David who? Cam plays waiter to SamCam

 Montevarchi (Italy), Aug. 1: In David Cameron’s Big Society, everyone is encouraged to do things for themselves.

But even the Prime Minister must have been surprised when — on the first full day of his summer holiday — an Italian waitress he had asked for coffee told him to get it himself.

Cameron, 44, had to act as waiter to his wife, Samantha, 40, yesterday when they went unrecognised in a cafe during a public walkabout at the start of their two-week Tuscan break.

The Prime Minister had placed his order for two cappuccinos and another coffee inside at the Dolcenero cafe in the town of Montevarchi.

He then asked a waitress if she would bring them out to him, his wife and a Downing Street aide, who were sitting at an outdoor table overlooking a historic piazza. But she told him she was too busy. “It was only later that I was told who they were, and now I’m really embarrassed,” said Francesca Ariani, 27.

“I was rushing around, really busy, so when he asked me to bring over the coffees I told him he would have to do it himself.” Her brusque treatment of the Prime Minister may have left her out of pocket. Cameron paid the £2.71 bill with a 50 euro note and left no tip. “I was a bit surprised about that because I’m told he’s quite wealthy,” said Ariani. The Camerons met the mayor of Montevarchi, who presented them with a bronze medallion bearing the town’s medieval coat of arms.

“Nobody really knew who he was,” said Giustino Bonci, a local television reporter.

“He was dressed in a blue shirt and blue trousers. He looked like any other British tourist.” The Camerons are staying with two families in an 18th-century villa a few miles from Montevarchi.

Downing Street officials said the Prime Minister would not have any more public engagements during his fortnight-long holiday.

The villa costs £9,700 a week and aides have said that Cameron is paying his family’s share, £5,800, out of his own pocket.

The Camerons arrived at the house, Villa Petrolio, which sits on a hill surrounded by vineyards, olive groves and woods, on Saturday after flying from City Airport, east London, to Florence.

They were welcomed by the estate’s owner, Baron Luca Sanjust, 51, and sat down to a dinner of home-made pasta and the estate’s prize-winning Sangiovese and Merlot wines. Cameron and his wife began their holiday yesterday with a game of tennis on the estate’s court, before spending time around the swimming pool with their three children and with friends.