New Zealand Herald

Reviews for Portofino Italian Restaurant

by Frances B.
16th May 2013

The newly renovated Portofino Meadowbank is amazing! This is our favourite local restaurant and our family of four enjoy dining here whenever we can. The food is excellent (you can’t go past the Veal marsala or funghetto – delicious!) and the service is really friendly. Gorgeous interiors – great food. An excellent family restaurant. Highly recommended.

by Shenaye
7th December 2012

Delicious food and great service. The only thing I can complain about is when you ask for rum you must specify as I end up with white rum (my own fault). Definitely recommend as it is fantastic, my partner and I both LOVE it!

by Sasha
15th September 2012

I’ve been here many times and always had a great meal. It is the best out of the Portofinos in Auckland and much better than most Italian restaurants. I’ve tried the lasagne, spag bol, and gnocchi. The only thing is it would be good if they offered meals in an entree size as I find the main size far too big and always leave half. I would rather pay slightly less and get 2/3 of the serving.

by Theodore
29th July 2012

Incredibly nice service, the food is always delicious, and the atmosphere is great – a quiet and cosy little restaurant. Absolutely love it and go regularly. It’s a real shame that others on this site appear to have had a bad time, as it’s always lovely everytime I go. They also do takeaways with just as much quality if there isn’t enough time to sit in.

by chloe
16th June 2012

Me and my man used to go to portafino meadow bank years ago on our first date and loved it and went back all the time, then we noticed they started using cheap quality ham etc so we stopped going there any way 2years later we decided to give them ago again…. we got take-aways.. but still $51 later and we ended up getting Mc Donalds cause our food was soooo terrible it was un eatable, we got 2 small pizzas which were soggy muck and undercooked the chicken pizza was raw…. and a tortellini which was hard and tasted like salt….. we were gana get pizza hut but we thought we’d try this again… dammmn why didnt we just get pizza hut we would have been full and saved money…. ino i will NOT be back and will not recommend you to anyone

by Alex B.
22nd January 2012

Very disappointing! Spaghetti Bolognaise had about a dessert spoon of meat and was tasteless. Asked for some more meat/sauce, plate returned with lumps of meat obviously hurriedly cooked, meal floating in tomato paste, like a soup. Tables so jammed that it was a struggle for staff/customers alike to move past them. Two of us arrived and the waiter in the middle of greeting/seating us, walked off and welcomed a group of about 6 (dollar signs in his eyes)!!! Kiwis travel extensively so they cannot be fooled with second-rate ethnic food. Got the impression they couldn’t care less.

by Naomi
18th September 2010

Having looked at the review before mine, their experience was nearly exactle the same as ours. My family has been going to this restaurant for years and always raved about the excellent food there, especially the fillet stake. The food tonight was a real disapointment. The steak was more like schnitzel in thikness, and the veal was so thin, and covered in really cheap sandwich ham, that it has hard to find it, never mind taste it. Whatever they hoped to save in making cuts on the food quality they will loose in lost revenue as we will never got there again and the restaurant was half empty, whereas you always used to have to fight to get a table. Says it all really.

The worst thing of all was the service. As others before us, it took a long time for them to take out order. Our starters, which were bread and olives, took a very long time to arrive. We were not offered water with our meal, we were not asked if we were enjoying it; they started clearing away our plates before everyeone had finished eating… for the money we paid.. the whole experience was a let down.

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