Portobello Restaurant, Koh Tao — Restaurant in Surat Thani Province

This was the first restaurant in Thailand that meets or beats western standards in all cases. Very highly recommended for a quality meal.

This is a modern, clean and well organised establishment, with comfortable dining furniture (not the usual spine breakingly low backed chairs most other places have). Its open air, so its as hot as the weather is, but every table benefits from a fan giving airflow. The waiters are attentive and understand English perfectly, always looking out for your eye and anything you need. Way better than any restaurant at any cost I've been to at home!

The toilets were clean, simple single loo cubicle affairs which in a hot country are normally absolute sweatboxes, but they had thought to put a fan overhead to give some relief as you relieved yourselves. Also they provided paper hand towels so you could actually dry your hands. Sounds obvious, but this is one of the only places on the island that offers this basic, but necessary, amenity.

The bar was fully stocked and the barman clearly knew what he was doing. We had 2 very tasty cocktails, Pomegranate Crush and Blueberry Mojito which were excellent. These also arrived fresh, cold and within only a few mins of placing the order so they are really fast.

And I've saved the best till last because the food is what we were here for. Specifically I saw a photo of the charcuterie board and knew that was what we needed. Piled with meats, salads and cheeses it was wonderfully fresh and familiar. Coupled with a pizza, it was the perfect amount of food for 2 people. The pizza, of course, is excellent. Plenty of toppings, good stringy cheese, thin and just crispy around the edges. And I requested that everything come out together, rather than individually like all other Thai restaurants. So that's exactly what happened, which made it so much more enjoyable to be able to eat and share the food together. At the end we indulged and had dessert because another surprise in Thailand was cheesecake. Its my favourite dessert so I was keen to find out what it would be like and I was well rewarded. It was a beautifully made, large slice of perfect cheesecake, better than a lot I've had in the UK. There even "appears to be some red crap on my cheesecake" which made us laugh (if you know that episode of Friends)

It came to 1290 baht, which makes it the most expensive dinner we've had in Thailand. But given the service, quality and quantity of food, it was 100% worth it and not expensive by western...

Meant to review this place a while ago and havent had time. My husband and I had been waiting to try this place for the extent of our time on Koh Tao and finally went in one night. Waited ten minutes for a server to come to our table, got sick of waiting so we waived a server down. We ordered drinks (tiny wine portions) and then after the server brought our drinks we had to wait another ten minutes to order food... again- had to waive the server down (by the way, this place was being run by westerners). By the time our server made it back to our table, we ordered an appetizer which was basically overpriced prawns SWIMMING in some gross mayonnaise sauce. Fortunately, we hadn’t ordered our mains and told the server we wanted the check as we didn’t want to be disappointed any more than what we had already been. The way I see it is that if you’re paying western prices, you expect a little more than the crappy service and food we got that night. There were 5 tables being occupied. 5 TABLES and at least 3 servers. The place wasn’t packed by any means. After leaving, we went to Hippo Grill and had a fantastic meal, and were really just thankful we got out of Porto Bello before we had wasted any more money. Super disappointing...

Usually never leave reviews but it was awful. Ordered chicken pesto and the chicken was undercooked. had to ask them to recook it again. The pesto and pasta was way too greasy. Not the standard you are looking for and not worth the price. I had also asked them to change the pasta type to penne from whatever they had on the menu. I ended up being charged 150 baht for “customizing menu”. Like what? Only changing the pasta to penne. Unacceptable. They should have made the client aware first that there would be a charge for changing the menu not just show it on the bill after you have eaten the food. It’s unheard of. What a Rip off. Understand they are trying to make money during Covid but I still wouldn’t support this type...