Portofino Harrogate — Restaurant in England

I was a regular diner at Portofino Harrogate at one point, but this past year or so, it's gone downhill so much recently. Won't be returning for a long time after my last visit last night.

Our table was booked for 6:30. Didn't get our starters until around 7:15, and our mains around 8:00.

Some of our drinks were forgotten about, and when we enquired, we were bluntly asked "did you order them?"... obviously we did?

Starters were nice and easy apart from the kitchen not communicating to the food runners that my friend ordered her carbonara as a starter, so we waited longer for that. It was ready, but they still had to check amongst themselves what happened before it finally came out way after everyone else's.

When ordering mains, my friend ordered the risotto with no prawns and explained she had shellfish allergy. 2 other friends also ordered regular risotto. All 3 risottos came with prawns. When we questioned the manager, he asked the kitchen, and the chef assured us one had no prawns. There were visible prawns in all risottos and blatantly lied about it. They could have seriously made my friend ill. There was no apology AT ALL from anyone, for this. Just a remake and it being taken off the bill, and they couldn't even print the bill correctly. Initially only gave us a bill with only the drinks on, no food. Only because we asked, was the messed up risotto taken off the bill, with still no apology for the potential risk to my friend.

Another friend asked for a pepperoni pizza and they gave us a margherita, so we had to wait for that, too, as well as a prawn-less risotto whilst the rest of us ate.

The staff turnover in that place is ridiculous. Constantly hiring on Indeed. Every time I go (which was frequent before I noticed it going downhill), the serving staff are different. I believe there is no proper training and no communication at all between the servers and the kitchen staff. Young waitresses just stood around looking clueless if they're not running food. Do better, Portofino. You were the best Italian restaurant in Harrogate 2 years ago. All these issues could have been avoided if staff and communication amongst all staff was better. The food is good, but the...

0 Stars if I could. Came in a while back for a birthday meal on a Saturday booked in 7pm, there was 9 of us. Drinks took 45 minutes to arrive and when they did they missed one off, so we mentioned it and they said they would get it right away.. After 15 minutes again after reminding them about the drink we still didn't receive it for about 30 minutes after the original reminder. But before doing so they sighed and rolled their eyes at us which was just rude. Meanwhile all this was going on we ordered food at 7:45pm when our drinks arrived, but the food didn't arrive until 10:30pm! It was a bit of a joke when you saw all the servers just standing round. We saw people come and leave before we received our meals.. You would expect for how it was taking to arrive for each meal to be cooked to perfection.. Unfortunately it was quite the opposite; We had a burger that was completely cremated (Burger and bun was pretty much black) an undercooked pasta, we had a dish that arrived that wasn't meant to have seafood in but somehow it got in to a regular dish.. Luckily, my fellow diner checked to see, as they have an allergy, so they put it asside, my meal wasn't good at all - tasteless, basic and I had to get up and leave because I felt I was going to be sick! We asked for birthday celebration cake to be brought out after the mains (Which they forgot) But to be honest after that experience we just wanted to get out straight away. Unfortunately, based on this I will not be returning, for the food was not far off inedible, the service was shocking, we had different servers each time so nobody knew what they were doing..The whole night was just a mess and a bit of joke of a business. Absolute waste...

We visited this restaurant for lunch, and while we were initially seated without issue, the service we received afterward left us feeling uncomfortable and, frankly, discriminated against.

The problem began when a staff member came to take our order. As we started ordering the starters, she interrupted mid-sentence, saying, “You’re just going to order starters, right?” We were taken aback and responded, “Pardon? We’ve got more to order,” to which she awkwardly replied, “Sorry, continue.” We shrugged it off, thinking it was a misunderstanding, but it definitely felt off.

To make matters worse, we had to wait for our food for over half an hour. Looking around, there were certainly enough staff on duty, so I have no idea why it took so long for our order to arrive. It was frustrating and added to the overall negative experience.

What confirmed our discomfort came when we were paying the bill. The same staff member brought over the payment device and, before we could say a word, she said, “You can pay half now and pay later if you can’t pay it all.” At that point, I was shocked and asked, “What are you on about?” She quickly backtracked, saying, “Oh, sorry, are you paying in full together?” We responded, “Yeah, what do you mean?” She then handed us the contactless device without further explanation.

This entire experience made us feel incredibly uncomfortable and gave the impression that we were being discriminated against. I have no intention of ever returning to this place, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone....