Al Porticciolo — Restaurant in Cefalù

Let's just be clear--if you eat here, what you are paying for is the view. It truly is spectacular as the restaurant has a patio that sits almost directly over the open Sea...it is beautiful. But unfortunately, that is where the goodness ends. Understand, that in tourist driven areas, places like this can churn out mediocre at best food, and still be crazily popular....simply because of the view. We ordered clams and mussels to start, which were fine--though let's be honest, you'd have to be a train wreck in the kitchen to mess this up. The worst for me was my seafood "risotto"....it was terrible, notably because it wasn't risotto at all! It was not made with arborio rice, but rather something that resembled uncle ben's...if you're going to call something risotto, for gods sake...make it with the correct ingredients. It was basically inedible. And I sent it back once to see if they could do anything to help it along. The wait staff is attentive enough, but a bit befuddled. I will say, when I did check out and complain about the risotto dish....the owner came up and got into a bit of a back and forth with me. I'm 100% Italian, but my spouse and son present clearly as American. He obviously was trying to dismiss my complaints, but when I started speaking to him in Italian and saying that what he was serving was not actually "risotto," he acquiesced and took it off the bill--appreciated, but still a bit shady, for my taste. Bottom line--go for an aperol spritz and the view. Go...

Went here for lunch during tour to Cefalu. The restaurant was recommended by our tourist guide. We were happy that we got a table with view to the sea and restaurant wasn't busy. However, it took around 25 minutes for someone to come and take our order and that is because we have to remind them that no one had even asked us what drinks we wanted. By that time, the two tables close to us were busy and a large group arrived. Their orders were taken before ours. When they finally took our order, we had to wait awhile for our food whereas the other tables around us got their food first. Again, we had to ask how long more for our food because we had a bus tour to catch up at 2 pm. They finally brought our food around 1.35 p.m. leaving us around 10 minutes to eat the food and pay the bill because the bus was about 15 min away from restaurant. We only ordered for a pizza,grilled fish, and salad. We couldn't finish all the food as we were getting late for our bus. We didn't really enjoy the food either because we were so worried about missing our bus. Service could have done better for us to enjoy our food and experience at this...

Not good. Booking was unnecessary as we still waited 20 mins for a table. As we sat down, a young girl vomited on herself on the next table, not the restaurants fault but a bad omen nonetheless. The wait staff were lovely but clearly run off their feet judging by the sweat dripping from their brows and the expressions on their faces. The food: The pasta alla Norma took me back to my uni days when chucking some tomato paste on undercooked pasta for was acceptable. I picked the eggplant from it and ate what I could with copious salt and Parmesan. My partners squid ink linguine didn’t get very far either. Both plates were collected more than half full. After that we wanted to leave but had more food coming. We should have cut our losses but instead stayed for the nondescript Sicilian meat involtini. Not enjoyable. The best thing about the meal was the lemon sorbet/ granita at the end. Unimpressed...