Caffè Portico — Restaurant in Lincoln

On Friday, 31st January, my wife and I decided to revisit Caffe Portico’s, a place that used to be our favourite. We would order from here all the time, but after a bad experience with a burnt pizza, we stopped going. Having recently found out we are expecting a baby girl, we wanted to celebrate and thought we would give it another chance. Unfortunately, I wish we hadn’t.

While the food remains excellent, the service was truly disappointing. The restaurant was half empty, so there was no excuse for the lack of attention. My wife and I sat down and placed an order for two pizzas, which we always take home, along with two pastas and two starters. The starters arrived first, followed by one pasta dish. Assuming my wife’s pasta was on its way, I started eating so mine wouldn’t go cold, but it never came. When I asked the waiter about it, he seemed completely shocked, realising he hadn’t written it down.

To make matters worse, the wrong pizza was then brought to our table. When I pointed it out, the waiter looked at me as if I was making it up. There was no apology, no acknowledgment of the mistake, just confusion. After checking with us multiple times, he eventually brought out what was supposed to be the correct pizza, but even that was wrong. We always order Quattro Formaggi Bianco, yet we were given Rosso instead. By that point, we couldn’t be bothered to say anything and just wanted to leave.

By the end of the meal, we had completely lost our patience. I walked up to the counter, paid the £86 bill, and received a casual “Thanks, man” in return. No apology, no effort to make up for the poor service.

It is such a shame because the food is genuinely great, and the owner is a fantastic guy, but the service completely ruins the experience. I really didn’t want to have to write this review, but after giving them a second chance, it is clear that nothing...

So first time we have been here, booked a table for two. Menu is great with a good choice of pizza! Excellent service and quick. Super friendly staff with a great focus on detail.

We started with a ciabatta and balsamic dip and bowl of olives - fantastico! Portion size was great and flavour lovely.

We followed this with two absolutely amazing pizza's, well where to start other than they were absolutely amazing and no doubt the best pizza's I've ever had. Thanks to the hard work of the staff, this place is one of only six in the UK to have earned accreditation by AVPN of NAPLES to use traditional methods to make genuine neopolitan pizza. Well worth trying as you'll not be disappointed. Not to mention they have a handbuilt wood fired oven not some commercial fast food oven.

After this we were given complimentary orangecelo on the house and we ordered a latte and cappacino to finish off the meal.

This place really is a little bit of Italy 🇮🇹 that's not actually in Italy 🇮🇹, if your in lincoln then you definitely should try this place 5* a must go, you'd be missing out if you didn't! Not hungry? Then you can just have a coffee during the day which was...

We knew nothing of it's existence until we won a prize of lunch for 2 here, then I had to google it to find out that it was almost on our doorstep. We were greeted warmly and invited to choose a table, select any lunch from the board and a coffee. The guy followed us and told the staff it was a prize and there was no charge and we set about choosing our meal. I had quite a good view of the board but my husband didn't so we moved to the next table, which caused utter confusion as when I went to order, my hubby had nipped back to the car as we forgot to put a ticket on it and the guy who greeted us took our order believing we were sat at the other table, so the couple who came and sat there received our coffees and it was only when the waitress took our food to them that the mix up was realised. We did get our meals and our coffees and very tasty they were too. My husband had Lincolnshire sausage with onion on ciabbatta and I had Lincoln red beef with horseradish mayo on ciabbatta, absolutely delicious. We will go back again and...