Episode 9 Rip Off Britain

There's a lot we don't know about the food on our plates,

and the shops and the labels don't always tell you the whole story.

I think they encourage you to buy more than you need,

and that causes a lot of waste.

Whether you're staying in or going out,

you've told us you can feel ripped off

by the promises made for what you eat,

and what you pay for it.

How do you know that it's half price?

Right, so what they've done,

they've bumped the price up and they've knocked it down.

From claims that don't stack up, to the secrets behind the packaging,

we'll uncover the truth about Britain's food,

so you can be sure you're getting what you expect, at the right price.

Your food, your money - this is Rip-Off Britain.

Hello and welcome to Rip-Off Britain,

where for this special series

we're focusing on anything and everything to do with food.

And today, it's all about eating out.

But as you know, getting somebody to cook for you has to be one of

life's true pleasures, so we want to make sure

that when you do get time to treat yourself,

you can more easily interpret the prices

that you're being asked to pay,

and give you the confidence that you really are

getting value for money.

Because whether it's fine dining or a cafe pit stop,

we're going to be leaving no stone unturned,

in order to help you choose well and spend wisely,

and of course, thoroughly enjoy every minute

of knowing that at the end of it,

you don't have to do the washing up.

Oh, yes!

'Coming up...' Good afternoon, can I take your order?

'..I try my hand at being a waitress,

'as we investigate whether the big names play fair

'when it comes to tipping.'

What would you like?

-On white or brown bread?

-Erm, white.

-On white.

-Sea bass?

-Thank you.

-Enjoy your meal.

-Thank you.

And, from tips to tipples -

what's a fair price for that restaurant bottle of wine?

Just wait until you hear the profit that some places are making.

We'll have advice to stop your choice causing sour grapes.

I'm not happy about it.

I think it's really, really disgusting

that the restaurants can buy a really cheap bottle of wine

and then sell it to me at an exorbitant price,

and I'm not happy about it at all.

Now to a topic that, the last time we touched on it,

during our live series,

we really did provoke quite a response,

demonstrating very clearly that it's something about which

many of you feel particularly strongly,

and we're talking about tipping in restaurants.

More specifically, about exactly

where your money goes if you decide

that you WOULD like to reward the person who's given you good service.

Now, it's a topic that's controversial

and not entirely straightforward,

so I've been looking into some of the very different ways

that individual establishments tackle this.

And as you'll see...

..I did a spot of moonlighting along the way!

Now you've probably wondered it yourself at the end of a meal,

and you've chosen to leave a tip to show your gratitude

to the waitress or waiter

who's been at your beck and call all evening.

Will that tip go into the pockets of staff - as you might be hoping -

or might the restaurant itself keep some of it back?

Well, many people who work in restaurants

would say that little extra you leave behind

can make all the difference to them.

And that was certainly the case for Megan Risley

when she worked as a waitress in a local pub.

I worked there for around five to six months.

I liked the atmosphere of the place.

No-one had, like, set jobs,

you could kind of get involved in everything.

You were kind of free to run food and take orders,

it wasn't like you had to be this, this and this -

you could be independent.

-Cheers, thank you.

-Enjoy your coffee.

In this pub, the tips were collected in a jar and then split

between the staff, with - as is common -

a certain percentage going to

the sometime neglected kitchen staff,

and the rest divided up amongst

the serving staff working that shift.

I thought the tip policy worked really, really well.

The kitchen got a certain percentage of the tips, which benefited them,

because they obviously contributed to the overall success

of the evening, and it was also good for the waitresses.

But when the business started to struggle,

the pub's policy suddenly changed.

They started losing money, so all the tips were taken away

and they were put towards the company.

So at the end of a shift, none of the staff

that performed on that shift got tips,

and neither did the kitchen. It was, like, unrecognised.

All those tips that YOU'VE earned, you didn't get to see sight of.

But it isn't just in failing businesses

that the policies around this can cause a kerfuffle.

Very often, as you'll know,

some restaurants include a service charge on the bill.

It's usually optional, but in December 2016,

the Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurant Le Gavroche

made headlines when it was revealed that NONE

of its 13% service charge went to staff.

Instead, every penny was kept by the business and treated as revenue,

a policy that its owner Michel Roux Jr

defended very publicly months later.

If a restaurant or a hotel pays their staff the market price,

and then distribute the whole of the service charge without removing

any of it, that restaurant or hotel will be bust in three months.

