Portofino — Restaurant in Waitematā

Terrible customer service this time...

Tried to book a table for New Year's Eve. Was told they weren't taking bookings (ok fair enough).

Arrived with our party of 4 to possibly 75% full. Saw a table for 4 outside, then was taken by the seemingly grumpy manager inside. I asked to sit at the outside table and was told "no". I thought there was no booking? Why are tables reserved?

Time came to order entree's. Asked for a bruschetta (classica), to be honest my pronounciation isn't the best, however I would argue I said it as good as any kiwi would say it. The waiter then quickly reads back something different I didn't catch, but was enough for me to say bruschetta again. My partner then grabbed the menu and pointed to the one we wanted. At this point I didn't see if he actually looked at what we pointed to, but seemed to agree.

The entree then came out and was a prosciutto crudo e melone (parma ham and melon). I said this wasn't what I'd ordered. The waiter got defensive and argumentive saying it was what I ordered, and showed his notepad. We tried explaining we had pointed at what we wanted. But it wasn't landing, and it looked appetising and we weren't wanting to ruin our evening arguing and making a scene.

The rest of the evening went fine, and the mains were delicious as usual.

However when we went to pay, I wanted to mention the entree to the cashier. I said along the lines of; "I just want to mention we had an issue with our starter..." And went to try explain what we had tried to explain to the waiter. However the cashier then basically shut us down trying the same argument.

Edit: Looking at my credit card bill, it looks like the cashier did remove the entree from the bill. Which I'm happy about. However this was not communicated and it still appeared that she was trying to argue about how we ordered it.

We paid the bill and left.

I'm not a huge fan of 'the customer is always right' as I know generally they arent. But I know in this case I tried to be polite and not make a fuss, and would like to have been offered something a bit diplomatic than 'no you're wrong'. I feel let down by all of the Portofino staff we had...

Very rude service by an older Italian guy. I think he owns the place. He was rude with my team of about 7 from the get go. We booked table for 9 for 6pm. I rang and told before 6 we will be there by 6.30pm as running late. We go there just a few minutes after 6.30 and he made sure before we even got seated, he would dramatize about it. He also gave us slack about two people who did not make it to dinner. He said if we had told him, he would re arranged the table another way. I looked around there was no other table that would have seated 7 people so we ha d the right size table. Two seats we used to keep our bags and jackets Anyway when we got seated, there was sparkling the table for false marketing. It was not advertised that they would charge us for it but at the end they charged us almost 10 a bottle for it. Well services us right, drinking the water without asking lol. One of my colleagues asked for plain water and he said " what is wrong with the sparkling water" , it is all the way from Italy bla bla. She simply does not like mineral water. Instead of giving her a jug, he gives her a glass of water. Our food was ordered and it was over 1 hour late. Food was good but very small portions. A baked dish was not so great so a colleagues did not finish it. We just merely finished our meals. when he came around asking, have you finished, cleared our plates and did not offer to pack the baked dish for her. Seconds after that do you want desert, we said no and basically okay then, please go and pay. When we went pay to a colleague had changed a pasta from penne to gnocchi, she got charged an extra $4. This was not communicated by the waiter and the menu. We then got charged for the sparkling water too. The man's service was appalling and rough. I just do not understand why people go here. Of course we would stayed for desert but after all that service we did not. We did pay a lot of money that night. Appalling service with bad waiters and owner. Please do not waste your money here. I heard...

Absolutely appalling behaviour from the “manager” with the hat

Last night I decided to dine at Portofino with two friends, as we were in the area and had previously heard good things about the Portofino restaurants in Auckland. We waited patiently and requested a table outside to enjoy the nice weather. Our server was happy to accommodate this, and we were seated at a booth overlooking the water. The booth seemed designed for 4 people, however we had 3 people and we had been seated by the wait staff instead of seating ourselves.

As we were looking at our menus one of our friends went to use the toilet. Myself and my remaining friend were at the table when the “manager” came over. Instead of greeting us, he began angrily saying that we were a “table of two.” I was taken aback by his tone and accusation and I said we weren’t a table of two, but our friend had gone to use the toilet. He then proceeded to argue with me - “where is the friend” - effectively accusing me of lying. He walked off without apologising or saying anything. Our friend returned from the toilet a few moments later, and the “manager” chose not to apologise or say anything further, and avoided our table for the rest of the evening.

We mentioned to our waiter that the “manager” had been rude and the waiter was nice and accommodating. He didn’t seem surprised, and judging by the other reviews this seems to be a common interaction. Myself and my friend did also feel that he decided to pick on us as two young women as well. I couldn’t believe his tone, and as we all work in customer service we were all shocked at how rude he was. Overall, if you’d like to spend $100+ on mediocre food and terrible customer service, with a manager who will interrogate you for being there, then choose Portofino - otherwise, choose one of the many other, better restaurants in the...