Review Portofino Italian Restaurant - Auckland Central

Very beautiful and authentic Italian restaurant. Loved the vibe of this place. Has a very stunning view from the dining area. Very friendly staff! Amazing food. Had chicken fettuccine- really nice flavor. Loved the chicken fettuccine. Would go here on any day for a nice Italian meal!

I loved this place, it was birthday dinner and being vegetarian they have so many options, Food is great and love the overall. will surely recommend and come back again.

Amazing menu with so much to choose from. Service was very efficient, and the food was divine.

Went here with my friend at Friday evening. After strolling around the viaduct, my friend suddenly looked at this place and promptly scanned the price list at the front. She feels the price is reasonable for the portion this restaurant serves — we went in. Turned out the service was excellent, one staff managed to pull off a very good Bahasa Indonesia for us! Totally delighted! And the lasagna and romana pizza they served us were excellent. Romana pizza was fantastic with perfect combination of salted olive and anchovies. We enjoyed this restaurant so much!

Dine here! You won't regret! I'm SHOCKED that this restaurant has such a low rating due to picky customers not knowing that they are at an authentic Italian restaurant in Viaduct precinct, Auckland waterfront. I have dined here quite a few times with different groups of friends and colleagues and couldn't find any faults in their food and service and the location! I called the day before yesterday to book a table for 14 people just a week before Christmas week, and they have a big table available for us. The staff was very attentive to us and our food. For 14 people with different dishes, food came out super quickly, from starters to mains, drinks were served professionally. We also brought a birthday cake with us with their permission, they offered to put it in the fridge and served it for us later with a small charge of course. Seafood was fresh, cheese and bread was yummy, pasta and risotto was yummy my colleagues finished their main dish like within 5 minutes as they were so scrumptious! Steak was cooked perfectly as requested! Definitely highly recommended and will come back.

Nice food. Ok price. Lovely vibe and atmosphere. Lovely views.

Food was great! Had oysters and the casarecce alfredo. oysters were $5/one which seemed fairly reasonable in my experience, however for almost $30 the pasta dish seemed small (the bowl looks larger than it is). Still i would go back, i just might plan to stop for a snack somewhere on my way. Service was decent, nothing to write home about.

I’m not sure why the reviews are so low because this was one of our best meals after a week in Auckland. We went for an early dinner/ late lunch and got a quiet table outside in a really cute enclosed patio. Wine was amazing and affordable. Bruschetta appetizer was fresh and HUGE. The chicken and mushroom fettuccine was creamy, perfectly cooked and delicious. The tortellini was possibly the best I’ve ever eaten! So creamy and oozing with cheese. Service was attentive and wonderful.

The food is amazing. Best we have ever had. The staff are friendly and the food arrives promptly and hot.

Excellent food & the service from the waiter was amazing. Cheerful, friendly & his banter went down well with everyone. Highly recommend

Fresh and quality ingredients, loved the chicken liver dish 🤌

Great Italian restaurant, handy location , friendly service

We ate here because it was the only restaurant on the strip with seats available on a Saturday afternoon and it was quite clear why they was the case. The location is great but everything about the actual restaurant itself did not match the surroundings. After being seated I ordered a sprite and I understand that soda can vary in taste from bottle to fountain but it tasted like half sprite half water, odd start. The pizza was difficult to manage because the cheese kept sliding off the surface in a sheet and the base was soggy. I seasoned it heavily and managed to eat a slice before surrendering to the fact that I’d need to eat maccas after. The pasta was a sandier than I’d prefer. The salmon was a little over and the chips were likely from frozen giving them a weird sense of structural integrity. Can’t recommend in good faith.

Came here for lunch by myself, because why not. Ordered the clam pasta and a side of mushrooms. Pasta was pretty average and at that price point you can definitely find better. The mushrooms were nice and flavorful though and service wasn't bad (though the waiter did clear the table the second I was done which kind of caught me by surprise).

the pasta was alright, but the staff....so rude, wouldn't go back

We went on a quite Monday evening so had the place pretty much to ourselves. The food was great, fettuccine con polo was amazing and the waiter, Kristian, I believe was very nice. A tad pricey, but an overall good experience<br/><br/>

Never have I experienced such dismissive appalling and rude behaviour in a restaurant before. I've travelled the world extensively and never have I been so insulted. I asked for a specific drink to be met with hostility and dismissive defensive behaviour when I said I was surprised they didn't serve this mainstream drink. Owner didn't care and said I was wrong to be offended by his waiters attitude. DONT GO TO THIS ESTABLISHMENT. HORRIFIC

2 stars based purely on the fact that the food was delicious.. other than that, to add to the many reviews I have just read about the poor service I couldn’t agree more! My friend and I came for lunch here yesterday and were greeted with nothing but a sour look from the slightly darker waiter with the moustache and the GG belt, no hello or anything.. we were seated and waited 20 minutes to order because every time I waved him down he looked straight at us and continued to ignore us and carry on walking around the restaurant, keep in mind there were only 3 other people in the restaurant while we were there so he wasn’t busy, it’s almost like he did this on purpose. He literally looked like he HATED his job and his life.. if you’re in customer service at least fake it, put a smile on your face and say hello and be polite, otherwise why work there? He also seemed to be in a rush? When clearing our plates he was smashing plates in to our glasses, could have be a little more careful. We felt super uncomfortable and most definitely won’t be returning which is sad because Portofino Viaduct Harbour is a lot closer to us than the usual Mission Bay location which by the way has AMAZING service.. management really should take into consideration all the reviews about the waiters because aside from that they have really great food.

I have never come across such appalling customer service in my life, the manager was not only smug and rude but insulting. A one star is generous considering the customer service we received, could not pay me enough to return to this establishment.

Delicious pasta, lovely waiter. Will be back!

PLEASE DONT VISIT! Especially because of that thin old white waiter who really hates life and people of different races (as read in other reviews). The management really needs to do something about him.

The entree’s were great, pasta was great, but the lamb cutlets were seriously undercooked and tasted quite simply a bit funky. When it was bought to our waiters attention, we had the offer of it not being charged, but the wait staffs attitude shifted considerably to the negative, then was compounded by a plastic tag off a container in a dessert which didn’t help matters. <br/>There is always “that” table every night of service, and we were it tonight. However, as an ex-service person, I would have gone out of my way to make sure the rest of the evening was as close to perfect as it could be. <br/>Overall - food was ok - wait staff were ok but attitude was slack once complaint made. Wouldn’t rush back. Can get better food and service closer to home.

Clams in the spaghetti was not juicy. Salmon past had a weird sour flavour. Flavouring was poor and the price point was not justified. Pizza was decent. Waiting staff were good.

Honestly the food is good although it is slightly expensive. However the service! It’s okay. The only thing I didn’t like was the way the waiter or the staff that was standing outside behind the menu. We were in our school uniform as it was the last day of our school. He was okay but the first thing he asked was where my friend and I was from. We answered we’re from here. Then he quickly asked again “ are you guys students?” Duh? I was offended by it because why does it matter? I just want to look at the menu. Why do u need to know? Like maybe people think it’s okay to ask but I find it quiet rude to ask that. Like does it change the way u look at me after I tell you? Like why do u have to ask stupid questions like that? Age doesn’t matter where we come from doesn’t matter. Not like we don’t have money to pay u or anything. That was the only thing that put me off.

3.5 star rating would be a better choice for this restaurant.<br/>Lovely interior, staffs were really friendly and helpful!<br/>Ordered the macaroni and cheese, servings was pretty good, flavour wise was a little lacking, overall it was pretty pricey but it’s due to the location

Went there today for dinner, I ordered an pizza and my partner ordered carbonara pasta, both was really delicious, good wine selection as well!<br/>Location is great, after the meal we could go for a nice walk around that area. Friendly staff, and fair price ( not cheap, but not extremely expensive), so will go back definitely! :-)

Best italian restaurant for me with huge servings and well seasoned dishes :) celebrated our 1 year friendship with my bestfriend 🎉 compliment to the male waiter that serves us very friendly and accommodating keep it up Portofino 😁✌

We don't see why there are such poor ratings :)<br/>Great service, delicious food with great portion sizes and fair prices. Not to mention you have the view of the beautiful viaduct. The calamari is a must and their pizzas are some of our favourites.<br/><br/>Great lunch on a beautiful sunny Queens birthday :)

I went to the viaduct restaurant with my girlfriend for a night out. The waiting staff was very friendly and quick to take our orders. We also noticed that they were quick to clear and clean tables once guests had left. Our appetisers arrived within 15 minutes which was quite quick. However, once we ordered our mains they took almost 50 minutes to arrive to our tables. I ordered a fillet steak cooked medium rare but it arrived far over cooked and was tough to chew. My girlfriend ordered the pork fillet and when she took a bite there seemed to be breadcrumbs in the meat that were very soggy, as if they had been left under a heat lamp for a while. Both dishes came with a very minimal amount of accompaniment (half a carrot, a couple stalks of broccolini and one or two potatoes). When we tried to put a complaint in, one of the staff (a balding man with a large moustache) claimed that they never get complaints and that we had only come to the restaurant to complain about their food. When he didn’t listen to my girlfriends complaints and kept talking over her she got visibly upset, at which point the man started to trail his fingers down his cheeks and mock my girlfriend for being on the verge of tears. When she then decided to seek out the manager, the balding man came over and started to talk over both my girlfriend and his manager, being overly aggressive. I will never recommend anyone to eat at this restaurant which is incredibly poor in comparison to the Mission Bay restaurant and the fact that they have an incredibly aggressive staff member present that does not seem to take criticism kindly. Would like to compliment the manager as he was very lovely to my girlfriend and tried to help her out as much as he can, once she had spoken to him she did arrive back a bit happier so a massive thank you to him for being understanding and hearing her out.

Booked a table at Viaduct. When we arrived there was mass confusion as we were led to an unmade table and told to stand and wait whilst they set up. Was then accosted by the manager (or possibly owner) who rudely told us that we needed to wait in the “queue” and he was placing another customer at the table where we have been waiting. He did not bother to listen that his staff had led us to the table and that we had a reservation. There was a lot of arrogance and rudeness and even aggression. It took a lot not to leave right then. Had to wait a few more minutes, then led to another table. We were given a free water - which we needed to put the flames out!! The food was average at best - but safe to say you won’t see us at this establishment that does not value its customers.

Came for dinner with a group of 4 and we waited 50minutes for our meal to arrive. It may have been a Friday night but this is still unacceptable. We complained but nothing was done to remedy this situation. When we paid for our meal, we also received attitude for using a voucher. Poor customer service.

Came here for Valentine’s Day. Can’t remember what I ordered but it was the vegetarian pasta. This place is nothing special, but has a wide range of Italian food (pasta & pizza etc.). The ambience is nice inside here, and the customer service was okay. My dish was nothing special, but the serving was quite generous for the price & location of the restaurant. I had the Margherita pizza at the Howick Portofino which I prefer over the pasta I had...

My lunch experience here was so disgusting, my family and I waited for over an hour to get our food, and then when we asked for the manager it had appeared to not even have gone through into the system. Yeah i guess the view was nice, but was so pissed about how long i waited for my food that didn’t even taste that great. At least the manager then took off the charge for our drinks which still left us mad. Not happy.

Would not ever come here again!! Just wanted a dessert and that ended up being of the worst tiramisu’s I have eaten and very dry. We’re offered bottled water and not told it was $10!! Service was pretty bad and the person behind the till was quite rude. There are many better places to eat

what a lovely place to dinein..beautiful waterfront sit out option with great authentic italian food.<br/><br/>food tastes great and ambiance is just amazing. we had a weekend family lunch there and had such a lovely time.<br/><br/>there are other portofino outlets too, have been to most of them and just like other outlets, this one will never disappoint you. if they have a fanclub or something then i would be the 1st one to join it .

Gave the wrong food after an hour of waiting for it and it wasn’t cooked properly either. no spoon was given for the spaghetti and no water was served. Worst service and food ever. Wouldn’t recommend this portofino but the other ones are great

Food as amazingly great. Felt like we were in Italy. <br/><br/>We ordered a pizza and pasta. Very fresh and had that homemade taste!<br/><br/>Service on the other hand was extremely slow. We waited 50 minutes before food was served

It’s a pity that no wood fire pizza here ~ and the waitress is not very helpful with our ordering~ she can’t even recommend any dishes to us and we can feel they don’t like serve us ~ we sort of feeling some racist anyway~ not happy experience here!

Sunday late lunch while waiting Denny Setiawan took his new bike - ordered bruschetta galleto, this place has a nice view especially in summer day

I went to the portofino in city for the first time today (17/11/18). We were first greeted by a grumpy old man. He was also in charge of our table. <br/><br/>He seated us and got our menus. My friend had a question about a meal she had previously had at portofino, to which he grumpily replied, “well that’s our menu in your hand” and basically told her that’s what Portofino offered. We never questioned what they did or didn’t offer, she was just trying to recall the name of a dish she’d previously had.<br/><br/>He then proceeds to ask us if we wanted tap water or the bottled water on the table as the bottled water had a charge. We said we’d like tap water and his response, yeah I thought so, so I thought I’d mention it. That comment made me feel so low and I’m pretty sure that’s the comment that’s going to make me not ever go to Portofino. Just because it is an expensive restaurant does not mean it’s good. In fact our dinner this evening was pretty average. <br/>Thanks Portofino, I was having a good day till I went there for dinner.<br/>See you never.