After the dust had settled, Michel Roux Jr abandoned that policy,

announcing he was scrapping the service charge

and that in future the bills would make clear that,

while no further payment was necessary,

a customer could still leave a tip if they desired,

which WOULD be divided fully amongst the staff.

But as that story made clear,

it's entirely up to the individual restaurants

how they approach tipping.

There are no laws or set guidelines for restaurants on what

they can charge for the service they give, or indeed who gets the cash.

But a code of practice set out by the government

states that restaurants should ensure

that their policy is made clear to customers,

and "all workers should be fully informed

"on the distribution and breakdown

"of service charges, tips and gratuities."

But at this hotel restaurant here on the shores of Lake Windermere,

they do things a little bit differently.

-Welcome...

-'Thomas Noblett runs the Langdale Chase Hotel.

'Not only has he recently scrapped the service charge here,

'but any tips that ARE left

'are put into a donation box to be given to charity.

'The staff don't get any.

'But Thomas insists that's fairer to the customer,

'because it's clear from the off exactly how much you will pay,

'without any extra being added on.'

If you went into a supermarket and you have, say,

a £100 - for argument's sake - shop...

So you turn up at the till and they say,

"That will be 115, please, madam."

And you say, "What for?"

"Because it's a service charge." You'd be outraged.

Thomas, when you interview staff and tell them,

"We have no service charge and a no tipping policy", how do they react?

We're always up front. This is what we've got to offer.

Down the road, they probably do offer service charge and tipping,

you're very welcome to go to the two.

But what we DO offer here is brand-new staff accommodation,

where they get board and lodgings...

for that, plus their two meals a day.

So that's like a tip or a service charge,

included in their wage structure.

But I wanted to see what Thomas's customers think

of his "no tip" policy, and about tipping in general,

and the best way to do that is

to roll up my sleeves and offer my services to help serve lunch.

-Good afternoon.

-Good afternoon.

-Can I take your orders?

Do you want to know what the specials are today?

-Yes, please.

-What would you like?

-On white or brown bread?

-Erm, white.

-Sir?

-I think I'll be adventurous today.

Right, what are you going to choose?

So I'm going to have the fish and chips.

-Because he doesn't get them at home!

-Fish and chips!

'Once my covers are fed and watered...'

-Sea bass. Enjoy your meal.

-Thank you.

'..it's crunch time for me,

'as I find out what they think of their waitress.'

Now, did I give you good service?

You gave us excellent service, thank you very much.

Anywhere else, I'm sure I'd be giving you a significant tip.

And does it worry you that very often, when you do,

the tip doesn't actually go to the staff anyway?

Well, I will try to ask the question,

"Does it go to the staff?", but you don't know, do you?

I mean, sometimes the staff would not feel able to say,

-"No, it doesn't".

-Yes.

If there's a service charge, we'll pay it, but we won't tip as well.

-No.

-What I tend to do is always have cash in my hand, as Brian knows,

and I'll slip the waiter or waitress a fiver or whatever.

Do you think more people should follow the system

that they have here in this hotel,

that it would be better if there was no tipping policy?

Yes, I do. I think it should be incorporated

in the price of the meal,

the service is there, it's a service industry.

Well, I would have given you a tip today.

-I think you did very well.

-Thank you!

But I shouldn't give up the day job just yet then!

SHE SIGHS

It's good to sit down after the lunchtime rush.

But, you know, what's interesting is,

that even though all of those customers recognised

that tipping is part of the service culture and that they will pay a tip

if it's expected of them,

every one of them approve what Tom is doing here in the restaurant

and would like to see a "no tipping" policy spread, well,

in other areas of the service industries.

But I have to say that waiting staff

really do earn their money, you know,

so let's see what they think about it.

When you both came here to work and were told,

"No tipping, no service charge", what did you think?

Did you think it's worth doing that, or, "Gosh, I'm not

"going to get the money that I thought I was going to get"?

My rule is you shouldn't go anywhere expecting to get anything extra

-than what's on the paper.

-Do you ever feel that

because there's no service charge and no tipping,

that perhaps, financially, you're losing out?

I'm not losing, because anyway, if I will need to rent a room

somewhere here, it would be more expensive, you know?

You get meals as well, don't you?

-Yeah, exactly.

-I don't want to interrupt you,

because I know you're getting ready for dinner tonight, aren't you?

