Attention tourists! Berlin eateries get cheeky with tips

Several restaurants in Berlin, one of Europe's most visited capitals, have begun issuing illicit bills to tourists with a message in English nudging them to pay more than is due.

Bills marked with the message service not included or tip not included are handed out routinely to customers at some establishments who did not order in German.

The addition in English or French, usually added with a stamp or printed, does not appear on bills in German. Laws governing the hospitality and catering sector stipulate that all prices include both tax and service.

Although waiters and waitresses earn a salary and are not reliant on tips for their base income, customers are invited to round the sum up, a practice that often leads Germans to add up to 10 per cent as a gratuity.

"But that gesture is completely optional," said the spokeswoman for the German hotel and gastronomy industry association Dehoga, Stefanie Heckel.

"You cannot demand a tip on the bill - it is not allowed," she added, noting that she had never heard of such practices.

But AFP spoke to around 20 foreign tourists who had had similar experiences during a stay in the German capital, which this year marks 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Over the course of three days, Daniel Dumond of France encountered such bills five times in five different eateries, to the extent that he thought Germany had changed its laws and that he was expected to add at least 15 per cent of the bill's sum for service.

A waitress at Friedas Schwester, a restaurant in the trendy Mitte district, said the establishment had started writing "service not included" on its bills in response to a steep decline in tips by foreign visitors.

"It always used to be around 10 per cent," said the waitress, who asked not be named.

"You get a salary but that does not include tips - many customers don't know that."

Manager Uwe Reddig of another cafè in the area, Hackescher Hof, said his staff had asked him to print "tip not included" on bills because they often felt short-changed by foreign guests.

Christian Taenzler of the Berlin tourism office has not registered a single complaint but acknowledged that such a mention could be misleading.