The location is superb. The staff and service was good. Payed $22.5 for the burrata and $19.5 for the bolognese. Burrata definitely needed more rockets, or orange. Overpriced. The spaghetti had to much red sauce but in general was good and was ok with the price.

Shit food could have bought my own pasta and canned sauce and would have tasted better! <br/>Creepy front of house guy who seemed to scare his staff and they looked very uncomfortable!!<br/>Don’t pay the money to eat here!!!!

The waiters at portofino were muy bien! Super friendly and were filled with spirit that really helped make the atmosphere of the night incredible. Great service and great food is in well deserve of a 5 star review. Thank you from the birthday squad!

We had our friends birthday here, the food was delicious and the staff are really nice. We all had a really good time here 👌 highly recommend

Not worth it. Nothing purely Italian about this place, if they cook like this in Italy ....<br/><br/>Minestrone soup: watery, bland ,zero flavour, tiny portion. <br/><br/>Chicken Parmigiana: one of the priciest menu items, half a chicken breast topped with tomatoe sauce and melted cheese, not wow not worth it. Could have made it at home in 5 minuets for $5.00. <br/><br/><br/>Spaghetti marinara: tiny portions, it was not well presented just slabbed on a plate. Nope. <br/><br/><br/>Garlic pesto bread is the only reason for the 2. I’ll go just to eat thier bread. <br/><br/><br/>Ricotta spinsche canoli. Tiny tiny. Zero flavour. I mean all I tasted was the stench of the Ricotta they use. <br/><br/>Oh and we waited ages for our food when there were only four tables of customers. <br/><br/>Nope. Very disappointed, it cost a lot, not worth it.

Staff are always friendly and polite. Food is very tasty and well presented and beautiful views of Auckland's harbour and scenery. Great Italian food.

The food was very bland but what was worse was that The white lady waitress was racist... and could not give us a table by the window side because it was “reserved for 4 people” when clearly it was not because 2 people came and didn’t have a reservation took the table. not a good experience, however the other lady was very nice and attentive

Had an extended family dinner here earlier this week. Lots of seating, looked very upmarket and chic. Service was attentive and friendly. My fiance and I shared the Spaghetti Cabonara and Amore Pizza. I enjoyed both dishes. The only negative I can find with the place was the special lighting along one side of the dining room kept flickering. Probably something to do with the wiring. Fixing this would make the place look perfect. Great place for formal dining.

Not impressed sadly, my long time friend and I were excited to have a catch up after not seeing each other for a while. We had a hard time deciding on which restaurant to go to as there are so many around the city, but we finally choose Portofino. It was the wrong choice, once we had ordered our mains it took 1hr to come out when the others around us had got their food and had ordered long after us. It is understandable if something goes wrong in the kitchen but an apology would have been nice as we were very hangry by the time it came. <br/><br/>Now if the food was worth the wait I way have not been leaving this review, but the Margherita pizza was tasteless and not crispy at all, my friend said it wasn’t near authentic Italian food and did not do it justice. My macaroni was also tasteless, I’ve had better out of a packet. With promised breadcrumbs on top I could not find any. I thought some salt and pepper would have made it better, but it seems the waitress seasoned every table with her big shaker except for ours. <br/><br/>It’s safe to say we were excited to pay and leave, I had worked out that it would amount to under $50 so I had my note ready, but when I got the receipt it came with a $9 still water, which was just the bottled water left on the table! In every restaurant I’ve been too I’ve never encountered this, I was not told that we had to pay for it and when they asked if we wanted drinks we said no, the water sadly tasted like lukewarm tap water too. <br/><br/>So sad this was a bad experience but we had icecream afterwards which picked up our unfortunate night :)

Great ambiance, very friendly and attentive staff, good mocktails and chilli and garlic pizza pane, the pasta was just ok and service was a bit slow. Tried their cannelloni ricotta e spinaci and I was disappointed. It seems like there were only 2 sheets not the typical cannelloni tubes that was submerged in sauce and cheese. There was not enough substance but just cheesy sauce with some spinach. The taste was there but just not enough cannelloni. The pannacota was dense too.

I love the pasta here me and my partner visit every once in awhile because there isn't anything she loves here. The salmon pizza is a bit too salty for our liking but the Alfredo pasta is spot on always Al dente

Portofino had always been our go to place if we felt like pizza and pasta but this branch has made us not wanting to go back ever.<br/><br/>When we arrived there was only a few tables but the waitress and waiters decided they are better off talking to themselves than to greet us. When we were finally seated, we ordered an entree and three mains. The entree came out quickly within 10minutes but the mains took 1.5 hours! Pizza was warm, pasta had NO taste and our med-rare steak came out well done. We were going to ask for another steak but thinking that we may need to wait for another 1.5 hours we left it. <br/><br/>Waiters also never came back to us to check on how everything was going. <br/><br/>Bad service we could dismiss but bad food will make us not return.

Went here for lunch today . Food was really good had a lot of flavour and the portions are descently sized also is a little bit on the pricy side but that is expected when going to the viaduct the place is very classy and the staff is really good.

Went for an office team dinner and we were a group of 7 people in total. Had reservations done so that was the easy part but then the service began and not that since the place wasn’t too busy the staff was still standing in a group and was busy cracking jokes instead of minding the customers just as we were waiting for them to top up our drinks / water we had to wait for a while to get their attention itself. The meals were ordered and it took them a good 45 mins for it to come out so we had to wait a bit for sure, plus nobody informed us as to why was it taking this long. Anyways, we ordered fettuccine con polo/s, penne with salmon, seafood risotto & oven baked penne pasta with bacon. It was alright nothing that I would remember or would make me want to go back to it though. The food lacks a bit of something like a bit of flavour content. Otherwise overall a very average meal experience. Definitely need to revamp their menus, be more proactive & just have some more soul into the food served.

My partner and I dined here in the holidays for dinner. We were swamped by the great options in the viaduct but decided to give this restaurant a go. With plenty of outdoor and indoor seating the restaurant was packed. The service was slow to begin with and it took a while to get some attention and be seated. We ordered the Olives, Insalata Caprese salad and the vegetarian pizza. My partner and I shared the dishes between us and it was plenty. The food was decent but we found it a little underwhelming for the price and vibe of this harbour side restaurant. The food was very simple with nothing memorable or different to it. Located in such a great spot, we hope they can up their game as they have great potential.

After being served our drinks straight away we ordered our food then waited for an hour and a half for it to come. The food was cold and had no flavour at all.

Went for a group end of year dinner celebration. The food was tasty, service was great and atmosphere was nice. I ordered thr pasta salad which was tasty and filling. The waitress was friendly and helpful and took some photos for us. Overall was a good experience!

My eating of 2.0 is merely for the two staff members that really cared when I received my vegetarian Penne Arbarriata (not sure about the name but you can check on menu) that had 3 pieces of bacon in it. I'm pescitarian and wasn't too fussed about the first piece, I just removed it from my dish. However, the next two pieces I found begged the question who is cooking around here - someone with serious allergies couldn't possibly have to deal with this? The dish was taken away and inspected and bacon pieces confirmed so I received an apology and an offer for a new serving OR another dish to be cooked. I chose the vegetarian pasta bake canneloni (not sure of full name again) and did not enjoy it because of sludge-like consistency. End of night I was not charged for either of the meals and was grateful for the staff who saw that through. Not going back again.

I found a nail in my drink, and they just took it back like it was nothing and gave me another one. Lost my appetite and missed out on the poorly watered down pasta sauce that was blanketing my overcooked pasta. Place stinks.

Pretty good place for Italian and for its price. Pastas are pretty good quality, not the best drink selections. Dont expect traditional Italian taste I suppose but I like their way of cooking. The fish with rice is good 👍

Great location and atmosphere. Service can be improved... the staff members are quite busy and may be that is why they tends to forget, haha. Ordered crispy bread, seafood linguine in tomato sauce and panna cotta. We were a big group and sharing the entree between the tables. Didn't realised there were two different flavors (garlic and chili) of breads served until the girl seating next to me said the spiciness was just right for her... I was like, garlic and butter flavor was spicy???<br/><br/>At first I though the tomato sauce might make the linguine sweet and sourish and was kind of regretting the choice until I took the first bite... thank god, perfect choice! The smoked salmon was definitely the highlight and adds so much layers of taste to it! The blueberries hiding in the panna cotta was also like treasure hunting (not spoiling the fun here, am I?) <br/>Would recommend and come back to this place again for sure.

Delicious pizzas and lovely ambience. Have been coming here for years and it is always consistently good. Would recommend this to anyone wanting delicious Italian

After loving Portofino at Mission Bay we decided to visit here. I'm also surprised by the low score as I thought the opposite. The ambiance here is perfect for a evening dinner, it's dimly lit and cozy with outdoor heaters. We were served and seated promptly. Our waiter was great, attentive but not too overbearing and had a bit of humour.<br/><br/>I can't remember the name of the dish I ordered but it was chicken breast in a sauce accompanied with spinach mash. You can never go wrong with mash, however I didn't really enjoy the chicken. It was a bit bland and I think the sauce didnt match that well. My partner had one of the steak options which he enjoyed. For a side we ordered the Italian fried bread, a bit of a waste of time as it didn't really go with the mains and was odd to eat on its own. We also ordered the Tiramisu for dessert, which was just amazing. I would go back just for the dessert.<br/><br/>My partner absolutely loves Portofino and cannot recommend it enough. This location is great for a cute romantic dinner.

Came here last night! Horrible service, we waited to be seated, our waiter, an older man (didn't get a name) he walked past us. Once we were seated my husband wanted to order a beer and he said no he will wait till the whole table orders drinks. Then when we did order he kept saying no or wait, cause he needed to set the table. Like totally weird and unfriendly. Then we waited for about 40 mins and we were sitting next to some other People they were waiting nearly 2 hours. Oh well we still got our food before them it was so sad. Anyways after the wait, the food came out COLD so we sent ours back to get reheated, by then the other two on our table finished there meal by the time we got ours back. We requested another waiter, the elder waiter came and tried to apologise, all we wanted was warm food, good customer service, parmasen on our table with salt and pepper, but he said "it's not our policy" and I said mission bay have everything and he's like this isn't mission bay. His apology turned into more of an argument so we told him to just go. We got a $30 discount, but that's not what we wanted. Always have enjoyed portifinos but this will be the last time we ever attend. Such a disappointment.

Again not sure by the overall low score here.<br/>Recommended by staff in The Sebel Viaduct Harbour.<br/>Two lovely pastas (spaghetti and cannelloni) and glasses of Italian red/rose. All pastas were at the low to mid-high 20s (for marinara) price point.<br/>Brisk but attentive service.<br/>Would recommend in this touristy part of town.

Weird waiter... So much odd behaviour and inadequacy that would not fit on this page. A few choice criticisms: Hovering and staring at me. Taking away my water in the middle of drinking. Only taking half the table's orders and then not returning for 5 minutes. If I hadn't been at a birthday dinner I would've left. <br/><br/>At least the rigatone alla venziana was OK. (that's where the 0.5 comes in). <br/><br/>Surprised this place is still around. Probably bankrolled from tired tourists off the cruises. <br/><br/>Never ever stepping foot inside here again. Should've listened.

Being a decent sized restaurant, a group of 10 decided to eat there. <br/><br/>We waited for over an hour for food, I almost decided to eat the serviette I was starving that much. We told the owner about an hour in that we had to leave soon, and he promised the food would be there. Took another 30 mins for the food to actually arrive.<br/><br/>At no point did the waiter / owner ask how our food was or apologize for the wait. This was at a time where the restaurant was not busy (5 tables had people on them) at lunch time.<br/><br/>The food was about a 3/10, but overall the restaurant experience was very bad.

Service was absolutely appalling.<br/>Went here with a few work colleagues during a Saturday when we were working. Turned up at 1.05<br/>Waited 10minutes for a table. Ordered 5min after being seated following which we proceeded to wait over an hour and half for food to arrive 2.30.<br/>No discount given for slow service.<br/>Food was mediocre for the price.<br/>We also had to watch numerous tables who turned up after us being served while we waited.

Why such negative reviews? I'll admit I was close to not going here due to those bad reviews, however as the menu looked so good and my wife being a coeliac had almost anything on the menu to choose from - we gave it a shot. Were very impressed. Wait staff were lovely, quick service, and most importantly brilliant food. Had the bruschetta, creamy calamari and two creamy pasta dishes (one GF pasta).

Wonderful food, I'll definitely come again to try the new items of the menu! It was nice that the owner personally met the guests. I liked the quiet pleasant music in the restaurant too.

Shocked by all the bad reviews! <br/>We really loved this place - the food tasted like authentic North Italian cuisine - perhaps people have been to westernised with their Italian.<br/>The pasta was cooked to perfection and lightly sauces but busting with fresh flavours! The service was great and my glass was never empty!!

Not sure why the overall rating here is really low. The staff were really friendly and there is a good view too. We got the lasagne and the fried bread. The lasagne was delicious, very cheesy too. The fried bread tasted really good too. <br/>Overall a very good experience here.

Came here on a Saturday night, the restaurant was packed. We were seated promptly upon arrival, however wait time was a downer and the reason for the overall rating. The intervals between ordering drinks, food and arrival of both all took an extremely long time. Pro is that for a large group, all meals came together with only one stuff up.<br/><br/>Ordered the Insalata Rosa (Salmon Salad) which was quite interesting to me as there were only 4 bits of leaves making up the salad. The little puff balls were really nice though! Salmon was fresh, flavours went well together, and enjoyed my wee carafe of the house red. Waiter brought over a small taster before getting the full jug which I found was a nice gesture. <br/><br/>All in all, not bad but not blown away, food is simple but wait time was way too long. Many Italian Restaurants to choose from that would deliver better food and service at the price tag.

Where to begin... <br/><br/>Celebrating the coming of age of my dear sister's 16th birthday, it was destined to be a memorable and marvellous night. I got the memorable, but the "marvellous" ceased to exist. <br/><br/>Walking up to the restaurant, my family and I conversed delightfully about our meal decisions. As we got to the front entrance, a sign reading "Please wait here to be seated" presented itself to us. We humbly complied. After waiting what felt like a few treacherous days in the Sahara without any water, a waitress from inside of the restaurant came out to greet us. <br/><br/>We were seated and our drinks were taken. All seemed to be going well but then... the wait, of an entire person's life time passed as we endured the anticipation of the waitress coming back to take our orders. <br/>To our absolute disappointment, the waitress did not notice us at all for an estimated 13 to 16 minutes. <br/>However, heaven prevailed! Another waiter came over to our table and took our order. Whilst these events unravelled, a very mysterious man, thought to be the owner, seemed to slink around the restaurant pretending to be busy. However after carefully analysing and observing his actions, he was entirely useless and rather creepy. <br/>As we continue our experience, my family and I conversed again, delightfully about our upcoming dinner. Little did we know we would be waiting for, what felt like a millennia. I looked around at the other minimal amount of guests, to perhaps understand why oh why, our meals could be taking this plethora of time to get to us. <br/>After probably 42 minutes, our meals met our mouths. I must give kudos here, apparently good food takes a REALLY long time to make. I was pleasantly surprised by my meal. Things were looking up. I felt a slight warmness in my soul, redemption peeped over the yonder hill. Alas, dessert. <br/><br/>And here, my long-suffering yet patient friends, lies the demise of Portofino Viaduct restaurant. In the past, I have described the extremely lengthy amounts of time my family and I had to wait at this institution. But this wait, THIS wait, I tell you, with my hand on my heart, and a promise to my own mother's heart, this wait could have equated to the length of a one-hundred year old sloth making its way from the bounds of South Antarctica to vast North Canada. The original waitress we had, managed to successfully ignore us the rest of the night which I found simply charming. The second waiter was far too busy snoozing and flirting with the new waitress lady to even notice anyone else in his peripherals. Now my friends, I have lied in my past, but I shan't now, 50 minutes passed as we waited for our dessert order to be taken. We tried waving out, politely slamming our menus closed and even whimpering like sad puppies to attract the attention of any person working for this filth of an institute. But to no avail. We attracted no attention at all over this 50 minutes of snail wait time. <br/>Finally, we decided enough was enough. We got up from our table and walked towards the door. Before my left glut had left the seat, our favourite supporting-role of a character- the mysteriously creepy owner jumped out from the darkness of his slumber to greet us and show us the payment counter. I tell you my friends, never had I felt such anguish and torture in one moment of my life. <br/><br/>As I stepped outside, I felt myself becoming weak, faint even. An extraordinary pain overcame me, a full body aneurysm had taken my body hostage. I believe this was the impact of my severely disappointing and tortuous evening at this abode of the damned. <br/><br/>Our story ends here my wonderfully patient friends. I thank you for your time, I will leave you with this short wind up, this place of sheer waiting hell is definitely not for the weak. If you value yours and those of your loved ones lives, you shall never enter this eternal punishment as long as any generation of your families co exist on this earth. <br/><br/>Farewell, <br/>Spicy girl.

Myself and my wife were almost hesitant to go here because of poor reviews in the past, but we noticed all the new reviews were good. And we loved the place. Ambiance and the food were amazing. Solid wait time of 15 minutes for the food, but the service was exceptional. My 3 year old son loved his spaghetti too!

Huge amount of wine selections. Tried their pasta and pizza. Pasta was good. Pizza was too small for what I paid. Service was below average. I can't find single staff when I need them. Overall it's just average Italian restaurant in good location with high price. <br/><br/>Taste 4/5<br/>Service 3/5<br/>Atmosphere 5/5<br/>Location 5/5<br/>Price 3.5/5<br/>

Mostly,the previous reviews said that the service was so disappointing,but what I experienced last night was fantastic.<br/>The manager looked after our table with the most professional manner in hospitality. The food was second to none.Everything was seasoned perfectly.<br/>We ordered 4 different dishes of dessert,which were Tiramisu,Gelato,cheesecake and chocolate cake,were all delicious.<br/>The atmosphere was great.<br/> In conclusion,<br/>The food 5/5<br/>The service 5/5<br/>The atmosphere 5/5<br/><br/>This is not exaggeration.<br/>I really think this Italian restaurant deserves 5/5 for everything.

What a load of shit "restaurant" took 4 luvly ladies<br/>Waiters were too busy to take our drinks orders and service the slowest have ever experienced in auckland. Ever. The only redeeming factor was the +1 for owners moustache

Walked to the viaduct to find a new place to eat with my friend. We wanted to try this beautiful place. Great customer service and our meals were yum! I had the Fettucini Con Pollo and it was so good. Then had tiramisu for dessert. Overall great meals, great customer service and great view.

Update of the visit last night:<br/><br/>Ordered the salmon and chicken carbonaras - such a disappointment ! Completely bland with no flavours . I could mix cream and undercooked pasta and get the same result. So overpriced for below average quality food. Will definitely not be back <br/><br/>4 of us girls came here on a Friday night for a quick eat. Unlike the mission bay portofino their meat options weren't halal so do keep this in mind if you come here. Service was nice and the food was good. Not as good as the mission bay branch but just due to the incidents we experienced there, I would prefer to come here.

We ordered Insalata Cesare with chicken, Spaghetti Bologenese, and Affogato with liquor for lunch today. Actually, the food is delicious and can fill up the empty stomach. Also, the servers are nice and professional. Meanwhile, the environment is good. Beside these food, I suggest people to order spaghetti, those  are the champion of the restaurant. What more, I'll come back to this restaurant again. The restaurant is  good and suitable to different kinds of people, especially, for the older people

I loved my meal here! We started with garlic pizza which was crispy and buttery. <br/>The mains took quite a while to come out and when they did I was delighted with the presentation and the flavour. I had the rigatoni bake and it was super yummy but waaaaay hot I had to wait for ages so I didn't burn my mouth. We had a lovely sparkling rosé though hubs liked it less than I did. He had a steak and found it to be good but not the best. Overall it was a nice experience and the service staff was great.

To the Manger/ Owner,<br/><br/>I would like to bring to your attention that me and my family members went to the Portofino Restaurant on the New Years Eve 31/12/2016 to dine in. We asked for the table to one of your staff person who was standing at the entrance. In the reply he said we need to wait for 25 minutes though he never bothered to took our names while he was noting down the names for the other customer in his diary.<br/>We waited for more than half an hour standing in queue outside your restaurant and we were shocked to see 4 to 5 tables were empty inside from the last 15 minutes and that person is not doing his job properly. 4 people before us took their seats on their own and when our turn came we also went inside and sat as its being long we were waiting and feeling hungry.<br/>When we told one of your female staff to clean the table for us, Suddenly that staff from the door started shouting and POINTING FINGER ON US Saying " COME OUT AND LEAVE MY RESTAURANT".<br/>This Behaviour Was Extremely Disrespectful and totally Unacceptable!<br/>With this attitude it was clear he never got any customer service training as per New Zealand Etiquettes to speak to a customer. You guys are working in a hospitality industry and this is the way how you treat your customers. I being your regular customers visiting your restaurant from the last 5 years we felt so humiliated and I wish i would have never visited your restaurant. You guys have spoiled mine and my family's New Year Eve. <br/>I want an Explanation for all this humiliation and a written apology.<br/>Your extremely disappointed Customer!<br/><br/>

We went for dinner last night , we booked last minute for a group of 18 , we had a great service , beautiful atmosphere and delicious food , we been there few times and every time we get an even better service , it is highly recommended

Decent reputation for food and location, but the manager is unfriendly and hopeless.<br/><br/>Definitely not going back because of the manager's demeanour and attitude. Do not waste your money or Entertainment book voucher for this place (they even tried to not use it at all)

Popped in here for lunch to try... service was good although we had to pour our own water that we chose from the table - bottled water that we paid for. I got the grilled fish with chips and salad. Fish was nice abit salty. Salad was boring and chips nice. Also got the seafood marinara.

8 of us dined here last night, 1/10/16. What a disaster for some. We were booked for 7:30pm, entrées finally arrived 8:45 pm..... Then another hour after that before the mains arrived not good. It was very busy but no excuse they knew their bookings and the kitchen just could not cope at all.... Some of the meals were excellent, one had to be sent back due to lack of salmon in the pasta dish, other portion sizes were mediocre, considering the prices, will definitely NOT go back.

Food is not bad but the service is mediocre had a pretty snobby waiter and the waiting time for the food is freaking ridiculously long seriously. Would be great if they had more chefs considering that it's a busy restaurant. GOODLUCK on having a big group because I was starving to death and everybody was getting so frustrated, we went through more drinks and when food came out we lost our appetite.

Had a great time there on Saturday with my family. Was my wife's birthday, she loves Italian and mum loves trying out new food. We have been to the one at Mission Bay and this also didn't let us down. The fish was to die for....just needed the right amount of crushed pepper and the sauces Mmmmmmmm<br/><br/>Always a Great place...Excellent choice!

Worst Restaurant ever - the owners are the rudest people we have ever come across. The way they talk to their staff is disgusting and this ruined our whole experience. The food was average and the only upside was the location and the service from the poor miss treated staff. Our group was extremely disturbed that this behaviour is even tolerated in NZ

After reading some reviews I was a bit worried about the pasta, so decided to have the Veal Marsala. I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed the meal which was quite tasty.

Saturday night was my second time here. I had to try the chicken fettuccine my friends kept boasting about. They were right! It was such a divine & delicious meal, I could not get enough of it even had me licking the plate lol i also dipped the garlic and cheese pizza pane in the pasta sauce...soooo good!!! To top it off the service was amazing! Out waitress Seoul was so attentive and friendly. Definitely going again this week :)

Such a lovely place the food is a bit pricey but worth every penny! We had to wait for ages for the food to arrive. But I guess that's not a problem if you have good company :)

The only upsides to this restaurant is its location and its service, these two aspects however do not make up for the fact that the food isn't on par. The reputation it has does not live up in reality, I ordered the spinach and ricotta cannelloni and I got a version of spinach slop wrapped in over cooked pasta, we also ordered the spaghetti marinara which was bland and watery. I've given this place a chance since then and it didn't redeem itself. <br/><br/>This place purely needs a food takeover and then it would deserve its place on the viaduct harbour.

The fast food of Italian really,, always consistent, never amazing, never awful. A great place to take kids or non adventurous diners. It's a favourite of my sister's who has the most boringist palette ever!

I had made a reservation last night for 12 people as it was my birthday, most of my guests were 5 minutes late however myself and 4 others were running 14 minutes late due to numerous other large events in Auckland city that night. The owner or manager of this restaurant has the worst customer service I have ever witnessed in my years of dinning. As soon as I arrived I was greeted with an argument of how I was late and was quick to find out that he threatened my other guests that if there was not 12 of us he would charge us which is the most bizarre money hungry policy I have ever heard. We were seated and the food was average, my friends kindly bought me cake and gave it to the waitress who simply brought it in front of me, I found out later that there was a $10 surcharge for her to carry the cake from A to B which I was not notified of and have never experienced before. Service was extremely slow, it was a mission to get served water and at one point the owner got insulted when my guest asked him for some responding with 'I'm not a waiter', what kind of bullshit attitude is that?! I will never come here again and I wish I read the reviews on this place prior as it seems my experience was consistent with a lot of others. Worst experience

If I could give this place a 0 I would. The service here is appalling and bad enough for me to not want to come back. We came here for my friends 22nd birthday with a group of around 12. One group came a little late due to there being 3-4 events being held in town that night. Our friends weren't seated as the manager/owner said we were late. We were around 10 - 15 mins late. We then apologised and he said 'that's all I wanted to hear from you'. He counted us all and seated us but only 10 was there in that time and we booked for 12, he said if the 2 don't show up we still have to pay for them. What kind of crook policy is that? <br/><br/>To get it out of the way, the food was average. I had spaghetti Bolognese which is describe as 'just like nona makes' and unless nona was a bad cook, it did not live up to that. I left my meal unfinished with a big plop of mushy watery flavourless mince. My friend also ordered the steak which was seriously not even worth the $38 price tag it had with it. It was basically steak and steamed veggies. <br/><br/>As the night went on, I needed my water to be topped up. I could not find a waiter so I got his attention and before I could say anything he sharply said 'I am not a waiter' like I had offended him. <br/><br/>Then it got to paying. They only have one till that could be used with one eftpos machine. We were behind one other person. We waited patiently and then when it got to our turn the rest of the ladies friends came and paid. The guy at the till shood as aside to do the payments for the group behind us. There was about 6 more payments and as they were foreign there also had payment issues that prolonged the process. <br/><br/>Warning to everyone who wants to have a birthday here, they charge $10 If you bring your own cake. That is the most expensive walk ive ever paid for for the waitress to transport the cake from the kitchen to the table. <br/><br/>All round an awful experience. Their biggest concern is how to make the most money off you not how to make your experience the best.

Came to this place on a friends 18th as a last minute formal luxury dinner. They welcomrd us quickly which was great!<br/>The staff had introduced me into the restaurant and the staff are so well trained.<br/>I had ordered the chicken fettuccine and unfortunately it took 1 30hrs for it to come where I was literally starving.<br/>When I had got the food it was a big size for the price which was good. The taste at first was nice yet then quickly started to become sickly by the over use of garlic. Even though I was on the bridge of nearly dying of starvation, I just could not finish it.<br/>I did get a tequila sunrise as a drink and that was made to perfection.<br/>A 3.5 experience :)

I have been to this restaurant few days ago along with my colleagues as we wanted to discuss some important issues during our lunch time. we have chosen this restaurant as it gives nice view of the viaduct. Food was good not appalling. The tall waiter with glasses served us and in the beginning he was ok but after that he started interacting with us and stood on our heads till the time other staff served us. We think rather than chatting with us it is good to serve and look after your other tables around you. We went to restaurant to have nice conversation but ended up with bizarre experience. I know you have to be friendly but you have to be professional as well.

Nice setting overlooking viaduct harbour. Perhaps just a touch pretentious, the Kitchen served up a delightful traditional Spaghetti carbonara and a smoked salmon penne. The generous wine list will cover a wide range of budgets.

Work farewell party.<br/>Great location, very busy with a great atmosphere.<br/>Bit slow with delivery of the drinks. <br/>Had the set menu which had a good selection for everyone.<br/>Enjoyed the calamari, but nothing special.<br/>The scollipini was tastie and the gelatin was very nice. <br/>

Had to come here for a birthday party. Extremely overpriced for such small servings, and very average food. We were not told you had to pay for the water on the tables, for a massive $7.50 bottle. Waiter was nice enough, but the apparent manager/owner was extremely rude. Had double booked and tried to take a table we were using and expected us to squeeze in together, then got angry when we said we were expecting another person. I won't be coming here again. Huge rip off.

I've been there recently with a friend, loved the caneloni... I was served by lovely staff, but when I asked for the check I saw the boss treating one of the waitresses like shit, man was a jerk and also rude to me.

I had a great time at Portofino with my friends the service was great but the food took quite some to come out!! The food was awesome and delicious but that night 3 out of the 4 friends who went to Portofino got sick which includes me! Me and my two other friends had a hard time healing we all had the same symptoms like diarrhea and even very bad stomachache!

I had been to this restaurant today. And the food that I ate was not at all great. Had ordered for  fettuccine alla puttanesca , it was not at all good. The quantity of cheese on top of the pizza was too less and the base of the pasta was too liquid, the quantity of tomatoes that was added too much, due to which it had a sour taste. Will never go there or recommend anyone

Had an awesome time. The food was amazeballs, can not fault the flawless service of FRANCISCO! You need to promote that guy or give him some type of pay rise cause he is really good at his job. 😁👌😉<br/>God bless from the Nomads Family. 😘

The gnocchi was so rich and filling & the fettucini's are also real creamy and full of flavour. So glad to have tried their panna cotta too !! Good food, good mood 😄👍

We arrived at around 10.30 pm last night October 10th. 4 adults. We ate entree, mains and dessert. We also bought wines. The service was excellent. The service was within acceptable timing limits and all 4 mains came out at the same time. This was great. The desserts which we shared were excellent.  The bill was $110.00 per couple. That included wines. That's reasonable.  What let this restaurant down in my view was the Parmesan Cheese. I am a Parmesan Cheese lover and the Parmesan that was offered was horrid. This is an Italian Restaurant, and sadly the cheese they supply is likely to be NZ supply.. Maybe Mainland or something like that.  We eat frequently in Sydney Italian Restaurants, so I know a good Parmesan when I tast it.  This was not. If you're a Parmesan Cheese lover.. You won't find it here... Rob.

I went there in a cold windy night. It was warm and dark. Exactly the way I liked it to be. I had a spaghetti alla bolognese, or something like this( not sure about the spelling), and roasted potatoes with rosemary. Both were tasty and delicious. But the spaghetti was too watery. I expected the sauce to be creamier. Good taste though. The waiters were polite and quick. The restaurant was clean. I liked it and I may go there again.

Average. Nice selections of cocktails. I think that this place is just a normal italian restaurant of what you would expect out of italian restaurant.

First time I dined here thought the food was expensive for what it tasted like. Recently gave it another chance and seems nothing has changed. <br/>

Had lunch today at Portofino on the viaduct with 2 of my friends we've got one of the tables on the balcony were the view is beautiful, I have to say the food was Delicious, I'm glad I didn't follow the reviews they don't match at all with our experience, we had a great tasty lunch for just under 20 dollars with a complementary glass of wine, the staff was super friendly. <br/>I will definitely come back. <br/>Next time I have to try the desserts they look so yummy. <br/><br/>Thanks guys!!

Incredibly poor service, poor food, ended up in an argument with the waiter over my meal that I didn't order and it was a watery mess - terrible. Don't recommend at all.  Ended up leaving without paying as I didn't end up eating anything. Was every unhappy.

Had a bad experience with the restaurant.... Ordered something and got something else ... <br/>Staff does not know the difference between vegetarian food and non vegetarian. Management does not care as for them its just a mistake ....

Had a team dinner at Portofino today and was extremely disappointed. A colleague who is vegetarian was served a dish with bacon. The colleague ended up leaving dinner midway. The staff and food at the restaurant really need to step up.

Worst worst worst restaurant ever. The waitress said the cannelloni is the best and it was the worst ever. So dry and bland. Tasted disgusting. My friend ordered a seafood risotto which was also disgusting. Another friend ordered a vegetarian pasta which came with bacon and he has never eaten meat in his life. Will never go back to this restaurant ever and will not recommend it to anyone

Went to this restaurant on a lovely Saturday afternoon for lunch. The staff were very polite and we were greeted warmly. I ordered the Risotto di Pollo and my mother ordered the Spaghetti Marinara. I enjoyed my meal however my mother did not. She said that it was bland and likened it to a canned spaghetti. After tasting some of my dish she said that it had much more flavour than hers. The risotto was well seasoned and cooked well with a nice mushroom flavour. We both ordered a coffee which was the highlight of the meal. Perfectly made. <br/>

We came here for dinner and got a vongole spaghetti to share and a steak each. The pasta wasn't that great - dry and tasteless, but the steak was pretty good.

5 of us dined for lunch here on Sunday. We sat outside, as did everyone else. Our table was on the edge of the marquee, on a rainy day, thus one of us got wet. We made a comment and were told to move up a bit. My sister is vegan, she told the waitress asked her what could she eat. The head waitress said the pasta would be fine, I asked her if it has egg in it....she said yes....egg....is an animal product which means a vegan can't eat it. A waitress should know this. She kept thinking vegan means gluten free. You are the front of house at a huge restaurant along the waterfront and you dont know the difference between someone that is vegan or gluten free. Portofino, you need to educate your staff and tell them what is actually in the food. If I hadnt asked her the question my sister would have eaten eggs and that would have made her really sick. So she ended up having a vege pizza without cheese, which arrived cold. It took 30minutes to make 3 pizzas and 2 pasta dishes. Not good enough. Way too long a wait when they werent even that busy. Not impressed at all.

It wasn't my choice to come here but I saw the reviews and had no expectation to have a good meal. I don't even want to go into it. Service was shit. Food average. La porchetta is better and cheaper. The food as my chef uncle described it was 'budget' and 'the chefs don't know how to cook'. Also the owner talked to his staff like a piece of shit. But the staff themselves weren't great

The atmosphere in this restaurant was terrible and the waiter was so pushy and abrupt . I had to keep asking for more water ?? He couldn't even have the decency to see if me and my friends were running low on water . The mains were disgusting they tasted so average and the portions were so small , this restaurant has definitely downgraded . I AM NEVER GOING HERE AGAIN . Definitely would not recommend this restaurant to ANYONE . Then when we had finished our meals we were not going to waste our money on their over-priced dessert . The waiter asked if we wanted dessert and we said no thank you and he was shocked . He exclaimed 'Just a meal???' . This was so rude . How could a waiter talk to us like that when we were giving them business . Never ever going back here . Then when we went to pay there was nobody at the counter and we waited for a while then rung the bell and a rude Indian chef pops her head out and goes 'Just wait' . So bloody rude . Nobody go here . It's a rip off .

Overpriced and underwhelming! Gnocchi was stodgy and the sauce watery. Risotto was bland as well as the sausage pizza. To top it off, we asked to be seated in a booth since there were several vacant, but were told we can't because there was only two of us, although a couple of the occupied booths around were taken by COUPLES. and then five minutes later 2 pairs of couple were seated in the booths that were vacant. Probably not coming back to this place

First time here and certainly the last. The food was really poor quality. We had cold pizza bread to start, and I had a fettuccine putanesca, which was just pasta with canned tomatoes and a couple of olives. Given the price, this was a very disappointing experience. Even the service was slow and inefficient,  despite only 2 other tables in the restaurant.

Hugely Over Priced and Not Edible!<br/>Ordered ossobuco (38.90) and spaghetti a la vongole (26.90) and a glass of shiraz (10.90/glass)...the shiraz had a bitter follow up which the waitress agreed not smell right and replaced with a newly opened bottle, the ossobuco consisted of 50gm bones and 35gm meat but was tasty but the rice base was cooked in msg flavouring and gave my tongue a salt burn and not edible even after water chaser so they gave vegetable to replace the rice, obviously the chef loves salt as this was salty too, the spaghetti was just bearably salty...the waitress explained later that the chef sprinkles the msg flavouring and as the dish is new (on the chef's specialty) he wasnt sure yet! What Crap!!!! WORST DINNER I had in NZ this week!

I have been to this restaurant multiple times and have come to the conclusion that the food is not the greatest.... The chicken fettuccine I ordered was rather watery ... And previous lasagne dishes have been too cheesy.

An extremely disappointing Italian restaurant - I've been told previously it is a bit expensive but I assumed the food would've been worth the price. <br/><br/>My partner and I came before work on either a Friday or Saturday (around 8pm ish ) which might've been a bad decision, they were utterly packed and it was hard to get the attention of staff. The FOH seemed friendly but stressed and placed us in a seat in direct contact with the wind. It was hard to get the attention of any waiters/waitresses to take our order and we waited over almost 50 minutes for our meal - bruschetta, oysters, pizza and a pasta and a glass of Peroni on tap. It wasn't until about 9:20pm that we inquired where our order was and how long it would be as we had to go to work (we were told a 10-15minute wait and when we asked if its possible to cancel) we were given our order 2 minutes later and scoffed it down in 5 minutes. <br/><br/>Overall service was okay, it was difficult to gain anyone's attention and the service was very slow - with no updates about our food or drinks and the waiting time until we asked.<br/><br/>For the price, this place is a complete rip off. The oysters had a plain boring presentation - just plopped onto a plate and served, whilst the pizza was completely average, tasteless and over priced for what it is both presentation and taste wise. The bolognese pasta was like warm and looked dry (more pasta than sauce and meat) and the bruschetta was almost just bread with a pinch of toppings. We had to ask for olive oil and vinegar. <br/><br/>Overall would not recommend as it is over priced and the food is below average.

We came here for one of our anniversary dinners and we sat down to enjoy a plate of Seafood marinara spaghetti and vegetarian cannelloni. The cannelloni was DEVINE - I devoured every trace from my plate. The staff where friendly and attentive.

My boyfriend and I came here for the last two new year eve for dinner/drinks. <br/><br/>The pasta is quite good but nothing amazing. <br/><br/>The manager is full of life and very friendly. I'm not sure if it was because they were busy but the bar tender was very moody.<br/> The waiter we had was quite rude too. We ordered grey goose and the waiter asked us to repeat our order and then told us that he doesn't know what we're saying. Our English is not the issue here might I add. we rephrased it and asked for vodka and pointed at the bottle. He said oh why didn't you just say vodka. Well probably we specifically wanted a specific vodka? We then ordered a Canadian club and dry. And once again we had to repeat it and listen to his lecture of us not ordering properly. <br/>I don't want to sound uptight or anything but it was just so rude of him make us feel like we were speaking gibberish when he didn't know his alcohol names.<br/>For whatever reason he was being so rude we'd like to think that he just had a rough day.

We booked a table here a few months back for a friend's 21st lunch. Was not the best experience ever I have to say. We visit this place often as we like our Italian food however it's always a hit or a miss.<br/>The staff usually look quite sad most of the time, don't really know why. The food however is usually awesome. the particular cocktails I have however taste different every time. If you do go here, definitely love their Italian drink (fizzy drink of some sort ) they have is absolutely amazing! Can not remember what it's called but it's definitely one to try.

