Is it offensive to the chef/host to finish all food on your plate in Italy?

I am Italian and, as such, I am pretty sure the answer is NO. Perhaps in a formal dinner, avoid making the plate bright and clean, i.e., do not dunk bread in the remaining sauce to enjoy all of it. But this is mostly so that you don’t look like you’re starving. That is called "scarpetta" and is acceptable or even recommended in familiar or friendly environments, when big amount of sauce is left, and there isn’t any more pasta on your plate. Indeed, a good homemade salsa di pomodoro or Genoese pesto deserves that. I do not do that unless I really feel like at home.

Ps: an answer which I did up vote is that by Caterpillaroz. I came back to say that both things are somehow "unclassy", leaving some food as well as make a plate clear. You might overthink at it, as another user suggests.

My experience in Northern Italy (mainly Milan, where I currently live) is that you need to try to eat as much as humanly possible and attempt to clean your plate. At a friend’s parents’ house, I do my best to polish off all of each course, but try to stop them before they load more of said course onto my plate so I have space for the other courses. I might say, “No, thanks, I already had more than enough, but it was just so delicious that I couldn’t stop eating!” Eating until in physical pain is totally normal here.

At a restaurant, I’ve luckily never been served something I didn’t like, so I’ve never left a plate full. I do stop eating when I’m full. (I’m paying them!) And then my poor embarrassed Italian friends, already groaning that they’re stuffed, eat the last of the food off of my plate to hide my rudeness aka dislike of physical discomfort. I try to tell them that I will bear the shame alone, but they just can’t allow any remaining food on the plate!

It greatly depends by region to region but mostly by person/family to person/family.

In south Italy and partially center they tend to give you lot of food and they don’t usually care if you finish it or not as long you eat lot of it.

In north Italy the portions are usually smaller and for this reason they may ask questions if you don’t finish the plate. This mostly because they think the portion they gave you was just right and if you don’t finish it it could be because something is wrong.

It also depends by the context, in high class restaurants they will simply politely ask if everything was okay, often both if you finish or not the plate.

In “osterie” type restaurants the portions will usually be bigger but again, it will mostly depends by the waiting stuff.

If you eat in some family’s home then the rules above about the region usually apply but there are good chances you may meet a southern family in the north and center of Italy because of a migration happened in the past when it was very difficult to find a job in the south.

To answer your question, there isn’t a strict rule to follow. Be polite and try not to ask a lot of different plates just to try them all if you plan to eat just a very small portion of it. Italian dishes are usually very rich and are thought to be eaten as follows:

• optional starter
• one main course and/or second course
• dessert
• espresso (never cappuccino after lunch/dinner!)

If they ask you why you left anything in the plate it’s usually enough to say that you eat too much. This will save you from the akward situation in case you didn’t like the plate and will also make a compliment to the chef because he will think the portion was big enough to satisfy your appetite.

This could be regional. My mother-in-law (born in Italy) will bring another plate of whatever it was if you empty it – you can’t have had enough first time. It took a long time for me to convince her to ask me first.

The problem is, she’ll bring a plate of something different if you didn’t finish the first plate – you obviously didn’t like it. After numerous experiments, I think I’ve found the sweet spot of how much to leave to keep her happy. Certainly less than a mouthful!

She comes from a rural area, where manual labour is the norm – and appetites larger as a result, and I can see where it might make sense there.

As such, I think the answer is context sensitive – North/South, City/Rural, Restaurant/Home. Good luck getting it right!

I believe you’re overthinking this. Unless you are clearly a local (so that you’re expected to know the local customs), nobody in a restaurant will be offended if you finish your plate, or if you leave something on it.

Barely touching your food and leaving your plate quasi full will be noted in most places and can naturally be offensive to the cook. Though if I really didn’t like the food, I wouldn’t force myself to eat it just to please someone.

Italian here: Leaving a “Little bit” of leftover is not too offensive however is quite unclassy, it is a behavior typically associated with the “new riches”, as if “I used to be hungry now I can even leave the food on my plate”.
If you can, avoid & enjoy the whole plate of (great) food.