-I certainly am.

-But I just wonder, you're working in an establishment

where there's a "no service charge" and a "no tipping" policy.

What do you think about that?

Erm, I think it levels out the playing field,

it's more even across the hotel for the staff.

There's no arguments between the staff.

The waiting staff haven't got more money than the kitchen staff do,

we're both here, we both work the same hours,

-and it's an equal playing field.

-Yeah.

Of course, staff elsewhere won't always

get access to accommodation or the other benefits

they get here,

and while that probably DOES make up for what's lost in tips,

it is interesting how staff and customers seem

right behind Thomas's approach.

Now, it's not going to work for every

restaurant, cafe and hotel throughout the country,

but what it does do is open up the argument about the whole question

of tipping in general.

And that's something we wanted to explore a bit further,

by getting a clearer picture of what happens in the big chains

that dominate the restaurant business.

We asked 27 of the best-known names how they manage their tips,

and the results couldn't have been more varied.

For example, Ask Italian told us that any tips

paid by credit or debit card are split,

with 50% going to the waiter or waitress serving your table,

and the other 50% shared amongst the other non-management members

of the team working that day.

Meanwhile, staff members at Cote Restaurants

pay £2 out of the service charge

for each shift they work, to pay for a meal and drink -

a policy the chain says is widely supported by its staff.

And Gaucho Grill takes 16% from staff tips,

which the company tells us is put towards

things like staff incentives.

PizzaExpress has very publicly changed its policy,

after criticism of the way the chain used to retain a percentage

of all tips paid by card, so that tax is paid on them -

the policy Zizzi restaurants still carry out.

But while it isn't as simple as saying

there's a right or a wrong way

for any restaurant to tackle all this,

trade union Unite are calling for staff to receive 100% of their tips,

and Pizza Hut is one of the chains already on board.

Kathryn Austin is their Chief People and Marketing Officer.

The reason that we have that policy is that we believe that

our team members deserve every penny that the guests give them

for the hard work and the great service that they provide.

None of the tips goes to management

and none of it goes to head office or any form of administration.

We believe that, if our teams are happy, our guests will be happy.

TGI Friday's, Carluccio's and Gourmet Burger Kitchen

also allow staff to keep 100% of their tips.

But in London, restaurant owner Alex Wrethman

has been running his own campaign on tipping.

All right, mate, how are you?

Whatever their policy on service charges or gratuities,

he'd like to see all British hospitality businesses

make it easier and publicly available,

so that customers and staff alike know where they stand.

If you've got a restaurant where

they share the service charge amongst all the departments,

any member of staff applying into that restaurant

can know that and be either happy or unhappy with that

and work there or not work there. And similarly,

a member of the public coming in and spending their money there

can understand what's actually happening

with that service charge when they hand over the cash.

In Alex's own restaurant, he's chosen to go down the route

of an optional service charge added to the bill.

We share that entirely with people in the site,

so nothing to head office,

and that is also distributed between kitchen, bar and front of house.

So for me, everybody that touches the guest experience -

from preparing the food, preparing the drinks,

meeting and greeting at the door, but nobody that's on the admin side.

It's obviously a consumer issue. People want to know where

their money is going, and that's fair enough,

I totally agree with that.

It's because there's been such a debate on the subject

that, in 2015, the then Business Secretary Sajid Javid

ordered an investigation into what was described as

"the abuse of tipping in restaurants".

The consultation suggested it should be made clearer to customers

that tips and service charges are optional

and that staff should receive their tips

with legally limited deductions to cover costs of admin.

But, at present, these are only proposals.

So, for now, it remains up to individual restaurants

to choose what they do.

But former waitress Megan is amongst those

who would like to see that change,

because she remembers only too well

how receiving a tip isn't simply about getting a few extra pounds.

I definitely think that receiving tips,

not only is it an extra tenner in your pocket, it's like,

"I did well on this shift, it's been busy."

And it makes the next time you go in, for you to aim a bit higher.

It's like, "I could get a good amount here

"and have dinner tonight, something nice."

Still to come on Rip-Off Britain -

we task a royal butler with looking into

the great British afternoon tea.

So how many of these examples really would be fit for a king?

Well, I can safely say I'm absolutely shocked.

I don't quite know what to say.

Next, we want to decipher what for many of us

remains one of the most bewildering parts of eating out -

the wine list.

