Cucina Porto — Restaurant in Sydney

The last 3 months I have often visited. I am disappointed that the service standards haven’t improved. Twice in Nov & Dec 23, I made a booking using the portal for 9.30pm. We were taken to our seat & told the kitchen closes in 5 minutes & must order without being given adequate time to peruse the menu. we ordered antipasto & mains. The food on these occasions were good, but all the food was brought in one go stacked on top of each other leaving no room for drinks. Our order was a glass of water, a soft drink each. burrata, tomatoes, oysters, stone bread & 2 mains. Our main got cold while we ate our entree. We weren’t given a chance to order dessert, coffee or soft drinks. Another day we arrived at 6.30pm with no reservation, it was empty & we were told that they are fully booked & can’t stay. After pleas to management, they said “pizza only” We were there til 7.30pm & in this time only 8 guests arrived, yet we were told that the restaurant was at full capacity. Clearly we were lied to. The female at the front was rude & abrupt, she was a tall girl with long hair. On Tues night I went to do an online booking, there were numerous spots Available from 7.30pm to 9.30pm, I put my credit card details & the system had an error message, I tried again & every spot was now closed. I spent 30 mins with the team who told me they will make a booking for 9.30pm. We were refused entry by the male person at the front, he said the reservation is not existent & his kitchen is closed, yet we observed meals still being served from the kitchen even 15 minutes later. Apparently the kitchen closes every night at 9.15pm precisely, yet, I am able to make a reservation for 9.30pm. On Wed night I made an online booking for 4 people as the system was not showing availability for my party of 5, the lady at the front was pleasant & accommodating, the restaurant was not full, but as per the online booking system, it seemed they were. We ordered our meals & thought we would finally get proper service this time, we ordered our entrees & main meals, the meals were all delivered in reverse, our main came out 5 minutes before the entree. A huge disappointment was the size of the main meals, they were half the size of what is normally served (equal to kids sizes) When I raised my concerns about the size of the meals, (the ragu had 6 pieces of rigatoni) , 3 individual wait staff all agreed that the portions were not consistent with the normal sizes served. I acknowledge that the manager on duty offered to fill the plates to the normal level, 3 out of 5 plates were returned back to the kitchen & came back out with the proper quantity. we asked for 2 soft drinks at 10.15pm & we were told the bar was closed. our food was being delivered up until 10pm, so this goes completely against the kitchen apparently closing at 9.15pm. I have some serious concerns as how a business of this size based in a world class casino continues to operate. My recommendations as a hospitality manager are as follows. train staff in proper customer service. If kitchen closes at 9.30pm, ensure your last booking is at 9pm Do not dump all the food, main & entree in front of patrons expecting them to finish everything in 30 minutes. Advise your guests that last drinks are on offer Ensure that even though you are nearing closing time, you continue to uphold your regular serving sizes for your meals. Don’t rush your guests. you operate on the grounds of a 24 hour casino, that has live shows almost every night that finish around 10pm, extending your trade till 12am would be beneficial for both your business & patronage. On Wed “Wicked” was on, when the show finished, over 30 people (in seperate groups) wanted to attend your venue & were turned away, considering there are no other feasible food options nearby for the guests of “The Star” you are charging to provide goods & services, but you’re not. To make matters worse, after the last visit, 3 of 5 ppl who ate at the restaurant on Wed night now have gastroenteritis. Very disappointed & hope you...

We had a course meal for a celebratory event with a large group of people and while they were nice and accommodating, I have very strong opinions about the food itself. I normally take photos at every new place I eat, but this time I didn't because most of the food looked unflattering. But I never judge food by appearances only, so I tried every single dish they served us. It was quite impressive... how there was something wrong with almost every single one of them, even though we had like 10 different varieties.

Let's start from the appetiser/antipasti. The garlic stone-baked bread was saltier than the dead sea. The "smoked ham" wasn't smoked at all, it looked and tasted like straight out of a deli. The cherry tomatoes "with spicy pork sausages" had a mild spiciness, but no sausages in sight. The olive-oil glazed bread was soggy because it was way over-drenched with the olive oil, and had also been sitting in the kitchen for a while before served to us. The deep fried calamari with their special sauce was the only redeeming item of the whole first course.

Now moving on to the mains/secondi. The two pizzas had a decent dough base, but both of them felt way too oily. They also just didn't have much flavour that stood out, so in summary they were quite mediocre. The lamb ragu had really dry lamb. The spinach ravioli had sauce that was more akin to pasta water than sauce. The salad had an overwhelmingly sour dressing. The crispy chips were the only thing that I would consider edible from the mains, but why are chips part of the main and not the appetiser...? The mains menu also just had an overarching problem of consisting of way too much carbs which made it felt too heavy to eat after the appetiser.

Finally, there was no dessert course. What kind of a course meal doesn't finish with a dessert?? With all that being said, I can't in good faith recommend this place. Being nice and accommodating is one thing, but serving bad...

I'm reading previous recent reviews here and am truly shocked at the rated service here, based on my visit last Friday night, and previous experience at Black Bar and Grill - also part of The Star entertainment complex.

Booking for two, 745pm seating, my sister and I arrived promptly and were asked to sit at the bar while our table was prepared... we spent a couple of minutes checking out the cocktail menu and weren't acknowledged or served by the bar staff at all, eventually moving to our table.

The tables in our section were merely 50cm apart, which is fairly awkward even in pre covid times and strangely the table next to us and seated a few minutes later were first to have their order taken.

We ordered cocktails and 5 starters to share and begin with, and the food arrived with minimum fuss and was certainly delicious. We never saw our waitress again though , someone else took our mains order quite some time following and only partially cleared our table in preparation for the next course. And we waited... and waited... eventually yet another staff member realised we were waiting still for mains and looked into the delay.

By this time, another friend joined us and the staff were accommodating to add another chair to the table. Mains were good, not exceptional , and espresso martinis went down a treat. We weren't offered another round of drinks though, nor dessert , so eventually left to continue our evening.

Overall? Food is good honest Italian, and plenty of options for fussier eaters (vegetarian and non- seafood). The experience though is far from comforting, both in ambience and personal service through the evening. We easily could have had 2-3 more rounds of drinks, and dessert, but the restaurant really let itself down that evening. While we weren't expecting the same level of service as Black Bar and Grill, we really...