I do have not an inclined fondness of food from this cuisine, therefore, my review should be objective; or at least, to a substantial extent.The food that my companions and I ordered did not have a significant impact; in other words, the flavours were not very palpable. In saying this though, the meals were still quite pleasant and palatable in their own right. Additionally, the range of available dishes was quite extensive and this, to me, deserves merit. They offer a range of pastas, other forms of mains, and even fresh oysters.The venue was also great. The majority of the seats are outside, but covered by a plastic container shelter (I don't have a better term than that). However, as I had dinner here, it was significantly dark.Another considerable point is the costliness involved. The approximation provided by Zomato is quite accurate, but if one is a lover of alcoholic beverages, then one can expect a bit more.(I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THE SPACES I HAVE INPUTTED INTO THIS REVIEW ARE NOT BEING DISPLAYED)

My friends and I come here often as most of us are based in the city. I've had a lot of good times here but there have been some misses. <br/><br/>First of all I think the food is good. A lot of people say it's not, but I've never had a bad food experience there. I've tried an array of dishes from the pasta, pizza, salad, and the meatier mains - all are good. Their desserts aren't bad either. A bit pricy, but that's to be expected. <br/><br/>The wait staff are usually very lovely and attentive. Our water glasses are always full, and no dish has ever been forgotten about. The front of house are a little stiff though, I rarely see them smile. <br/><br/>I've usually only been here during the summer months, which make my outdoor dining experience quite pleasant in the sunset. But I came here recently and it gets dark with daylight savings over, and I ended up sitting and eating my food in the very dim lighting. I suppose this might've helped my palette as I had to utilise my taste buds, but it would've been nice to actually see my food better. I suppose they sit their guests outdoors to make it seem busier, but please turn on the lights next time!

I have never written a restaurant review in my life, yet my experience at Portofino two months ago prompted me to start.<br/><br/>Four of us went out for a friend's birthday dinner and we decided the viaduct/Portofino would be ideal. It was not - in fact far from it. It was a Wednesday night, the restaurant was somewhat busy but nothing out of the ordinary. At the entrance we waited awkwardly to be seated as staff members walked past. After about two minutes we decided to seat ourselves. Finally someone noticed us, and the menus were "dropped off", quite literally. No greeting, not a single word.<br/><br/>In spite of the discouraging service we received we were after all students on a nice night out - we didn't want to let this ruin it. A polite male waiter promptly took our order, it was only downhill from here. Twenty minutes passed, we were feeling a bit peckish. Thirty, forty minutes later and we started trying to catch the attention of the waiters and manager, looking around expectantly. After 50 minutes I decided to get up and enquire after our meals. The manager said he would investigate. Ten minutes later he returned to inform us that our meals were "cooking". That's what you would expect to happen at a restaurant, isn't it?<br/><br/>Finally just over an hour later, we receive our simplistic pasta dishes and one fish dish. For the price of $37 for my meal and over an hours wait I thought the food could still make up for it. It was shit. I've had more flavour in an airplane meal or (plain) toast. No flavour, no seasoning, I could have cooked it better myself. My friends' pasta dishes were no better. We finished our meals out of sheer hunger. <br/><br/>Dissatisfied, we stood up to pay, the manager expected us to know which table we had been sitting at out of the 40 or so at the restaurant. Again a very unpleasant member of staff split the bill between us, no discount, apology or even mention of the ridiculous waiting time, not to mention quality of the food. <br/><br/>Don't go to the viaduct Portofino, you will be very disappointed.<br/>Go ANYWHERE else, the food will taste better, the service will be better, it will most likely be cheaper and you will be happier =)

Nice Italian restaurant located in the heart of the viaduct night life. Found the staff very friendly and the service was pretty good, except we were there on a quiet night and the waitress was a little over the top... Trying to take plates away from us as we were still moving the last morsels of food to our lips. <br/>Other than that, yummy food & chillaxed atmosphere.

5 stars for location. Mediocre food. <br/>Going to stay away from this place. Did not like the ravioli undercooked had to send back. One more person in the group had to send back the beef again uncooked.

Been here twice now, good food, good prices for the prime location and friendly staff :) definitely would go again. Had to wait a while for meals but other than that great

Being situated in a prime location and set amongst some amazing restaurants in Auckland central it's surprising that Portofino can't seem to hold a good standard of originality, excitement, or value for money. There are many other Italian food places I would recommend and go to rather than here just because I don't feel you get top quality for the the top dollar they charge.

I cannot speak for the whole menu, but this place still serves the best seafood risotto I have had in Auckland - and I have ordered that from many restaurants.<br/><br/>The portion is very decently sized, they always make it perfectly and the risotto always has a lot of prawns, musells, scallops and squid. I cannot say the same for some other places.<br/><br/>Sercive and location are also top noch.

The service in this restaurant is good and the food is very average. The food that I ordered in this restaurant is Pasta ala von gale it's under season and lacks flavour.All in all its a average restaurant.

Visited Portofino with two young men today. One ordered a Pizza witch he enjoyed. The other ordered Chicken Fettuccine, I ordered Grilled Calamari. Calamari arrived with salad with no dressing and the calamari was too tough to chew. My grandson left most of his fettuccine on his plate complaining it had no flavour or salt. I complained to waitress who told manager. The manager came to table and said he has never had a complaint and there could be nothing wrong with the food. He charged us the full amount including surcharge for being a public holiday. As I am a Tour Operator I would not dream of going back or suggesting to friends or visitors to New Zealand to eat at that chain.

I don't normally do reviews but I was so disappointed with this experience I thought I had to say something. This is specifically regarding the viaduct restaurant. <br/>My group of friends and I were trying to celebrate a christmas dinner together, but although being told we had got the best table in the house by the Maitre d, this is where the service ended. We were sat down with menus, took 20mins before we could flag someone down to actually take our order. The waitress seemed inexperienced and had no knowledge of the menu when we asked about specific dishes. <br/><br/>Then we waited. It then took an over an hour before we had to go up and ask about where our food was, because again although we were waving and calling to people no one seemed to notice us in our "prime location". We had not spoken to a staff member for that whole hour,  even though two of us had finished our drinks during that time, nor were we offered explanations for the delay of our food. After asking for our food we were finally served a further 20mins later at 9:30pm almost 2 hours after we had sat down to order. Again no drink refills offered or apologies for the delay, nor did we get the usual check in for "how are your meals", our waitress again disappeared for the evening. She was surprisingly quick to retrieve our empty plates, though, taking them as soon as one person was finished making the others feel like they had to rush through. <br/><br/>The food was not really worth the wait  it seemed rushed and badly presented as my friends risotto looked like cat food with a huge handful of rocket thrown on top. The portion sizes were reasonable for the price. But overall we were all really disappointed as we had been looking forward to this evening for weeks, we had no apology or explanation from staff members either but there was really no excuse for food to take an hour and a half on a quiet Tuesday evening, I would hate to be there on a busy Saturday night.

We went there for dinner on 27 Sept for our Wedding anniversary were seated immediately, our waitress could not describe the sauce for the Eye Fillet Steak<br/> I ordered it regardless. The steak was fine but it was meant to be served with seasonal veges so it was a small quarter of a potato, small pieces of broccoli, 1/2 a carrot. <br/> We waited  1.5 hours for our meal - they were not that busy.I asked the waitress how much longer she said 5 minutes - and was short about it<br/>30mins later when the meal came the sauce had a film over it an it was barely warm.<br/>The steak was $37

Portofino has always been my favourite restaurant. When I went as a child, it had the most amazing food and the most of the staff were lovely. Recently I held a small gathering there for my friends and I was so appalled by the management! Some the staff had an attitude problem with my group and I can guarantee I had a humble group with me. The manager/owner was so angry because I could not confirm the attendance for the remaining three people coming persisting that he could give the table away - as if a threat. He put out a very threatening and cold uncomfortable atmosphere for my group and I. I am absolutely disgusted by this. I feel as though he tried to bully us as we are only in the 20-25 age group category. If you go here, put your foot down with the kind of service you expect. If you don't, they'll mess around.

You are not even worth the 1 star I HAD to give you. This was the most disgraceful restaurant experience I have ever experienced! I have received better service from McDonalds! <br/><br/>Firstly I booked about 2 weeks prior as I knew it would be a large group for my hens night - as soon as we arrived the waitress Fedrica was rude and immediately employed that other customers were more important then us - which pissed me right off as I was bringing in a group of 10 people paying money to this bad restaurant. In email correspondence I had been assured we could all pay separately - we were then told we couldn't do this as it would hold up other customers wanting to pay - WTF!?<br/><br/>We then waited over half an hour to get our drinks ordered and this only happened because we called the waitress over to take the order. We then waited another half hour to place our orders for food - which once again were only placed because we asked. She then came out an told us there would be a bit of a wait on the food as they were busy! No shit its the Viaduct on a Saturday night - hire more staff!<br/><br/>When we eventually got our food 1 1/2 hours after placing our order - a order was incorrect! We sent it back and informed them that after such a ridiculous wait time we didn't want the order at all because more then likely it would take another half hour to get the correct order if the previous wait time was anything to go by. We were also told the meal was wrong because we asked for too many changes - I don't see how asking for no pineapple on a pizza is too much to change!!! I also don't understand how NO PINEAPPLE means ADD MUSHROOMS AND FETA!<br/><br/>When we asked to speak to the manager about how unhappy we were she ran away! We only managed to talk to her when she walked past 20 minutes later and we yelled out to her very loudly so other customers could hear us - surprisingly she came over. She then very quickly pawned us off onto the owner who was less then helpful and tried to blame us saying we were taking too long to order etc etc... Needless to say the whole table of 10 people were starting to lose all patience and getting quite annoyed. He then said don't worry we will give discount and walked away.<br/><br/>We then arrived at the till and were told we had to pay altogether because they couldn't work out how to take the discount off if we are paying separately - this then took them another 15 minutes to work out what they were going to do all the while talking to each other in Italian which also did my head it as they knew I couldn't understand and were more then likely saying nasty things about our group. They decided that the only way they could do this was by dividing the total bill by 9 people and we would have to pay that way - this also meant some of the group ended up paying more then they would have had to pay for their meal which they waited far too long for in the first place.<br/><br/>During this time we also witnessed the bartender have a screaming fit at a poor waitress and even smash something on the counter while yelling at her - and then once we complained about our waitress the owner then preceded to yell and scream at her in Italian in front of us.<br/><br/>All up we ended up receiving a $5 discount each which was pathetic. We didn't receive a genuine apology and also ended up being the entertainment to about 4 other staff members who were standing around watching us when they could have been doing their job and serving the other people in the restaurant.<br/><br/>I would never ever ever in my life recommend this restaurant to my worst enemy and I am absolutely appalled by the lack of service. I believe the only reason you are still in business is because of your location.

Fantastic location and super busy. Unfortunately the food, though nice, was average for what you would expect given its cost.

Average at best, it's such a beautiful place you would think that the food would match. We ordered a chicken fettuccini that had no flavour and a Margherita pizza, its not bad it's just average. Disappointed :(

27 Jan 2014<br/>Just got back from having a lunch meal @Portofino @viaduct. We have been here couple times before but have not been on a "public holiday. " Thought we would go again as a family for dinner.<br/>However, we got seated upon arrival &amp; waited for awhile and still no service but lots of waiters/waitresses standing around. Finally I asked a waitress if we could order our meals and she said yes and then she disappeared....waited another 5mins and then had to ask some guy again and he served us. We ordered 4 meals....the pizza &amp; eye fillet meal was great...but the fish &amp; lamb cutlets were too salty....we normally order this when we @portafino but this time - thought the meal was not great as previous....also, the surcharge was a surprise as they did not inform us that there would be a surcharge of $31 on top of our expensive meals. We only had 4 glasses of juices with our meals which came to $158 and then had to pay the surcharge of $31 with a total of $189. The surcharge of $31 is about the price of one meal. I think it is totally wrong to charge a surcharge without informing us.....we do eat out once a month as a family and have been to skycity, Ravenhill, Malt on public holidays for a meal and lots of other places and a surcharge has never been charged....Never returning to this restaurant again....too expensive for lunch and very bad service....yet had to pay extra $31 for bad service without notification....

Today I made the unfortunate decision to have lunch at the Portofino Restaurant in the Viaduct Basin in Auckland. At between 11:30 and 11:45 there was no one there to seat anyone, but there was also no 'Closed' sign. The sign said to wait to be seated so I went and found someone to check if the restaurant was in fact open and he said 'yes' and seated us. Others came in after us and as no one was around, they seated themselves. After being seated it too approx 10 minutes for someone to serve us. From being seated it took approx 20 mins to get a glass of water, at which point I asked if our garlic bread would be coming soon. 'Yes' was the response, 10 minutes later I went and found someone as our server was no where to be found and asked again. We were then given the wrong bread ( I had asked for cheese on the garlic bread and there was none), - fine, what ever, no big deal - then we noticed that the table next to ours had cheese on their bread, so I mentioned to a passing waiter the mistake and requested him to make sure the extra cheese charge was removed from our bill- he just turned away without saying anything. We waited another 15 minutes and 1 asking later for our food to arrive. Very nice food. Our server was again no where to be found, so after sitting there with empty plated for 15 mins I asked the same waiter as last time if we could please have our bill. 10 mins later a completely different waiter came to fill our water glasses, at which point I asked her to send the manager over. She make a comment to the waiter I asked for the invoice, and I asked her if he was the manager and she laughingly said 'for today'. He then came over with the bill, at which point I said 'I have to say that this is one of the worst dining experiences I have ever had'. Much to my surprise he simply shrugged his shoulders. At which point I let loose on him. He simply did not care, I told him he customer service sucked, he shrugged again. Is this really the kind of service your chain wishes to provide? I have eaten at hundreds of restaurants around the world and really never encountered this kind of attitude. No sorry was offered, no offer of a dessert or coupon, nothing. His only excuse was that the kitchen had not been ready to serve us. I asked why the kitchen has to be ready to serve a glass of tap water, and why did they seat us if they were not open, again he shrugged.