I'm sure, like me, you've been offered page upon page

to choose from. In fact, some places

now offer more wine options than food.

And it's easy to see why.

Because last year, our love of a good glass of red or white

generated almost £11 billion

for the restaurant and drinks retailers.

But restaurant critic Jay Rayner recently joined the ranks

of those saying that restaurants are overcharging us for wine.

He went on to suggest that because of the mark-up,

we should always buy the house wine in restaurants

and drink the best wine at home. So, is he right?

Wine lists can sometimes read like Shakespearean verse.

It's all "full-bodied this" and "earthy that",

and "elegant the other".

So, how DO those of us who aren't connoisseurs

choose which one to have with our meal?

Well, we've put together our own wine list to find out.

I'd go for the cheapest one, or I'd ask to taste it.

I always go for a house wine,

because you know they're going to be cheaper.

I don't think the price of wine is worth it, really,

when you consider how much you can possibly pay for it

in the supermarkets.

It's very clear that, for many of you,

price really is a key factor when deciding

which bottle to choose in a restaurant.

The trouble is, most of us will have no idea

if the price we are seeing is a fair one.

Simply going for the cheapest won't necessarily mean

you're getting the best deal.

The average price we pay for a bottle of wine in the supermarket

is £5.40.

Whereas in a restaurant, it's £15.62.

While you may expect to pay extra if your wine is being served,

just how much more are the restaurants

typically asking us to pay?

It's been reported that a swish restaurant in London

has inflated the price tag of one wine over 500%.

And while not all restaurants will have a mark-up quite so dramatic,

Master of Wines John Downes says that,

when it comes to deciding what to charge for wines, as they say,

there ain't no rules.

The mark-up's paying for - so chefs and restaurateurs tell me -

their overheads. I can accept that.

But for me, that's no real excuse to go

more than three times the retail price.

John thinks restaurants should let customers know

how much mark-up there is on the wines they serve

by making clear their pricing policy on the menu.

I think that people have a real battle when they see a wine list.

You can see, when the wine list comes,

it goes round like pass the parcel because nobody

wants to make that decision. That's because people don't know

much about wine. And that's a little sad.

CORK POPS

Well, to see how easy it is to navigate this complex world

of pricing when eating out,

we've set up an experiment with a group of self-confessed wine lovers.

They're no experts,

but they do enjoy the odd tipple when they're out.

I quite like wine with a meal.

Usually rare for me to drink it without food.

But, yes, I find it a very sociable drink

-When I'm eating.

-I do like wine.

I like both with a meal and socially as well.

And who better to wait on the ladies than our grape guru John?

Ladies. Good evening. Welcome to the Rip-Off Britain Wine Bar.

I hope you have a lovely evening. I'm going to give you each a menu.

What I'd like you to do tonight

is to choose just two wines off the list.

The list we've created has four different white wines,

priced the same as we've seen them sold for in UK restaurants.

But which will our guests choose, and why?

I always like New Zealand.

So...I'll go for the Frost Pocket.

Two or four? Four first, hopefully.

THEY LAUGH

So on the menu today is an Italian Trebbiano Chardonnay,

priced at £19...

a wine made with a fashionable Verdejo grape at £22...

and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc for £23.50.

And finally, a French white for £72.

So, ladies, have we chosen?

-ALL: Yes, we have.

-Unanimous or not?

Yes, eventually.

A little bit of friction? Anyway, that's normal with wine.

-What would you like?

-The first one we agreed on was the Yealands,

-the Frost Pocket.

-Lovely, good choice.

The ladies' first choice is this New Zealand number, priced at £23.50.

Sauvignon Blanc, that's lovely. And the second one is?

We'd like to try the Puligny-Montrachet.

Super choice.

Next, they pushed the boat out and went for the most expensive wine,

a French white, currently selling in a restaurant at £72.

I will get it up for you straightaway.

You'll enjoy those two. Wonderful. Two minutes. Thank you.

But will the ladies be as happy with the choices once John reveals

the gulf between the restaurant and retail cost?

Ladies, I have your wine.

-Good.

-They may just find the prices require a stiffer drink to digest.

The New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, the first wine we tasted, I am told

the profit to the restaurant was 165%.

Wow, that's a lot.

It certainly is.

We found the same bottle for sale online at just £8.85,

almost £15 cheaper.

