7 Quirky Food Rules You Should Follow When You’re In Italy

Shortly after I moved to Italy in 2009, a group of Italian friends quizzed me on how differently Americans eat compared with Italians. They wanted me to affirm how trashy U.S. food is and how we eat all our meals out of paper bags. But when I replied, “Well, you all have a lot more rules around eating than we do,” I was met with nodding heads.

Mealtime in Italy can be a pretty rigid affair compared with American-style “eat while standing at the kitchen counter and scrolling on my phone” habits. Meals are at a set time. There are things you eat and don’t eat at breakfast, lunch or dinner, as well as foods you don’t mix and customs you don’t break.

Fabio Parasecoli, a professor of food studies at New York University, examines many of these social constructs in the 2022 book ”Gastronativism,” and he said much of Italy’s fixation with food rules is linked to identity. “There’s a deep emotional connection with local food,” he said. “That food becomes symbolic of a community’s identity and social dynamics,” and therefore one’s personal identity, in both a local sense and a national sense, he said. And while Italy is changing with the times, adherence to tradition is still strong — largely as a way to cling to the very idea of Italianness. As Parasecoli put it, “Italians may like sushi, but they’ll never eat it for Sunday lunch with the family.”

So before you as a visitor show up at noon to your host’s home with a box of California rolls in hand, check out some of the most common food rules you’ll encounter in Italy, with a little explanation as to the (often sensible) reasoning behind each.

No Cappuccino After 11 A.M.

Yes, you can order a cappuccino after lunch or dinner and you’ll be served, but with a collective shaking of Italian heads.

“It has to do with milk being really hard to digest even in the best of times,” said Elizabeth Minchilli, a Rome-based food writer and food tour operator. Cappuccino is essentially warm milk with a shot of espresso. It’s good for a filling first meal of the day — “but after a big meal,” Minchilli said, “a glass of warm milk is antithetical.” If you want to blend in (and avoid a stomachache), drink your cappuccino in the morning.

Breakfast Is Always Sweet, Not Savory

Unless you’re at a hotel serving American-style breakfast, don’t expect bacon and eggs.

“Historically, Italy was very agricultural and very poor,” said Italian food historian Francine Segan. “People consumed leftovers for breakfast, and that was usually some hard bread soaked in the morning milk.” Meat was a rare luxury for peasants and would have been saved for an important meal. Even sweetened bread was something that most couldn’t afford.

“You can trace breakfast evolving as the public got more wealthy,” Segan said, with cornetti (croissants), jams and other luxuries becoming bourgeois standards. Still, she said, “there’s no protein in the morning.”

Lunch And Dinner Are Later

If you’re seated for lunch at a Roman restaurant at 11:30 a.m., or for dinner at 6:30 p.m., I guarantee there won’t be any Italians at the tables nearby.

In Italy, lunch begins at 1 p.m., while dinner starts at 7:30 p.m. or much later.

“This has a lot to do with Italy being a southern country,” Minchilli said. “You didn’t work during the hottest part of the day. So you’d come home for lunch after a full morning’s work, have a rest, go back to work (in late afternoon) for another four hours, or until about 7 or 7:30.” More and more restaurants are opting for all-day dining, but they’re catering to tourists, not locals.

Don’t Even Try To Dip That Bread

A basket of plain bread may appear on your trattoria table, but don’t expect the olive oil and balsamic vinegar to follow.

The bread goes with a main course including meat, Minchilli said, adding that it isn’t dipped in oil or eaten beforehand since it’s too filling. “And a mouthful of vinegary, oily bread will make whatever comes next taste like nothing,” she said.

Bread is intended to accompany dishes without starch, like meats or cold cuts, or to move food onto a fork and sop up juices.

No Separate Checks

There are two things Italians hate to do: impose on others and look cheap. Asking for separate restaurant tabs, itemizing who ate and drank what, or tossing multiple credit cards at a server can do both of those things.

“It’s a country that used to have an aristocracy,” which the U.S. lacks, Segan said. “There’s still an effort to emulate that, and avoid anything that looks crass.”

Try to pay with cash or one card, and then sort out the totals among your party. And if an Italian invites you to dinner, don’t make more than a weak effort to split the check. “Hospitality is king,” said Segan, “and your host is saying, ‘You’re an honored guest in my country.’”

Sharing Plates Is Considered Bad Manners

On one of my first trips to Italy, a group of six of us ordered three pastas to share — I think we even asked for extra plates. The server was clearly annoyed, and now I understand why.

Apart from looking stingy, sharing anything but an appetizer (antipasto) or dessert “is just not culturally done,” Minchilli said. “It’s bad manners. Why would you want someone eating off your plate with their fork?”

While sharing a taste of your food is fine, in Italy, “you order something because you want to eat the whole thing yourself,” Minchilli said. You may be able to ask for a half-serving of pasta, but that’s distinct from asking to split a portion.

Toasting Is An Etiquette Minefield

A “brindisi,” or toast, is about a lot more than clinking glasses. You have to make direct eye contact with each person in your party as you toast, and you never toast with water or an empty glass. Some of this, Segan said, comes from when wine was considered medicinal, and the toast “alla salute” (“to good health”) really meant just that.

Minchilli also cautioned against underhand pouring, which was once a tactic for slipping poison in a drink. That may be why both toasting with wine and making eye contact are so important — they’re proof that you’re not concerned about drinking poison and that you’re not some shifty-eyed assassin.