• pursuant to the owners response below, as she obviously is not literate, we offered to purchase food (which we would not eat) just to sit at any of the completely empty tables, so perhaps she should read a bit more carefully. Additionally, you can see the individual on their Instagram, as the owner decided to stalk us on Instagram (we have not opened to read her filtered message in full as we have no desire to argue with Italian restaurant owners) rather than apologize or attempt to rectify the poor customer service so many reviews complain about.

We had not been to Portofino since 2016 despite spending about a month in Italy every year for our hobby Instagram collaborations, including Lake Como, Rome, Venice, several other cities on an annual basis, so kind of spur of the moment extended our stay same day after our collaboration in Florence with Hotel Savoy and then Splendido, as we ended up wanting to stay a few days longer and rented an apartment above this restaurant.

We went down same day when there was literally not a single table occupied and asked about getting a table just for drinks (as we don’t eat before 11 PM and needless to say, everything in Portofino - nonetheless kitchens - are closed by that hour; thankfully also all the tourists that have come in during the day and for dinner from nearby budget friendly towns have also fled back to where they came from).

The rude bald overweight server said that they were fully booked for the evening - my boyfriend looked around and said there’s literally no one here, can we not have a drink? He even offered to order an appetizer (even though we would not have touched it at that hour; thankfully I did not accompany him as I would have been far less kind). He said to go to the piazza.

Instead, we sat in our windows overlooking the beautiful view and their empty restaurant down below (which does not have much of a view, as it is on the street level by boat parking, so for people that are not actually staying in the town and just came in for the evening).

Never once did it get busy, nonetheless fully booked, not a single one of our nights staying above, and it looks like they only offered unfortunate looking pasta - I made better pasta upstairs, and I don’t even like pasta (they likely served the same boxed barilla they all serve to untraveled tourists who shriek about how fantastic the food is in Italy just because they think they are world travelers going to a country that almost everyone has been to by the age of one year old).

It looks like their reviews are pretty bad, which is not surprising, so I guess we should count ourselves lucky we did not bother giving them any money to just sit for a drink.

We did go a few doors down to the more charming wine bar, but ended up taking our wine in take away cups, since obviously sitting up high in our giant flat with multiple almost floor to ceiling windows overlooking the water directly above here was a much better view, without any of the backpacking tourists - and therefore we did not have to suffer rude service from an overweight bald server catering to B&Ters.

It is a shame that they do not take more pride in their establishment to improve the food based upon the horrible reviews about the food and what we saw, or the absolutely atrocious customer service (which it seems like every patron has also complained about).