On to the more expensive French tipple,

which was on our menu for £72.

Although hardly a snip online at £38.50,

the restaurant price has a considerably smaller mark-up

of just 87%.

-So what do you think of that?

-I suppose it's understandable,

with the more expensive one.

Had they put 165% on it...

-Exactly.

-..they would have sold a lot less!

Exactly. But did you enjoy the wine enough

-to pay the £72 to take in the lower mark-up?

-I didn't.

Exactly. Very interesting.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

In fact, our ladies have chosen rather well,

as the two wines they DIDN'T go for could be giving restaurants

an even bigger profit. The Verdejo from Rueda had a mark-up of 216%.

THEY GASP

But it was the cheeky little Italian number that

had the cheekiest mark-up as well.

On the Trebbiano Chardonnay, from Italy...

are you ready?

The mark-up...is 225%.

-Wow.

-We chose the right ones.

-We chose the right ones!

Really not good.

-It's obscene.

-It is.

I'm not happy about it. I think it's...

really, really disgusting that the restaurants are allowed to do that,

that they can buy a really cheap bottle of wine

and then sell it to me at a really expensive price,

an exorbitant price. I'm not happy about it at all.

But the restaurants, again,

perhaps in their favour a little bit,

they need to make a profit on food and everything to run a business.

But that's a hell of a profit.

With just those four wines, we've seen a huge range of mark-ups.

So to see if that's what we can expect wherever we eat out,

we've examined the menus of the top ten high street restaurant chains

to find out how their wine prices

are topped up once they hit your table.

Now, it wasn't possible to compare all these wines.

But on the day we looked, Prezzo had the biggest mark-up,

on an Italian white, with a hike close to 270%.

When we asked the chain why,

Prezzo told us it is standard practice

to take into consideration...

..on top of the actual cost of the wine

to help ensure that its customers enjoy a...

The chain said it is constantly reviewing its wine list

and prices, and aims to pass on cost savings were possible.

The big name with the smallest mark-up was Beefeater.

It charged us £10.99 for a wine

that we found on sale online for £5.99, a rise of 83.5%.

But the biggest problem we uncovered was the sheer inconsistency.

Not one restaurant had the same mark-up on all of their wines,

making it almost impossible for consumers to tell

if they are paying a fair price. Of course, restaurants buy in bulk,

and if you're looking for some of these wines online,

you may have to buy six at a time to get them for the prices we found.

But with no regulations or industry guidelines restricting

what the restaurants can charge,

they can set whatever prices they like.

Neil Gill owns a restaurant in North London,

and after 18 years in the trade,

he knows better than most that restaurants need

to make a decent margin on their drinks,

but he thinks that in some places that's just got out of hand.

Wine mark-up is very important for a restaurant.

We're an industry that has a lot of costs,

so therefore we do need margin.

Where it gets a little bit silly is at the sort of top end of the list.

The things mark-up pays for are the property, the rent, the people,

the wages, the promotion, a bit of marketing, a bit of advertising.

So the mark-up does pay for everything,

but it gets to a point where things have been paid for,

and then it becomes perhaps a little bit extreme.

Neil has come up with an innovative and simpler way

of charging for the wine at his restaurant.

He just adds £10 on to every bottle he sells,

however much it initially cost.

I wanted to have a win-win situation,

so that... I thought in a local restaurant,

people wouldn't want to spend too much money on the wine,

so rather than them just come in and buy the house wine,

make the same cash margin for me on some of the better wines,

the more interesting wines, then everyone's aware,

they get a better wine and I make the same money.

With Neil's approach still rare,

you might think you're stuck when it comes to knowing

if a restaurant's charging over the odds,

but luckily, technology is at hand to help.

Several phone apps have been developed

to try and give you a better sense of a wine's true cost.

You can download some of them for absolutely free,

to compare the prices of plonk wherever you are.

As a technology journalist and editor of the website TechSPARK,

Jamie Middleton reviews a lot of online tools.

Apps like Wine-Searcher and Vivino,

they work by you actually scanning a bottle or doing a search,

just typing in the name of the wine,

and this will then bring in information

from retailers, vineyards, reviews.

It will all aggregate together into one screen,

then you can see all that information about that wine, including price.

So the benefit of these apps is that they're very easy to use,

you also get a really good idea of the price, the average price there,

although the way it's worked out is a little complicated,

it still gives you a really good idea

of whether that wine that you're buying

is being bought for the right price.

