IL Porto Italian Ristorante — Restaurant in Alexandria

We're locals & have tried this place a few times over the years. It really seems to have gone downhill to the bottom. Appears to be focused on the tourists & making dishes as cheaply as possible. Fresh ingredients, herbs, spices & careful preparation take time & money but translate to delicious food & repeat customers. We would like for this restaurant to be our go-to neighborhood Italian place instead of A La Lucia, Landini Brothers or Mia's.

Il Porto served overpriced & very tasteless food in all 3 courses. Appetizer: Burrata mushroom appetizer was mediocre. Main: I had angel hair primavera with mushrooms and my husband ordered lasagna. My dish was a pile of overcooked cold angel hair pasta with almost no vegetables & 2 tiny button mushrooms. I asked for my pasta to be al dente & our server didn’t understand what al dente was & proceeded to explain to me that the pasta is pre-cooked & not cooked fresh for every order. My dish tasted like pasta water sauce with no flavor whatsoever when it was supposed to be white wine sauce with garlic. My husband’s lasagna was a flat burnt cheesed mess. We asked for fresh black pepper & crushed red pepper to try adding some flavor. Tasted like the black pepper in the 2” long pepper mill hadn't been replaced since Obama was in office. Dessert: "Homemade" tiramisu was served with what looked like a big forkful missing on one side. We asked our server if she took a bite out of it & she just laughed. Again the tiramisu was very bland and tasted like it had been in the fridge too long. Highlight of this meal was dining outside with my husband.

Constructive feedback for owners & management: don't be so stingy with fresh herbs/spices & make sure vegetarian dishes have plenty of vegetables/mushrooms so they become real meals. We shouldn't be hungry after eating a 3 course meal & spending over $120. Lasagna should have more pasta with meat sauce than cheese. A squirt of lemon juice adds acid to brighten most dishes. Please replace the black pepper & crushed pepper regularly to make sure they still have flavor. Don't skimp on the Kahlua & Sambuca in your tiramisu & use fresh cacao powder.

Btw, we shared this feedback with our server & she just shrugged, gave us a business card, & told us to post a review so that the owners can read it online.

Lastly, please encourage your waitstaff to smile & teach them what "al dente" means because unhappy & uninformed personnel are like a house with...

Il Porto provided a cozy and delicious dining experience for our Friday night Valentine's date.

The ambience was warm and welcoming, even if the host was a bit gruff as we checked in. We were quickly shown to a table, though, and ordered drinks! We started with some very yummy cocktails—a berry vodka something and an 'Italian margarita' with amaretto—before digging into some apps—a simple salad and some calamari. The salad was fine as filler—mostly lettuce, some shaved parmesan, and cherry tomatoes that didn't have much flavor—but the calamari was quite good—and there was a lot of it to share. I appreciated the attention to detail on the lemon garnish for the calamari, which was provided with a little mesh to catch seeds as you squeezed out the juice.

But on to the mains! Rocky, our excellent waiter, did a great job describing that night's specials, so I went with a crab-stuffed salmon dish while my wife got the menu's chicken marsala. We wanted to pair each dish with some wine, but we didn't get much guidance on that front so we selected a white and a red (both were very good). The salmon and crab were cooked perfectly—juicy and tender on the inside with an incredibly flavorful crisp cook on the bottom. Best salmon we've had in a while. The accompanying risotto was delicious as well, and I liked the heterogeneity of the creamy risotto with the slivers of crisp (sauteed?) vegetables mixed in. But the chicken marsala... SO GOOD. I mean, we're biased because we love chicken marsala, but A for execution. Tender chicken, perfectly cooked mushrooms, and the sauce packed a ton of flavor. I only wish there had been slightly more noodles to capture more of the sauce!

We skipped dessert (we were full), boxed up some leftovers, and finished our evening with a walk along the waterfront just two blocks away. Altogether a great date...

My friend from out of town was craving Italian food so I suggested II Porto Ristorante. What a disappointment, from the food presentation all the way to the flavor and quality of the food served in this "Ristorante."

Overpriced for a mediocre meal. I ordered lasagna which it was an ugly pile of pasta covered with cheap burned cheese and 2 scoops of some meety like pasta sauce that it was dump on both the sides of the unappetizing sad lasagna. This dish was not reflecting "I'm freshly cooked for you today"!!!

My son ordered the sea food pasta special it would have been nice from the waiter to inform us that the dish is going to be a total disappointment. My son's dish it looks like a sea food nightmare!! Only a mad scientist with no experience in the kitchen will create such a dish!!" Lets throw onto some radioactive lab created green noodles few sea, swamp or river creatures and please do not deveined wash or removed the shrimp shells if you can chew it you can swallow it!

My friend was wiser he ordered spaghetti and meatballs accompanied by a Cesar salad the lettuce was dead few weeks ago but if you add tons of Cesar dressing no one will noticed, he is a nice man he didn't say much about his dish he was hungry he didn't want to make any fuss but quietly he whispers I can make a better spaghetti with meatballs using marinara sauce from a can!! Whoever is reading my review probably is asking did you mention your disappointment to the waiter yes I did he was like oh that's sad then after he took our credit card to charge us for the food he came back with a worrisome face. I'm pretty sure he was thinking I want my tip or maybe he knew deep inside the food was "no bueno" so he decided to gave as a tiramuse single portion on the house to clean up...