I was a bit disappointed with the meal, firstly it took a llllooooonnnnggggg time to come out, and it was not the best Italian I have tasted. Good social atmosphere at Portofino though, and lovely to sit overlooking the water and boats.

I'm really surprised by the other reviews!! I've had the almost polar opposite experience every time I've been. I loved the food, found the service wasn't fast - but acceptable for how busy the place was and had a dreamy Sicilian wait on our table - all adding to the ambience and making my cheeky red that bit better. I'll be heading back there soon so will be interesting to see if my review changes.

Got shouted lunch at Portofinos. I had pasta which was
absolutely beautiful. My sister-in-law had pizza which
I thought looked and tasted pretty average. The service
could have been a bit better. The girl serving wasnt very
enthusiastic.Basically great place to have an awesome plate of pasta, glass of red and watch the boats.

Went to dinner at Portofino in the Viaduct last night, the service was fine but my main was absolutely awful! I ordered a chicken salad for $30+, seriously McDonald's chicken salad is better. It was literally strips of chicken which were really chewy and tasted like cardboard on top of a pile of lettuce, with 1 tomato and 1 mushroom quartered, 2 green beans and about 5 pine nuts. Nothing else whatsoever and no dressing.
Our breads and dip etc food for the table before our main meal were ok.
Would definitely not go there again.

The food was good. The service was terrible - we were ignored for a good half hour before our order was taken (the order was then scoffed at by the waitress) and after our meals were dumped on our table we had to ask several times for cutlery and glasses of water. Even paying the bill was a hassle - we were told to find a terminal in the restaurant ourselves.

2 friends and I recently dined at Portofino. The food was great but the service was shocking. The Resturant was near empty when we arrived but we were seated in the ally way, when asked to move to another (any other) table we were told no. All other tables were for 2 or 4 people not for 3. We finally moved to a slightly less in the way table and ordered breads and dips, the bread arrived with no side plates or salt and pepper. We were told we were only allowed salt and pepper with our mains, the plates then arrives about 20 minutes after the bread, after we had gotten hungry and just picked everything up with our hands, when our mains came out we allowed the highly guarded salt and pepper only to have it taken off our table by the waiter about 10 minutes into the meal without even asking. When we finished and went to pay the bill they have this two sided system, at the counter we were instructed to pay at there was no one to take the payment, on the other side, there were 3 staff with nothing to do. After waiting 10 minutes we walked over to the other side and asked if we could pay there. They said no we had to pay at the other computer, we then suggested that one of the 3 free staff come over to serve us at the counter we had to pay at and yet again got a no. On the whole there was NO service. The wait staff in particular the matrie d was rude, unfriendly and as unhelpful as possible. Food was great, they need to get there front of house sorted.

I recently dined at Portofino Pizzeria Ristorante, and the meals were quite nice. However, when sprinkling grated parmesan on my dish, the lid fell off the shaker, emptying about one cup of the cheese onto my almost untouched meal. I called a waiter, who took the plate away, and I expected it to return with a fresh portion.


However, when it came back, the loose matter had been removed, but the sauce had stuck a large amount of parmesan to the meal. so the flavour was overpowering and the meal remained uneaten. Luckily my fellow diner had a fairly large portion, which he shared with me. I left feeling dissatisfied with this service.