It is possible that the person who told you that is mistaking Italy for Thailand or China. Other users have already pointed out that this particular custom is actually the opposite in Italy, so my guess is that either the person who told you that is from the period where that applied, or they just misunderstood their own source and thought it was about Italy.

http://www.learnthaiculture.com/thai_culture_thai_eating_etiquette.shtml states the following about finishing your plate:

Don’t eat all the food on your plate. That’s it. If you finish all the food on your plate, you are insulting the cook or host. You are telling them that they didn’t feed you enough, and that they are poor cooks. For a westerner this rule may be a little hard to follow. In western culture we are taught to ‘clean your plate.’ ‘How dare you not eat your beans, there are starving kids in Ethiopia!’ But don’t worry this rule isn’t followed to often. At restaurants its perfectly ok to clean your plate. If you are invited to eat a Thai persons house where an elder cooks the meal, then follow the rule. I have once even seen the cook of the meal herself intentionally scoop some rice to the side of her plate to be polite.

Something similar applies in China, according to the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/empty-plate-cultural-differences_us_5807822de4b0dd54ce368d7e

As Hatef already told you in his answer it is really the other way around!

Said that, the thing is a bit more complicated and it is much more context-dependent than Hatef said.

First of all, you said chef/host, so I guess you are interested in local customs in private situations. In that case it depends greatly on the situation. In general if you don’t finish your food you may be asked why, especially if you didn’t stop who served the food from filling your plate. You can get away with the explanation that you are already full, or that you are almost full, and the room left over in your stomach is for that tasty-looking cake you know will come next! 🙂

Of course, if you are in an informal situation and you are in friendly relationships with the host, you could also say the truth and say that you wanted to try that food, but just discovered you didn’t like it too much.

Note that in some parts of Italy, especially in the center and southern part of the country, especially in informal situations, it is customary to show hospitality by filling the plate of a guest to the brim! Or to serve a lunch with way too many different courses! So, if you are not a “great eater”, be prepared to an effort! 🙂

In a restaurant the things are not always as Hatef said. The description he gave is correct for high level restaurants (i.e. where waiters are dressed formally or wearing a uniform), but most commonly you won’t be asked why you left something in your plate, unless you ate almost nothing. It is much more common, after you finish a course, to be kindly asked if everything was fine.

Moreover, in many pizzerias and restaurants “with an informal attitude” (for a lack of better term) you won’t be treated with all such ceremonies. I don’t mean they are rude, they simply are too busy and the personnel will just take the orders and deliver the dishes without much formalism (this is more frequent in those that are less expensive).

Yes, sometimes you find some chef that gets irritated if customers don’t like his dishes, but it is something fairly uncommon, even in high level restaurants (for the price they charge, they usually don’t want the client to get annoyed!).

BTW, “fare la scarpetta”, which once was considered very rude because it was the hallmark of poor people (who were considered underlings, especially when Italy was still a monarchy), now is fairly customary (if you liked the food) and not frowned upon in most situations. Nowadays it is just considered a bit inelegant, especially in very formal situations. For example: a team of engineers or teachers going out for lunch during off time could well be caught doing “la scarpetta” and no-one will care. During a formal lunch where a CEO of a company meets potential industrial customers, probably you won’t see that behavior.

I would say it’s the other way around. Italian chefs don’t like to see leftovers on the plate as it could signal that you didn’t like the food. Once, in a local bar in which I have lunch every day, I left with an unfinished plate on the table, and I was interrogated the next day to make sure nothing was wrong with the food.

However, there is another activity in Italy called: Fare La Scarpetta, which means, after finishing your food, you clean the plate from the sauce with a piece of bread (like this).

As written in this article:

Italy could be divided into two groups: those who do the scarpetta, and those (few) who don’t.

Doing Scarpetta is considered an informal activity and you rarely find people do it in the restaurants (especially in the northern parts of Italy).