But do these apps really work?

Well, we've given our wine tasters two of the most popular,

to try out on the four bottles in front of them.

They're using apps from Vivino,

which has 23 million users who upload wine prices

and reviews from right around the world.

And Wine-Searcher, whose 4.7 million users a month

can check where particular bottles are stocked

and at what price.

Will either of them be any help if you're trying

to make sense of a restaurant wine list?

-It was... The year was...

-2015.

I thought the app was brilliant.

I can't see me sitting in a restaurant using it.

But I think you'd probably learn the wines you liked

and what you expected to pay for them.

And maybe if there was one at £70 that you thought,

"I'd like to try that", maybe you would look.

I do think to be able to look on the internet before

you go out and check the mark-up before you go,

I think that is probably more useful for somebody like me.

Personally I would not use the app in a restaurant.

I think when I go to a restaurant,

I go to enjoy a night out and I don't really worry about

what I've spent on the wine at the time.

I might worry about it afterwards when I pay the bill,

and I might check when I get home, to see if I've been ripped off!

-GLORIA:

-But Jamie Middleton's advice with apps like these is to use them

as a guide, rather than taking their contents as gospel.

There are downsides to the apps,

for example the price listed might actually not be a reflection

of the reality, because those prices are pulled from online prices,

offline prices. Consequently, that could be skewed

in a way which suggests the price you're paying is not right.

Apps like these are a start,

but the problem remains that while restaurants can charge

whatever they want, unless you're a wine buff,

the only decision you can make with confidence

is are you prepared to pay their prices

or would you rather dine without wine?

It was interesting tonight, to see what the mark-up was, definitely,

and I am shocked and disappointed.

But no, if I go out for a meal, I go out for a good time, and yes,

I'll pay whatever price they ask.

Now, what could be more quintessentially British

than taking afternoon tea?

Sitting in dainty surroundings, sipping from the finest china,

and nibbling away on a freshly made cucumber sandwich,

possibly with a vicar lurking in the background?

It's a tradition that's been around since the 1830s,

but these days, teatime rarely comes cheap,

and those who do fork out for the luxury experience

sometimes end up thinking it wasn't really worth it.

Because if you want a genuine upper-crust tea, the finer details,

such as how those sandwich crusts are cut,

apparently make all the difference.

So here's a handy guide to how it should be served and how much

you should expect to pay for it.

The origins of what we now know as the traditional afternoon tea

lie in the upper class drawing rooms of the early 19th century.

In those days, dinner was served fashionably late,

but when the then Duchess of Bedford complained about feeling hungry

in the afternoon, the tea was born,

and it wasn't long before all of high society

was filling its boots.

Now, of course, we can all aspire to enjoy afternoon tea,

and in recent years, doing just that has become hugely popular.

Some of the most prestigious venues can be booked up weeks in advance,

while at the other end of the scale,

the high street store Patisserie Valerie

last year sold over 133,000 of them,

coining them in a cool £2.3 million -

nearly twice as much as the previous year.

Margaret Boyd from Gateshead and her friend Ann

are big fans of a classic afternoon tea.

That's lovely.

The perfect afternoon tea for me would have to be

a nice, well dressed table,

nice china, fine bone china,

delicately cut sandwiches and small, sort of, scones.

But a recent outing with some friends

left Margaret feeling distinctly underwhelmed.

I expected to have fine china and it wasn't, it was just the normal,

ordinary catering china.

The scones were a bit rock hard, had been warmed up,

and I think they'd been warmed up too long.

And then the selection of cakes,

which I thought would be a bit more fancy,

were just like a macaroon and a lemon tart, and a little tiramisu.

It was not quite what I expected. I was disappointed.

Now, if you think Margaret was just being fussy - you're wrong.

There are very particular rules on how a proper afternoon tea

should be served, not to mention what should be in it,

and they don't include tiramisu.

But Margaret's by no means alone in finding her afternoon treat

left a rather sour taste.

Online review sites are full of outraged comments

from other customers,

either about what their tea included or how much it cost,

and it's not unreasonable to expect the best when, chances are,

you're going to be paying a very pretty penny for the privilege.

Margaret's hard scones and tiramisu cost nearly £20 per person.

So, just how much should an afternoon tea set you back?

I would never pay more than £25-30 for afternoon tea.

