a sandwich. However, this is the plural form of the Italian noun panino, which means small loaf of bread or sandwich. The English usage of the term is therefore not grammatically correct in Italian.
• Cioppa or Cioppeta and Pan Scaféto today also known as Pan biscotto, bussolà di Chioggia (Veneto).
• Biga and grispolenta (Friuli Venezia Giulia).
• Pane d’avena (oats), Pane di Segale, and Pane al Papavero (poppy seeds), Trentino Alto Adige.
• Piadina, Coppia Ferrarese, Gnocco Fritto and Tigelle in Modena (Emilia Romagna).
• Focaccia genovese and galletta (Liguria).

Some popular types of bread in the regions of central Italy are:

• Pane di Terni, without salt like the Tuscan bread (Umbria).
• Crescia, pane nociato (bread with walnuts) and pane con mosto (bread with must)(Le Marche).
• Ciriola romana and Pane casereccio di Genzano (Lazio).
• Pane casereccio aquilano, pane di cappella and pane di mais (Abruzzo).

Some popular types of bread in the regions of Southern Italy are:

• Pagnotte Santa Chiara, Pane Cafone, Pane di Saragolla (Campania).
• Pane di Matera (Basilicata).
• Frisella, pane di Altamura, puccia and taralli (Apulia).
• Pitta, friselle and pane di Pellegrina (Calabria),
• Pane di Lentini, U filuni and pane casereccio siciliano (Sicily).
• Civraxiu, coccoi a pitzus, pane carasau, su zichi (Sardinia).

I would like to thank Monica Cesarato (@monicacesarato) for telling me about bussolà and tigelle!