Let me set the scene: it’s a hot sticky summer afternoon, the sun is at its apex, you’re on a crowded terrasse and if you lean all the way forward and look to your left you can see a slither of the Eiffel Tower.
You’re sat inches away from your fellow diner, a chain-smoking Frenchman staring at you with disdain. You unsuccessfully try and pry an escargot from its shell and as your hands slip, you splatter parsley butter on your neighbour’s table. You laugh. He doesn’t. So you down your carafe of rosé and knock over his breadbasket as you woozily make your way to the loo.
Your Birkenstocks and hot pants felt appropriate when you left your hotel this morning but looking around now, you realise you’re the only person not wearing trousers and a jumper.
Finally the waiter puts an end to this humiliation by bringing you your bill. As he hands you the card machine, through the haze of rosé, you decipher letters and numbers: “Un don… 5 per cent… 15 per cent… 20 per cent.” Suddenly a fresh wave of fear washes over you: “Should I leave a tip?”
The Olympics are meant to be about sport. They’re meant to be about physical prowess and the beauty of self-advancement thanks to team work and self-sacrifice. Until they came to Paris. Since it was announced that the Games would be hosted by the global capital of gastronomy and je ne sais quoi these Games have turned into a minefield of French etiquette and shiver inducing faux-pas.
As if drinking too much, being too loud and dressing inappropriately weren’t enough to worry about, Britons now have a new anxiety unlocked: to tip or not to tip? Great, another thing to add to the never-ending list of how not to offend Parisians this summer.
Unfortunately, there is no straightforward answer. As a comedian who makes content all about the French and the English I have amassed a bicultural following extremely well-versed in French customs so I took this question to the the people via an Instagram poll and the results were… inconclusive. While 22 per cent said they always tip, 26 per cent said they never tip and 52 per cent said they only tip when the service is *chef’s kiss* exceptional.
Some restaurants in Paris have started to push customers to tip but the official line, according to the French tourism board, is that it is included in your bill, thus is invisible and non-negotiable. Perhaps this solves the mystery of why Parisians waiters are so… Parisian.
The tourism board does go on to say “if the service has been particularly good, you may wish to leave a tip in order to show your appreciation”. This was echoed by 52 per cent of people on my own poll (1,822 people and counting ) who said they would tip if the service was exceptional. But what counts as “exceptional” in a city famed for its sans frills service?
I suppose the simplest solution is: when in doubt, just tip. No one will be offended by a bit of extra money left on the table, right? Wrong! Some waiters consider it insulting. As one of my French followers put it: “We pay our waiters a living wage, this is not the US.”
Emeline, a Parisian-Geordie (yes, that’s a thing) echoed this: “I once left 30 cents change for €1.20 expresso and the waiter looked and said ‘reprend m’insulte pas‘ (take that back don’t insult me).”
None of this is particularly helpful when you’re hazily staring at a card machine wondering how not to be terribly gauche. The only solid, non-negotiable, direction I can give you on whether to tip or not is linguistic.
The French word for tip is pourboire which literally translates as for drink. In French tradition the purpose of the tip was to leave enough money for the waiter to buy themselves a drink. Not a percentage of the bill or a compensation for a poor wage but a glass of something at the end of the shift to say merci.
Whether they deserve a pastis, un demi or a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape is up to you.
Tatty Macleod is a French/English bilingual comedian