If it was just sandwiches and tea, then, yeah, OK,

let's call it £12 or something like that.

For a very special occasion I'd pay £20.

A few pounds, that's fine, but much more than that,

it seems like it's very expensive.

Now, you will of course pay more if there's Prosecco on the side,

but we want to stick with tradition

and try and establish the cost of the classic afternoon offering,

which typically includes tea, freshly cut sandwiches,

scones and home-made treats.

If you were buying the ingredients from a supermarket,

you'd pay just over £5 a person.

But of course, when you go out for tea, you're paying for the service,

the ambience and the sheer indulgence,

all of which might cost you around £12.50 a person on the high street.

However, choose a ritzier venue and the sky's the limit.

The priciest we've come across is at the famous Claridge's Hotel

in London, where a traditional afternoon tea

will cost you a breathtaking £60 per person.

But for that price you'll be treated to the creations of pastry chefs

with a world-class reputation,

in rather splendid Art Deco surroundings,

where the rich and famous have taken tea for over 150 years.

But if it's hard to put a definitive price on an afternoon tea,

how easy is it to judge what you should be getting for your money?

Well, we've come to York,

in the region which drinks more tea than any other,

to find out if the locals' love of a good brew will help them identify

what should come with it.

According to a website

devoted to afternoon teas,

that are specific treats that must be included

for the fully authentic experience.

Let's see if the shoppers here can guess

which of this selection are on the list.

Starting with, of course, the key ingredient.

It's got to be... Well, tea, obviously.

Correct, but in an afternoon tea,

it should always be loose and never in bags.

-Got to have some clotted cream and jam with a scone.

-Yeah.

Also right, scones are a staple on any self-respecting cake stand.

And clotted cream is the ideal accompaniment.

But our next shopper isn't quite so au fait with the finer details.

I'm a savoury person, so the sandwiches

would have to be the priority.

And the crust, I think, is probably the best bit, actually.

Uh-oh. Afternoon tea sandwiches should be strictly crusts off.

Should it? No, definitely crust on.

Why did loaves have crusts if that's the case?

Should have been designed without crusts.

Ooh, cupcakes would sound good.

Mousses, they sound good.

Oh, dear. It may be our shopper's birthday,

but it's a big fat no to those cupcakes.

It's a selection of handmade cakes and pastries

that you should expect to be served.

So the shop ones we took out

probably wouldn't make the cut

either.

And she can kiss goodbye to that chocolate mousse, too.

Oh, yeah, but I like chocolate mousse.

But what about a bit of fizz?

Champagne, Prosecco... We've never had Prosecco.

-So we'd say champagne.

-Cupcake.

Well, in a truly traditional afternoon tea, that's a no-no, too.

In fact, from the products on offer, only five - the scones, pastries,

loose leaf tea, crustless sandwiches

and dainty cakes - are bone fide.

The rest, including those tea bags, are all strictly off-limits.

But one man in no doubt about

what you should be getting is Grant Harrold.

A traditional afternoon tea is a light meal,

it is not a state banquet.

A butler for over two decades, Grant was a member of the royal household.

And his services are in demand across Europe

when it comes to defining

the traditionally British ways of doing things.

So who better to test a range of teas

to see if they are up to scratch?

We sent Grant to five Manchester establishments that advertised

a traditional afternoon tea, but at very different prices.

Each time, after sampling the atmosphere and the service,

he sneaked out the food itself

to bring back to a special location -

our very own tasting HQ.

When it comes to afternoon tea, it's not just about the food and drink.

Other factors come into play, such as the perfect setting.

The perfect ambience.

And of course, the wonderful service.

Thank you.

So, how does he rate the first tea,

which came from a tearoom and cost £18.95?

Lovely ambience, very friendly staff, but I warn you,

you have to wait for a little while to be seated.

And even when you sit down, the service can be slightly slow.

I was very impressed with the array of teas that they had.

In fact, when I asked for some China tea, the lady said,

"Which kind would you like?"

The downside is, I wasn't offered any lemon with my Earl Grey.

As far as presentation goes, as you can see,

there's a wonderful array of sandwiches, scones and some cakes.

Now, the scone does look slightly overdone.

And finally, the bruschetta, don't quite know how that fits in.

Overall, I'll award it a seven out of ten.

Next was the most expensive of the lot,

a £23 affair from a hotel chain.

