Thousands of tourists travel to Italy each year to sample the famed national cuisine, but many unknowingly end up restaurants serving reheated frozen meals to maximize on profits.
The country's legal system is now cracking down on this, with hefty fines issued to restaurants which serve frozen food to unsuspecting customers. While serving frozen food in itself is allowed, neglecting to label it on menus as such amounts to fraud and can lead to fines or even jail sentences for guilty restaurateurs.
Monday's case related to a Milan eatery which was fined €200 for failing to inform customers that the food served wasn't fresh.
A local court had accused the chef of commercial fraud after a restaurant inspection revealed the freezers to be fully stocked, despite there being no mention of frozen food on the menu.
Milan's appeals court upheld this decision in a November 2015 ruling, so the chef took his case to the highest court.
The 51-year-old appealed the ruling on the grounds that there had been no customers in the restaurant at the time who he could have "entered into a contract with" and therefore no one had been defrauded.
But judges at the Court of Cassation, Italy's top civil court, said this was irrelevant and the chef's plea was "manifestly unfounded" in the ruling, seen by The Local.
"Even the mere availability of frozen food, if not identified as such on the menu, constitutes attempted commercial fraud," said the ruling, which was signed by judge Emanuela Gai.
Judges increased the man's fine from €200 to €2,000, and he must also pay legal fees.
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Zedakah on July 29th, 2019 at 05:07 UTC »
I used to be a waiter in a small restaurant 500 miles from an ocean.
The first time a customer asked me if the snapper was fresh, I told them I'd check with the kitchen.
Me: Is the snapper fresh?
Cook: It's actually frozen tilapia.
Me: ....so what do I tell them?
Cook: Tell them it's the freshest snapper they'll get 500 miles from an ocean. They'll never know anyway.
lmaes246 on July 29th, 2019 at 03:46 UTC »
"No the food isn't currently frozen. See for yourself"
tehmlem on July 29th, 2019 at 03:05 UTC »
In the US we got around this by just having every restaurant serve frozen food. From the same company, even!