Seated at 8pm. Waited for service, none arrived. Finally caught attention of a waitress and asked for menus. Ordered drinks and meal at same time. Drinks eventually arrived. Lucky we ordered with meal as we were never asked if we wanted anything more to drink again and then we waited. As we waited we watched people who arrived after us being served both food and beverages. After an hour and a half we asked when we might expect our meals. Told 5 minutes. Turns out 5 minutes is actually 30 minutes. Two hours after we were seated the first meal out of the four ordered arrived at the table and then we waited. Eventually the salads arrived. After another 4 or 5 minute two other meals arrived and finally after another 5 minutes the last meal arrived. The food when we did get it was bland, under seasoned and lacking ingredients. A salad priced over $11 contained 3 pieces of tomato and 3 pieces of cucumber, 2 olives and lots of lettuce. Totally underwhelming. Pizzas lacked toppings....Over priced, insufficient staff and lacking in service. Won't return when there are so many more places to eat in the Viaduct who can offer quality food and service.

Was really quite disappointed with this experience. When arrived the atmosphere was good and looked like a nice but busy place. We ordered and it took about 50 minutes to receive the food and ages when asking for water. The service wasn't that great. At first we didn't know the waiters have set places they're attending to, but when we asked another one waiter for something, they just shrugged and pointed to the one that was supposed to be servicing us. Only reedemable things are the good viaduct location and taste of the food. The al penne salmone I ordered was yum, however I would not pay $24.90 again for that experience and just a plate of good pasta.

We went to Portofino about 2 months ago for the first time. We had our 2 young children with us, and were very happy to see a great kids menu. The service was great and the food looked yummy. I ordered a vegetarian pasta which would have been perfect if it wasn't for the pepper in the sauce...totally my fault I should have asked for my meal with out. <br/>Sooooo when we returned on Sunday evening I was sure to ask for the same meal...but with out Pepper, the waitress assured me that the meal did not contain pepper...I questioned her as it had had pepper last time. She doubly assured me there was no pepper.<br/>the meals arrive looking great, and I was starving, so I was very disappointed to find large whole and crushed pepper corns thru the sauce. When It was bought to the waitress's attention she told me at first they were whole garlic seeds??? but did in the end concede. She spoke to the Waiter and he did come and offer a very nice apology. But no replacement? so no dinner for me. We were presented with the bill, as my full plate was cleared and offered another apology, only to find that I was expected to pay for my uneaten meal. <br/>I eat out 2-3 times a week, in Fab restaurants all over the country, we will not go again, and will tell others not to as well.

We went to the Takapuna branch.<br/>The quality of the food was very low. I ordered a pizza, the one thing you'd expect to be fantastic - being an Italian Restaurant.<br/><br/>The toppings were scarce, the layer of cheese was basically non-existent and overall a lousy pizza.<br/><br/>The only saving grace was a 'parmesan cheese shaker' which I doused all over the pizza to give it some flavour.<br/><br/>I will never eat at this chain again and I will tell every person I know to stay away.<br/><br/>When I went to the counter, I could see the chefs - they all looked angry and as though they did not want to be there. Who could blame them? We didn't want to be there!<br/><br/>The only decent thing we had in the evening was the service that the waiter provided. She was nice and friendly.

Terrible - summarises the experience we had because it was everything from bad customer service to slow foods to bad seating. One goes to a place like this expecting to pay a ridiculous bill but that demands an impeccable experience. The front of house is not a peoples person. We were greeted with "hi you want to come in' like some kind of a dodgy brothel. Waiter left half way through our order. We had to get manager's permission to move to a warmer seat even though there were only about 5 more other patron's dinning at the time. There were no salt/paper available on the table. It was so cold inside. We have been Aucklanders for many years now and trust me when I say that this place was one of the worst we had ever been to. Do not let the brand and the location fool you. The food was quite good though. It is such a shame that the chefs' effort is wasted by the waiters who have no idea what they are doing. It is definitely a one that you will never forget for all the wrong reasons. Place is empty for a reason.

If you love bad service, arrogant staff and average overpriced food and your happy night ruined, then this is the place to come. In all my years living in Auckland I've never come across service like this. It's pretty bad too that we picked this place to celebrate our 7 year anniversary!!! So when we first walked in place was bare. We asked the front head of staff if we can sit at a booth facing the water, but he refused and he shoved us in a wee cold corner. As I spoke to the waiter about the water he walked off as I was speaking to him. We asked if we could be moved to a booth again and they said they were reserved and gave us the worst booth where the door was so we were cold. Later on we saw the guy sitting people who just walked through without a reservation so I guess we weren't pretty enough for him to sit at the "reserved" booths. We ordered, took forever for the food to come. Pepperoni pizza was really nice. The pasta alfredo was bland needed salt and you can get it twice the price and double the portion at la portchetta. Eye fillet was good but plating was poor. My partner wanted it rare but the waiter kept pushing him for medium rare (??) The waiter came round to ask for pepper but he put it in my pasta before I could even speak and I happen to hate pepper!! When we left I said thank you and good night to the head of staff who SO RUDELY in the most pissed voice was like Ok ok bye. Honestly owner if you are reading this, you need to fire that guy. Believe me, your restaurant wouldn't be so empty.

I recently visited Portofino with friends, unaware of the ignorant, disgusting service and terrible food that would be awaiting us. <br/><br/>While we were seated and made to wait 20 minutes before we could even order a drink or even be acknowledged by staff, we innocently opened the water that sat on our table as you normally would. I mean, what kind of restaurant doesn't have free water? Unfortunately it wasn't till we were paying the bill that we were informed that the water did in fact cost $7.50 a bottle. <br/><br/>After waiting 20 minutes for service, a rude and uptight waitress approached. After sending our meal requests to the kitchen, we were then gifted with the food of Portofino. What looked like vomit on a plate made it's way over. As thrilling as it sounds, I was myself, not actually that thrilled. "Excuse me, when will my salad be coming?" my friend asked the waitress Ellen as he sat puzzled, confused about life. "I only have two hands, mate" Ellen answered as she walked off to sit on her ass again instead of doing her job. <br/><br/>As we all sat and shoveled terrible Italian food into our mouths, Ellen returned with a motive. Loathing life, Ellen began to remove our plates from the table before we had even finished indulging in Auckland's worst food. I always thought my heart would break and never mend over something like this happening, however, in a way, Ellen was doing us a favour. It saved us from eating over-priced shit.<br/><br/>As we winded the night up, I pondered the events of the night and came to the sudden conclusion that the alcohol was the only highlight of Portofino because at least you can't mess up a glass of cheeky vino. But, I'm sure Portofino will find a way.<br/><br/>-9/10 would not recommend xx

Food was average, too expensive for what it was though.<br/><br/>Service was bad, staff were rude, especially the person taking the payments at the front of the restaurant.

Last night we had friends visiting from Queenstown so we decided to take them out for dinner. Portofino was our preferable choice as we dined there many times before.<br/>We had a great night, food was excellent and white Italian wine surpassed all our expectations... our friends where very pleased so they pop up question when you are going to open Portofino Restaurant in Queenstown so they can enjoy your food there?

I have been to Portofino Viaduct for many years now, and yes they may be a little slower at times, but that's when it's full house. It's a huge restaurant with at least 300 plus seats. That's a lot of food to cook, so we understand when it's slower especially when we in a big group. In my experiences over 8 years, they have always maintained the food standard or better and the environment is always improving maintaining a nice family dining atmosphere.

Worst dining experience of my life. I have never been so dissatisfied with a meal before that I felt the need to complain.<br/>This time I did. We waited way too long for our meals to arrive and when they finally did my eye fillet was bland, under seasoned and not cooked medium rare as I had ordered.<br/><br/>I complained to an arrogant man in a suit, said that my steak was overcooked and not pink as it should be.<br/><br/>He called me to the kitchen and gave me a lecture in front of all the chefs and others about how my steak was not "grey" as I had said and that the chefs "know how to cook a steak". The colour of the steak was not as bad as I had first thought but was definitely not cooked medium rare. He also accused me of eating more of my steak than I had. <br/><br/>It takes a lot for me to ever say a negative comment, and I certainly didn't expect to be treated like a naughty, lying child when I did.<br/><br/>This is the worst customer service I have ever come across.

Service slow and staff inconvenienced by our presence.<br/>Food very average.<br/>Food not what the menu states, eye fillet? More like minute steak! <br/>Food cold, even after 3 attempts still not even warm! <br/>I decided not to roll over and pay $110 for the worst 3 steak meals my family and myself have ever experienced, only to be confronted by the arrogant owner who threatened to call the police if I did not pay for his shite steak! We are kiwi and supportive Aucklanders of local business but this one took the cake!<br/>If you feel the need to be ripped off, served terrible food, abused by the owner, then dine at the disgusting Portofinos Viaduct! <br/><br/>PS to the arrogant owner, learn some customer service, don't ever assume again it's ok to intimidate me because I'm female and I hope you did not carry out on your threat to charge to waiter because it was not his fault you run the worst Italian restaurant in town. <br/><br/>So do not waste your money here please !!!!!

Food was excellent and lovely setting for a Friday lunch!

The food was absolutely delicious, it was just cooked perfectly.<br/><br/>It's a shame about the service.<br/><br/>I ordered a drink which I have had many a time, at different bars and it was completely wrong. Several of us agreed on this.<br/><br/>We sent it back, as there was no way I could drink it. The Asian waitress told us that there was nothing wrong with it (not that she or any other staff had tried it) and we would be charged for it anyway (not that I really care about this but it was the fact that she was so rude about it).<br/><br/>The waitress then proceeded to have a big fight with the barman. Most awkward. I didn't want a big fight I just wanted to be rid of that bad drink. <br/><br/>My friend ordered me another drink, a non alcoholic mix that could not be stuffed up. Yet they managed to stuff that up too. I just drank that and then stuck to water.<br/><br/>The waitress was extremely rude after the drink fiasco, she spent the rest of the evening being such a cow slamming our drinks and plates on the table and ignoring me when I tried to talk to her (god I was only trying to thank her).<br/><br/>Like I said, the food was delicious, but I was absolutely disgusted with the rudeness of the Asian waitress and the guy at the bar.<br/><br/>Oh yeah and the toilet cubicles are less than half the size of a portaloo. Don't even think of using the loo if you are overweight :p

To start off I will mention that I am a pasta critic and it is very hard to please me when it comes to pasta. However I had the beef tortellini with creamy sauce and it was divine. Could be a little hotter(temp wise).<br/><br/>My husband had the cannelloni and quite enjoyed it.<br/><br/>This place however is let down by the staff and there customer service skills. Not only are they rude but incompetent. They stood around for 30mins just looking at us until they finally took out order. Why we waited that long was beyond me. They also forgot my coffee order and it didn't come out until after we had finished lunch and then blamed it on the bar man for being busy. There were only 4 other tables taken.<br/><br/>We had dirty glasses and the water had shit in it! I'm not impressed and for a big space you have you should really rethink your staff or at least train them in having manners

We went there for my son's birthday at his request for an Italian meal. We had an excellent waitress, very keen and friendly and the food was great. We were seated very quickly in the outside area which is very pleasant.<br/>We would definitely go there again.

My husband and I thought we would try something different for tea, being in Auckland for our wedding anniversary we didn't know where to go. Should have gone to the restaurants that were busy, means they actually have good service and food. <br/>We entered the restaurant and asked for a table for two. The woman did not speak to us just pointed at the table were she wanted to sit. She did not give us a drinks menu or offer any drinks. We WAITED 20mins before I had, had enough and wanted to go. It wasn't until they had seen me getting my handbag that they decided to come over and offer us a drinks menu. They were not busy at all so there was no reason to keep us waiting for that long. Normally you would have had your drinks by then and your entree ordered by now. When they finally took our order for the entree the garlic bread it came out and had a hair in it! Which was not mine since by hair isn't that colour! My main was the chicken and was barely warm and my husband wasn't at all happy with his meal the seafood pasta. My water was not cold, but only tap water with a dirty glass! I am disgusted in the service we were given and would never ever go back to them again and will tell anyone thinking of going to them not to! Worst place ever! Thank you for wrecking our dinner out!

What a shame that a restaurant with so much potential lacks the absolute basics for any eatery, service.<br/>Our waiter was rude, impatient and unapologetic (even after spilling a glass of champagne over everyone seated at the table). Not even an offer of a replacement glass was given, or was it taken off the final bill. <br/>If only the kitchen knew how much their hard work was being let by the front of house. The food was good but it by no means makes up for the service. Sort it out Portofino's, I am not the first to comment about this.

Nice location. Attentive staff. The owner hovers around and kinda clicks and barks at his staff, which I found off putting. <br/><br/>The food was OK. We ordered the antipasto, which was quite nice. I ordered the Scallop pasta. I thought it was over cooked, and the scallops were hard to recognise given the cheesy/creaminess of this dish. <br/><br/>My partner ordered the Cannelloni, which she thought was nice, but again a bit too heavy. <br/><br/>She also ordered the cheesecake for dessert, and was given a very generous portion, but again was very heavy,creamy and lacked balance.<br/><br/>Overall, it was a reasonable experience, but the food does have a slightly "re-heated" quality to it. Flavours could be balanced better, and overall I think the dishes were very cheesy/creamy and salty. <br/><br/>Would go back for a glass of wine, antipasto and view.

Saturday 26th Jan - we eat out most weekends. Worst mistake to have dinner here. From the beginning to end. Head lady has the worst attitude i have ever seen in the food business when welcoming guests. WE asked for a table for 4 she walked away from us assuming we were to follow her which we did, then she stopped turned around to us and starred at us like we were mad following her we adv we asked for a table for 4 in-which she pointed at a table and said sit there. Lovely waitress came along took our order we had to ask for water, she assumed tap water "you lost up sale for sparkling", when water was poured we proceeded to drink when we noticed each of the 4 glasses had little black bits in the bottom, we asked another waiter to take and refill, to which his attitude was appalling. Dinner, my warm chicken salad was nothing more them chicken strips in chicken salt of which I had 4 and 2 mushrooms and a few warm pieces of capsicum and two pieces of onion, with vinaigrette already poured onto it, pizza and pasta was hardly touched by the two people as they did not like the meal and the fettuccine may have been tasty but so full of oil only half was eaten. No one came to ask if we need more drinks, water, when I asked for the bill waitress asked if we would like dessert when I said no she said she will get the bill walked away and never came back. Asked waiter where we pay which I had to repeat twice before his reply was at the back, on leaving "no thank your for coming" "how was your meal".....nothing. Your toilets are as small as an aeroplane, messy as well.. Will not be repeated but will surely advice a no go place to many.<br/>Toilets keep clean. Staff should be pleasant and helpful and should up sale drinks etc, FOOD improve making a pizza and putting olive oil does not mean you are Italian.

Went here for dinner on a lovely evening, unfortunately we were told we had to sit indoors despite there being available seats outside. The seats indoors are very close to the kitchen and it was uncomfortably hot. <br/>I ordered the eye fillet which I found average and overpriced. However the waitress we had was lovely.

Visited Portofino at viaduct last night, got nice table looking over harbour, atmosphere was great ..good selection of Italian wines ..minestone soup was perfect and fresh fish was yummy. Thanks to friendly and professional staff.

We planned to go out for a nice dinner down at the viaduct, it was a really nice night, until we sat down at Portofino's that is. The only smile all night was from the maitre d who greeted us and showed us to our table. From then on it was sh*t!!! Had to get a waiter's attention by putting up our hands like bloody school kids after nearly 15 mins to order our drinks and meals. No water was offered to us at all. Took nearly half an hour to get our meals, with still no water being offered for us. Staff didn't bother checking if our meal was alright, and finally got one of the staff's attention and asked for water, and brings over to barely cold glasses of water..no ice at all!! Are you kidding me, at least make sure the water is ice cold you wits. Really disappointing, they need to get their priorities changed. No one go to this restaurant, the price you pay is for half decent service as well, which there wasn't any of. McDonalds have better service.

We planned to go out for my daughters birthday and she chose Italian, so I suggested Portofino at the Viaduct. <br/>I rang Friday to book a table for 5 people for Saturday and was told there was no need to book. I would rather book and know that a suitable table will be available at the time I want to arrive.<br/>We arrived about 7pm on Saturday and I asked for a table for 5. The Maitre'd without replying, showed us to a table in the corner set for 4, I repeated that it was for 5 so he pulled a chair over from a nearby table, stuck it on the end and walked away. No one set an extra place. <br/>When my husband arrived from parking the car he asked for a proper table for 5 people, so with bad grace they offered us a table inside which we agreed to. However when we went inside, they did the same, stuck and extra chair on the end. Eventually again with bad grace, they joined another small table on making it more suitable for 5 adults.<br/>We already had our menus from outside so proceeded to make our selections. My daughter helped herself to the water on the table. when the waitress came to take our drinks order she pointed out that you had to pay for the water on the table unless you asked for tap water.<br/>Three of the mains were fine, not in any way exceptional, but the lasagna was hard to eat out of the very hot pan it was served in and the mussels did not taste good (and weren't eaten).<br/>We had brought a cake with us and asked for just Gelato to go with it. The Gelato came but the cake didn't. By the time I got someone to bring the cake out, the gelato was eaten, as it was melting.<br/>The service was terrible and well below the standard I would expect from any self-respecting restaurant, from the time we arrived until the time we left. The waitress seemed to have a very tenuous grasp of English and we had trouble making ourselves understood. The restaurant was noisy and drafty. All in all it was a very disappointing experience and we would not choose to ever visit a Portofino restaurant again and will not recommend to any friends or family to do so.<br/>I now see from google search that this restaurant has a number of poor reviews. Perhaps they need to lift their game?

Lovely setting, but indifferent staff, they don't seem happy, nothing like Italians in Italy. Ok food. 2007 pinot grigio!!! Won't go back or recommend to friends.

I would just like to say that although very busy on a Sat night, Evonne was a great waitress and looked after us very well. She was friendly, efficient and patient! Thanks Evonne.

Portofino used to be my favourite restaurant....my family have moved overseas, but we come back twice a year to visit family. We always go to Portofinos for a treat. On the last two occassions, we have been very dissapointed. What ever happened to the traditional Italian pizza? Now the base is so thick, and the topping full of cheese. Come on Portofino, become more Italian!!

We decided to eat here because our usual restaurant was fully booked. The waitress was very quiet and didn't speak English very well. We ordered garlic bread which was like cardboard. For our main we ordered steak. My husband got the scotch filet and I ordered the eye filet. Both steaks were tender but were drowning in sauces. The vegetables were like something my mother cooked 40 years ago. The waitress forgot my husband's wine and there was a long wait until she took our dessert order. When it arrived I thought my profiteroles looked suspiciously like the Pam's frozen ones from New World and my husband's cheesecake was rubbery and, for the most part, tasteless. Needless to say, we won't be going there again. The staff could do with some training. Michel Roux where are you when we need you?

Went here as a group for a friends birthday. Food was horrible and overpriced. Service was even worse. There was another group there for a hens night and the only waiter there was too busy sitting at the ladies table flirting with them. Food took a long time to get to us and was luke warm by the time it arrived. At one point we couldn't find the waiter who a friend found kissing one of the ladies from the other table near the toilets. Absolutely disgusting service, especially for the price you pay. Have also been to the Portofino in Mission Bay and the manager was extremely rude. I will never eat at Portofino's again. You can get a better meal at McDonald's or Burger King!<br/>Don't waste your money going here!

I am more then four years customer in Portofino Restaurant Viaduct.I live in Ponsonby and many times with my wife we go to dinner in Portofino Restaurant Viaduct.<br/>I was yesterday with dinner with my wife on Tuesday 27 December 2011. We order food, It wasn't good at all, my wife lasagna is was very cold and dry, and my steak it was to salty. I am disappoint from the menu and food.<br/>I told to the waiter to reheat my wife lasagna, friendly waiter he apologies to us,and he reheat lasagna.<br/>The end of the dinner waiter give us a bill, and bill was with HOLIDAY SURCHARGE on 20% more then regular price.<br/>Tuesday 27 December 2011 is WITHOUT SURCHARGE. I am totally disappointed from management on Portofino Restaurant. I keep my bill, so and I can inform about HOLIDAY SURCHARGE on 27 December 2011.<br/>I won't back again.

I ordered chicken fettuccine and it was WAAAY overpriced for what it was worth. So average. La Porchetta is much better and it's half the price. I tried my friend's steak and it was very average as well. Nothing special about their menu. The potatoes and carrots and beans looked like they were heated in the microwave. It resembled somewhat of a TV dinner. Won't come here again!

Dined here on Saturday, 8th October.<br/><br/>Booked a table for 10 for dinner/drinks at 8.45pm with a specific request to be seated near one of their tv's to watch the RWC game.. We turned up on time, and were seated without access to a tv.. Promptly moved our table which was good, however were seated in front of an outward opening closet which the staff use to keep their belongings in! Dinner was interrupted 3 times during the evening so access could be gained into the cupboard - the restaurant was NOT full so I have no idea why they would sit ANYONE there?..<br/><br/>Entree and Mains arrived without much fuss, pizza's, calamari and alfredo was tasty and came in good time. 3x desserts were ordered and the waitress came back 15mins later with only 2 desserts and explained that they had "run out" of the other type ordered. When questioned why she hadnt advised this when we ordered, she simply gave a blank look and no sorry.. <br/><br/>Food was good, albeit pricey, however we will not be returning due to the very poor service. NOTE: we did take our concerns up with the manager on the night, and he gave a shrug and said "it happens" - NOT IMPRESSSED at all.. Disappointing to think we have so many tourists in our country at the moment and that is the standard they are being offered!!

Great location let down by poor food. My Chicken Parmigiana was a $35 TV dinner that had not been in the microwave long enough. Crisp vegetables are good but my three potatoes and one carrot were uncooked. The squid entree looked like it have been sitting under lights for an hour.<br/><br/>My partners White Veal Fungeto was ok and the service was fine.<br/><br/>Expensive and best to walk past to where you can get better for the same money.

Sorry but Portofino you would have got one star except for the fact you let us in for dessert only just before closing.<br/>But the food was not that great. As it was desert only not much was ordered, Coffee, Hot chocolate, Cheesecake and Brandy Snaps.<br/>It was spray cream on the coffee, hot chocolate and brandy snaps that had all but devolved by the time the food arrived at our table. The brandy snaps were nothing special with three supermarket brandy snaps on a plate filled with devolved spray cream. The Cheesecake was at least two days old and quite dry, Hot chocolate was good but the coffee while hot was burnt

Disgraceful. We tried to redeem a Spreets voucher - $29 for "any two mains of your choice and a garlic bread" valued at $60. After we placed our order the woman in charge told us the voucher was only valid for pizza or pasta mains (which of course are much cheaper). It said nothing about this on our voucher but she would not be reasoned with (even the other waiter was embarrassed ) - totally dishonest.<br/>She was rude and we left; obviously a ploy to get people in the door. We won't be back and we have laid a complaint with the Commerce Commission. This sort of dishonesty is a disgrace to this country.

Booked for 10 ladies for 8:00 o'clock. We arrived at 7:30. No one to seat us so we sat at the large table outside as no wait to be seated sign. Manager came out and yelled like at mad man for us to move as they were expecting a large group. He moved us to wait outside. A large group of about 20 arrived and took the table we were just at. We waited till 8:30 when I asked if we could have a table as we'd booked and he said when this large group has left. I told him we had a booking at 8o'clock and he said they didn't have it in the bookings. I said I defiantly had booked a week earlier and asked to see their bookings to show we had booked. I suspected they just wanted to take the larger group, he wouldn't show us? He was rude and unprofessional and told him we thought so. Will note it in our Tour guide to dodge. We left with birthday girl very upset with her potentially ruined evening but went next door and had a lovely time. Shame Portofino. You will never get any of our business or associates of ours. Very ugly experience

The food is really good, we had pizza, some salad and a pasta, it was really tasty but it took really long, i wasn't in a hurry but you start to feel weird being in a restaurant in the middle of other tables having their meal, so i felt a little bit uncomfortable, about this, but really good food.<br/>Thank you!

We had a delicious meal here but unfortunately it took so long to arrive that we had eat it super fast and rush off to see a show, despite the waiter assuring us that this would not happen.

Went here last night for dinner. The service was utter crap! Have to say that the meals we ordered were delicious. But after we were seated we were not attended to for at least 15mins. Had to go up and ask for our own water. The lady who seemed to be the manager there had a rude attitude when we asked for a bottle of wine. Wasn't friendly at all. The waiters didn't check on our meals at all or asked us if we needed more water throughout dining. The waiter also asked to take our plates away before we were even finished eating?!?!?! Found this completely rude. Didn't feel welcome at all in the restaurant. The only thing saving it from utter failure is the food which was great. We expected a lot more from a restaurant along the viaduct and from what we were paying for our dinner.<br/><br/>Never going back there again.

I went to Portofino's a few years back for a work dinner and had a great time, mentioned to a few people I was going to go there again this last month, everybody said NO WAY ITS SH*T!!<br/><br/>Couldn't help myself, went again.<br/>I asked for scampi not flakey torn up pieces of wall paper.<br/><br/>Rude waiter, rude manager, 2.5 hours to get my drywall served..Completely dissapointed.<br/><br/>Saw what one of the waitresses wrote while reading over these reviews just now, <br/>"Some of our waiters are of different cultures and their idea of good customer service is different than ours" (Or something to affect)<br/><br/>PRETTY SURE that arrogance, disrespect, rudeness, abuse among a list of many other things is in no way thought of as good customer service ANYWHERE.<br/><br/>Check yourself before you wreck yourself.

