Cena (dinner): traditionally lighter than lunch, though still a main meal. Standard restaurant hours are 7.30pm to 11pm (later in summer).
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In the evening, Italians, in particular, rarely sit down to eat before nine and in high season might not even start ordering until 11 pm! It's always a good idea to reserve your table, especially if you want to dine in one of the Amalfi Coast's more famous restaurants or during the weekend.
Luckily, the popular dinner time in Italy is between 8 and 10pm so since it was impossible to make a dinner reservation days before, we went to restaurants around 5/6pm hoping to be able to get seated. Hope you enjoyed my travel guide on for an incredible Positano Italy trip.
Waiters. A tip (as a percentage of your total meal bill OR a per meal amount) is appreciated, but not expected. If we are staying somewhere and have the same waiter throughout our stay, we leave a tip at the end of our last meal (recommended).
Don't dine too early; Romans show up lateLike the Spanish, Romans are known for dining out late. Restaurants are usually open for lunch from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m., and they open back up for dinner around 7:30 p.m. until 11:30 p.m.
Italy is known for it's very late meals - lunch is about 1.30pm (earliest!) and dinner depends on the season - it can be as late at 11pm! One of the reasons for such late dinners, is so that the members of the family can wait for each other to come back from work and sit down at the table all together.
If you ask locals “Do you tip in Italy?”, they'll explain that while they sometimes leave a small tip, it's generally not necessary. In Italy, gratuity (or una mancia, pronounced oo-nah MAN-chah) is considered a bonus for exceptional service. And it's not often that you'll find a tip jar at a register.
When it comes to tipping at restaurants, Italians will tell you they only tip on truly exceptional service or when dining in the finest restaurants. Even then, they usually only tip an extra 10 to 15 percent, or often just the change left over from the bill.
Lunch is served from 12:30pm to 3:00pm and dinner from 7:30pm to 11pm (or even later in the summer). That said, there are many restaurants which serve meals all day long, so you can have a late lunch or an early dinner.
Although both often work from Monday through to Saturday, full-time workers in the private sector can expect to start work at 9am and not finish until 6pm, with a 1-2 hour lunch break, although this is usually shorter in the bigger cities.