It, too, had a couple of additions Grant didn't approve of,

including that wrap.

But its selection of carefully-crafted handmade cakes

meant he scored it rather better.

On the downside, I was only offered one sandwich.

So if you've got a savoury tooth, maybe not a good idea to visit.

But overall, I would give it a nine out of ten.

Right at the other end of the price scale was a tea from a coffee house

costing £12.90 a head.

Here Grant DID get more sandwiches, but on this occasion,

he wasn't impressed.

It was the worst cup of tea that I've had today,

and as you can see from the selection in front of me,

they do offer quite a few bits, but the finger sandwiches, well,

it puts a whole new meaning into fingered sandwiches.

Overall, I'm sorry to say, that I'll be awarding it a five out of ten.

Perhaps they were just having a bad day.

But when it came to a £22 tea from one of the city's smarter hotels,

Grant was purring - mainly.

The ambience is very traditional,

and I even noted people dressed up for this experience,

which is lovely.

The staff are very friendly, I was served very quickly, and again,

as you see, there is a wonderful selection in front of me.

The tea, I must add, was very delicious.

The downside for me was the china was very commercial,

the sliced lemon from my China tea,

it's more like something I'd be putting in my gin and tonic.

And the tea strainer looked like something

out of one's Christmas cracker.

So overall, I'd award it a nine out of ten.

Thanks to its lovely atmosphere and selection of sandwiches,

that was Grant's favourite of the teas he tried.

He did attempt to sample another one at a city centre hotel chain,

but was scandalised by what happened next.

Well, I can safely say I am absolutely shocked.

It is just gone in there to get my fifth and final tea,

and they've said that afternoon tea has stopped.

But it's 4.20pm now,

and traditionally I teach people that tea

is normally between 4:00pm and 6:00pm.

So I don't quite know what to say.

Well, that particular establishment told us that,

though it advertises afternoon tea as served between 2:00pm and 4:00pm,

it will try to meet requests for tea

outside of these times with advance notice.

Well, as you know, on this programme,

we're not in favour of paying more for anything without good reason.

But Grant did find that, in this particular test,

he got what he paid for.

It was the pricier afternoon teas that he enjoyed the most.

And that's because he says they followed his key principles,

which are ambience, good service

and a wonderful array of the correct food.

Then there's the etiquette around how

a proper afternoon tea should be served.

And it seems there are quite a few traditions

that we should observe when tucking into one.

Grant has picked out the three he considers the most important.

Beginning with how to drink the tea itself.

When it comes to stirring the tea,

remember it's a back-and-forward motion.

We're not going to go round in circles

because we're not creating a mini tsunami.

When it comes to the etiquette with scones,

always remember that you place the jam and the cream

just onto the side of the plate.

Because we're not trying to create some sort of ghastly sandwich.

And finally, we come to napkin etiquette,

and what this means for ladies,

the crease is away from so you can pick up the corner and dab.

Remember, we dab, we never wipe.

Gentlemen, the crease can be towards you and on your lap.

Chin-chin.

-GLORIA:

-If you have a story you'd like us to investigate

then do get in touch with us, via our Facebook page...

..our website is bbc.co.uk/ripoffbritain...

or you can e-mail...

And, of course, if you want to send us a letter, then our address is...

Well, that's almost it from us for today,

but I have to say that doing a shift as a waitress

really did give me an incredible insight

into the world of tipping.

And I can now totally understand why it is that some people do feel

so strongly about this - and certainly,

would like to see the rules around

who actually GETS the money made an awful lot clearer.

I tell you what, Angela, I would have given you a tip,

you did that well. And I was really fascinated

to finally discover just how much some restaurants

are making on just one bottle of wine.

I, for one, do not want to be paying a 200% mark-up

just because it's being brought to me in a restaurant.

As with tipping, well, I don't know about you,

but I think it would help us all if the industry

would sing off the same pricing song sheet on this subject.

Well, Gloria, here's an idea.

Why don't you ask to wield the corkscrew yourself

and see if you can't haggle the price down?

-If I can get away with it.

-Could work.

Anyway, remember, our team is keen to hear all your experiences

on all kinds of topics - not just food -

for our various programmes coming up throughout the year.

But in the meantime, thank you so much for joining us today,

and wherever you're eating out,

we hope you get the service and the price that you deserve.

-Till next time, from all of us, goodbye.

-Bye.

-Goodbye.