This place is not worth the money that you pay. The location is great, and the waiters are friendly; but the food is quite expensive and it's not particularly amazing. If you're looking for great, authentic Italian food I wouldn't say this is the place to go to. Not value for money.

my English is not good, but don t belive some ppl saying here is worst Italian restaurant, i tried by my self and my boyfriend last weekend,waiters are not talking much, but they nice friendly if you ask them to do things, i did asked to change seat for 3 times for better view in 1 dinner, and they just happy to do that, no any unhappy face. and the seafood big dish was very very good, price was good for restaurants in place like viaduct. don t understand why above ppl giving bad feed back.

Will never recommend or return to the viaduct portofino.We were a party of 14 for a birthday booked two weeks ahead. the wait staff were rude and inattentive,a man whom we took for manager came to the table and started being aggressive about one of our party who walked out after waiting an hour for the meal to come.The waiter approached our table to defend himself whilst we were eating.The attitude of the staff was appalling and uncaring. We were blamed for their inefficiency and rudeness. This place needs a severe shake up with all needing customer service training.What happened to the saying "The customer is always right".

To be honest I cant believe im wasting my time on this but people need to know how rude the staff are!! im 9 months pregnant and had my foot stood on, got told with a hand in my face to wait for my water (which i never got!) shoulder-barged when i stood up and knocked everytime they walked past, i was one of 7!! we experienced steak knives slamming then falling into laps.. u name it we got it! we werent asked for drinks till we had to grab the attention of staff some 15 mins after being seated. the food was average the vegies were stone cold. then to top it off complaining to the owner we were told we could have desert and a drink on the house, we had desert no further drinks but were on the bill, when questioned we were told we were lucky we got 10% discount.further more the toilets were disguting!! I hope they shape up for the rubgy world cup as there would be nothing worse for our guests to think NZ restaurants are all like this. My guests from auz and i will never eat there again.

The service in this restaurant is diabolical. If you do not have the capacity to cook for the amount of diners sitting down, why accept more in? what gives you the right to expect people to wait 2 hours for food?. No apologies for the delays, or free drinks/nipples to keep you going.<br/>Would never go there again, embarrassed that any visitors to NZ may go there and think this is the norm.

This was the second time to dine in Protofino for my friend birthday. There were not many guests in the restaurant; but it still took us one and half hours to have the meals. Almost end of my meal, I found a one CM length toothpick in the baked potato while I was chewing it. It almost cut my tong. The waiter was very polite and apologized to me for this and also promised to do something for me. I thought the restaurant manager will come and say something, but no one came. End of paying the bill, the waiter explained the problem in Italian to the cashier and try to ask a discount for us, but the cashier said very loudly in English “So?!” then only took $6.00 off from our bill and looked at me like the one is taking advantage on them. I have been working in the hospitality industry for many years and I have never seen any restaurants deal problems with such attitude. I will not recommend this restaurant to any of our hotel guests and I will report it to the city council.

I enjoyed the salmon pasta although the service was quite slow and it took a while to deliver my meal.However,a friend of mine had a completely different view and didn't like it at all.

Went with my partner to this place beacuse our friends said it was really good. <br/>1. A waiter showed us to our table as soon as we got there then walked off.<br/>2.Got asked for drinks after 15 mins and we just got water which arrived ages afterwards (water!) and the glasses were dirty and had a smell.<br/>3.It took ages to get the attention of a waiter and we did after 20 mins then almost an hour afterward we got our food.<br/>4. We sat by the door and the waitress stood there for ages with our food not knowing who to serve it to. The food was goos although my lamb was a bit undercooked.<br/>5. People brought their dogs who continously barked at everyone, this was disruptive for a romantic date.<br/>6. No smiles, no thanks yous, no follow throughs.<br/><br/>Never going back there again.

made a booking, stood to wait for a table to be cleaned. was seated, food was bought out within an hour, the meals we had were beautiful and substantial and well priced. service was quick with the mains. it turned after that. no follow threw or dessert menus or coffees offered.had to ask was ignored by 1 staff member. all in all excellent food terrible service

Portofinos. What a blight on Aucklands thriving restaurant scene. I have never encountered such bad service and lack of respect from restaurant staff. Add to this the inedible menu and you have a disaster on your hands. All we can do is tell other people and stay away in droves. This poisonous experience needs to be put out of business. Have a nice day.

Never go to this place! It is a waste of time, effort and money. The manager is ridiculously rude, staff are untrained and rude and the service is appalling. We waited 1 hour and 45 minutes for our meals on a Monday night!! The manager said the restaurant was "busy". I hate to imagine how he manages on a fri/sat evening?!?! We got no apology which is the only thing we were after, instead we got an arrogant manager who kept excusing his restaurant's appalling service. Will never ever be back. I have never ever experienced such shocking service

Portofino has expanded and is now a very big restaurant, taking up both sides of a walkway in the Viaduct Basin. There is great ambiance inside with quaint lighting and dark panelling. I walked in for dinner along with half of the audience for the upcoming Simon &amp; Garfunkel concert; needless to say, myself and several tables were probably feeling quite time-pressured. It was difficult to grab the waiting staff's attention on such a busy night but, apart from some anxious clock-watching moments, I made it through my meal in time for the show. The cheese pizza bread was tasty and I took the leftovers home. I enjoyed my spaghetti alla carbonara; the serving was generous with large pieces of ham and a delicious creamy sauce. I'd be happy to try Portofino again in less-rushed circumstances.

Last night I be with my family in Portofino Restaurant on Viaduct,I am very happy, wonderfull Italian food,best service.Waitter is very happy and friendly.Wonderfull place with happy and smile face on waitters.Will be back soon.

Would give this place no stars if it was possible!! I have never met staff so rude we waited 25 Minutes after being seated at a dirty table just to get the menus!! then once we received them we were left waiting so long for our orders to be taken we got up and left!!! Slack service and after reading the other reviews on here i am glad we didn't stay as it sounds like the food is just as bad!!!

Poor service from this funny "Italian" restaurant. My family and I do not drink wine, so waiter and waitress were not happy when we asked for ice water. We were treated like second class customers ! Quite rude and unfriendly attitude ! Will never dine there again ! Unpleasant dining experience .

Do not be fooled by the waitresses response to this list of reviews. If you are not able to serve the required amounts of tables ask your Boss for help. My dining experience was nothing short of disgusting. The staff are very rude and have no manners. When we complained about the quality of the food it was met with an irritating reply and were told they were too busy and we were being unreasonable.<br/>We were also forced to pay for food we could not eat. There is nothing Italian in this place, avoid it if you would like to enjoy your evening. Also there seems to be a common trend with people complaining about the staff, maybe it is time to re-train them correctly. Will never see me again.

You all mentioned about dining here, well I tried to phone them for an early reservation for Valentines, sorry I had not read any of the reviews before about this place. Some lady picked up the phone, couldnt understand her english, so she gave the phone to another person.I explained my request. he rudly said, sorry 1st come first serve no reservation. I also asked if there was a menue out for that day. All he said was I dont know! end of conversation....thanks a lot guys, defntly not going here..

Disgraceful restaurant <br/>food below average wait staff unpleasant unhelpful and rude, riding on there location and not the food or experience and im afraid location does not a good restaurant make wont be back

Worst "italian" restaurant in Auckland. First of all I'm italian and I can definately say that this restaurant has nothing italian at all. The owner is from Macedonia and the cooks are from all over the place but Italy. I wanted to order spaghetti al pesto but on the menu it was classified as entree. So I asked if I could have main size instead. The owner simply said "NO". I asked if there was any particular reason and said that I simply wanted a slightly larger portion and obviously was willing to pay more for it. His response was "We don't change dishes here.". I said that I found it a very poor response and that a little flexibility would help. He answered: "Do you think if the owner of the restaurant had started changing the menu for everyone who asked it he would have made so much money??". At this point I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to spoil everyone's night so I decided not to walk out. I ordered pasta alle vongole and saying that it was overcooked is a euphemism... The worst eating experience in New Zealand! Don't go here. There are plenty of decent italian restaurant in Auckland and a few of good ones as well. Don't waste your money!!

My husband and I had dinner at Portofino on Xmas Eve 2007 and it was the worst Xmas Eve dinner of our lives.<br/><br/>The food was bland and dry. My spaghetti alle vongole was so awful that I asked for parmesan cheese and salt to lift it up. It was so dry that it was just impossible to eat. <br/><br/>I asked for the manager and he told me that that's how this dish was supposed to be. I was appalled by his response. Anyone who has had a vongole pasta dish before would know that it should be in a lovely white wine sauce and nicely salted with clam juice. <br/><br/>I gave up on the meal and shared my husband's steak instead. The meat was tough but at least the taste was ok.<br/><br/>The restaurant billed us for the pasta despite noticing that I had not eaten more than 2 bites of it. <br/><br/>It was Xmas Eve and we didn't want to spoil our mood so we didn't make a fuss there. But it was definitely the last time we are eating at that restaurant.<br/><br/>Cheers<br/>Karen

I'm a waitress at Portofino Viaduct and i just want to justify your expectations of good service. Firstly, please explain further what you think good service can be when you have 3 tables of 15 people arriving at once, all expecting drinks and so on. It's not easy. The restaurant seats so many people all with extreme expectations and not only are we pressured from our side (staff wise) but also the customer always comes first. Always. Diners should know that- Gino is our boss, he trains us and looks after us to try make us as friendly and capable as we can be during rush hour. <br/>Secondly, in terms of immigrant workers, keep in mind that they are from a completely different culture to New Zealand- their ideas of good service are different to ours. Try please to be a little more patient. Everyone who's worked in hospitality should understand what its like to work in the busiest restaurant in the Viaduct. <br/>As for the food, try the Pollo Camembert and Linguini Ginolino. Its a little out of the ordinary, but worth it.<br/>Thankyou to everyone who wrote decent reviews about Portofino.

wow what a great dining experience of NZ. I love the way there are crabs in the mussels - it gives a sense of connection to the food chain. The fettucine is superb al dente and staff are aloof - not overly gushy or fake. I like the way the waiter slapped my face when I called him a wog - good on him for sticking up for himself - too many emigrant workers put up with less than courteous behaviour from the English upper classes.

I have been going to this place for the past few years, and it is a fabulous place to eat at. Great for celebrating couples' anniversaries and team dinners. Chicken fettucine is my favourite meal, and the atmosphere is very laid back yet styley.

To anyone thinking of eating Italian please find another Italian Restaurant than Portofinos, There are 10x better ones out there.<br/>I will NEVER eat at Portofino's again! Not only did my food have a baby crab in it which I crunched into, but afterwards the HELP/WAITERS were not the friendliest about it all and tried to act like we should be ok with it, reasoning was that mussels have crabs in them all the time and it happens so that we should be ok with it, but I'm sorry I do not go to pay for a meal to get told that! it put me off my lunch and my friends!<br/>I have told many others about my experience and to my horror many others have had similar experiences not only with the food but also the service and they would never eat there again either.<br/>My suggestion would be to go somewhere else at all costs...<br/><br/>

Ordered Canaloni (spelling?) and sent it back because it was over cooked and tough.<br/>$35 meal with rocket and 12 canaloni with not sauce for taste, which you can buy from the supermarket for $6.<br/>Received back our so called freshly cooked, but NO, received the same back with others added and over cooked.<br/>Did they come and ask how this or any meals are? NO. We were on holiday and didn't want to spoil our night. We shouldnt of paid $35 for this lettuce and 8 squid rings, fried till tough.<br/>Watch out for this TRICK of words.<br/>Would you like any water? "YES" Still or fizzy, was asked. Still please. Received a bottle of Italian still @ $9.50 bottle, and received already opened. Tasted like normal tap water. ASK for TAP water if asked or you will get a $9.50 bottle.<br/>When one asks for water/still/ we all expected our fresh New Zealand water. What about the carbon foot print on sending water all the way from Italy in a glass bottle. Shame.<br/>We have been in many Portofino's and this is the last.<br/>"How was your meal at Portofino's" Hope it was better than ours.<br/>I do recommend the Fettichine, not all bad, just lack of service for the price we paid. Come on management, you are better than this.

Portofinos Restaurant was lovely to dine at. I ordered the Chicken Fettuccine which was exceptional and filled all the expectations of it that I had from friends telling me it is their favourite Portofino dish. The service was great and they waited on us hand and foot. Though the meals took a while to arrive, the wait was fully worth it in the end. The only problem of mine that I had was that we were right next to the sliding door which was the waiters access to outside so it was used frequently and caused a draft every time they opened it. Overall Portofinos is fully recommended by me and with all the options on the menu everyone will be able to find something exactly right for their taste, no matter what it is.

Portofino Viaduct is great for that formal Italian dining experience without the hefty price tag (compared to other restaurants in the Viaduct) as the mains are usually around the $25 mark with quite big serving sizes too. My friend had her birthday dinner here, the inside of the restaurant is quite classy for a special occasion and the menu is vast so it would suit to everyone's taste buds if you have a large party. We all ordered a variety of items, the pizza way better than Sal's according to my friend. I ordered the Prawn and Scallops salad which was decent, nothing amazing but the prawns and scallops were cooked perfectly. Unfortunately there was a bit of inconsistency with the Scallops Rigatoni- some pieces were overcooked. Flavours are simple but executed very well, and definitely not boring like your average throw-everything-together-for-a-quick-midweek-pasta-dinner. Service was good as well considering that there was another party going on. However, I found their cocktails odd/different compared to other places. Would definitely recommend this for a nice evening date or party that doesn't break the bank.