Food

My husband and I were able to have lunch for under 10 Euros total at bakeries (pizza/focaccia type food) in Rome. Sit-down restaurants were 30-50 Euros total. Pretty cheap, I thought.

That is really hard to forecast. Just depends on your pattern. What would you spend in the US? Maybe add 25%. Your tipping costs will less than 10% unlike maybe 20% in the US. On the low side I would budget maybe 50 E/person. For us, we have decent breakfast at the hotel, generally skip lunch and have an earlier dinner at nice, sit down restaurant.

If you go to comparable types of restaurants as you do in the US, you will find the prices are not vastly different.

If you go to comparable types of restaurants as you do in the US, you will find the prices are not vastly different

This. If anything the food is a little bit cheaper over there, generally speaking.

For us, we have decent breakfast at the hotel, generally skip lunch and have an earlier dinner at nice, sit down restaurant.

Skipping a meal in Italy? :O I would rather eat shoe leather at home than do that!

The meals were a little cheaper than comparable quality in the US.

Remember, however, that tipping is not done in Italy for meals. This has been the subject of a huge number of streams in the last 6 months.

Since diners do not tip, this reduces the cost compared to the US by 20% or thereabouts.

Wine costs in Italy are much lower. In Italy, it is possible, in the Italian version of a 7-11, to buy a bottle of decent drinkable wine for E5. In the US, wine prices for anything remotely comparable start at $10. The top end in Italy is also lower.

A bottle of Aperol costs E10-11 in Italy. In the US, the cheapest (at Total Wine) is $25.

We follow Frank's approach - eat the hotel breakfast, have a snack during the day or maybe 2 at a cafe, and have a good dinner in the evening. Of course, in Italy, the dinner hour for Italians starts about 8 PM, and goes late. We usually eat at 7, meaning getting a table is not difficult.

Make sure you read RS info on dining in Italy. Multi course meals are the norm, but you do not have to order each course. Pasta is just one of the courses, consequently servings are smaller than the heaping plates we are used to. Venice is likely to be more expensive than Rome Or Sorrento. I did once treat myself to lunch at Florian’s on Piazza San Marco. Proscuitto panini, an Aperol spritz and a coffee was about €35. Great lunch with the orchestra, superb service, and great people watching for a few restful hours, worth every cent! My splurge! But mostly it’s a slice of pizza or a salad.

We keep daily expenses. For dinner, we spent 55-119 for each day, with wine. For lunch, usually 45, but we don't usually have lunch, as we do the breakfast in the hotel. We spent E75/food/2 persons for the trip. I am leaving out the food-wine festival portion as this was a little more expensive and not our typical spending pattern.

I would budget 100 euros/day for 2 people lunch and dinner eating in average places. That would include a 1/2 carafe of house wine.

Prices on the menu don't change between lunch and dinner, unlike in US restaurants where there is a lunch menu and a dinner menu with different prices (and portions). The menu (and prices) for lunch and dinner are identical.

At a sit down restaurant, my wife and I, in Rome (where we go every year to visit relatives) we generally spend between about 50 and 100 euro (basically 25 to 50 euro per person) for a full meal. The higher end is for fish restaurants (seafood is generally more expensive). However we do order wine (at least 1/2 liter carafe for the two of us).

Of course there are cheaper options and more expensive options, but on average I'd budget 35 euro per person per meal at a sit down restaurant.

This is the menu for a higher end fish restaurant in Rome suggested by relatives (we spent 105 euro for 2 this past summer):
https://www.trattoriadelpesce.it/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Menu_Settembre-2022.pdf

This is a low/mid price sit down restaurant in Trastevere (we spent less than 50 euro for 2 this past summer)
https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g187791-d1034580-i321453400-Ristorante_Carlo_Menta-Rome_Lazio.html