Porta'Vino — Restaurant in Houston

July 2023 Update:

I keep giving this place the benefit of the doubt because I want to love it. I really appreciate their wine pricing and the food overall on this recent visit was quite good. Went from 3 to 2 stars due to this recent visit.

My most recent visit highlighted the same issue I've had with this place from the very beginning, wildly varying levels of service. Our server (will leave unnamed) was inattentive, dismissive, and borderline rude... My friend arrived before I did and the server, while describing the off menu wine special said, "probably doesn't matter but we have an off menu wine that's $149" and didn't bother going into details about the wine. It just went downhill from there, and I don't think our table was singled out because he was generally terrible with other tables as well it seems.

The service did not improve that is, until we decided to order the $149 bottle of wine. Not long after this he started making a bit more of an effort which was a little late in the game.

Bottom line is not much has changed. Decent food, good wine options at great pricing, and 50/50 chance of getting okay service or just terrible service.

Original review (Summer 2021)

TL;DR - Wine list is great with good selection and pricing. Food execution misses the mark half the time. Service is friendly enough but curt and uninformative especially for a wine bar. Also QC issues in FOH... most recent visit we were given sour curdled cream for an order of coffee.

I really love the wine list at this place. I wish more places would move to this concept of reasonable wine pricing. I'm tired of seeing $45 bottles of Bogle Merlot when they retail for ~$10-12 in most grocery stores.

If there's one takeaway from this review is that the wine here is great, both selection and pricing).

Now on to the not so great:

For a place that's a wine bar, the service staff don't seem to be very enthused about serving wine. They had an off the menu special, a 2016 Beringer Cab, and I asked the waiter about it. All I got back was, "It's good."

The food on is very hit or miss. Both times I've visited was with a group of friends. Someone insists on splitting the fried risotto balls (arancini) every time. Which is fine, and it tastes great, but both times we've had it the risotto itself was slightly undercooked. A little crunchy, and not just from frying... that crunch of undercooked rice. Not the end of the world.

Temp control is another minus. On our visit yesterday (group of 5) we ordered an appetizer to split, then a salad course, then each ordered an entrée. I'm not sure if the meal just wasn't coursed appropriately but all of the pasta dishes that we received (2 truffle pasta dishes and a ravioli dish) were lukewarm at best. We were given, "careful the plates are very hot" warnings all around... yet all of our plates were barely warm.

Another slight disappointment is the lack of a proper dessert wine. A wine bar but there's no port or sherry anywhere?

Oh, and one of us ordered coffee with cream. The cream had soured and nobody checked the serving jar??? I'm not talking slightly sour or about to go bad... it was fully curdled and rancid.

Alone, I don't think any of the above issues is a complete dealbreaker, but when it happens multiple times on every visit... it makes me wonder if the wine...

My husband and I went for a second time to hopefully redeem the first experience. Both times we came at 8 PM. Our server and the food was both very good - however we were appalled that both times we’ve come in (the same thing has happened). We like to order a nice bottle of wine or two and enjoy a couple of appetizers, and a main course. As we were just served our main course around 8:30 PM, the staff is vacuuming all around our table, even the manager was doing so. We both worked in the service industry for 10+ years and you’re open until 9 PM, meaning you seat the last person at that time. You do not rush and you definitely don’t do what they did, it’s common courtesy for your customers. You do not start closing duties until the last person leaves. Silverware, sure, but they were banging it so loudly right in front of us. Not only that, multiple people were vacuuming all around our table - in the same spot… for 30 plus minutes, it was beyond rude. We wanted to stay for our wine but ended up getting it corked because it just took away from our experience as a date night. It’s a shame because we own a house two minutes away and we really wanted to enjoy it. In fact, probably would have been regulars because we do enjoy the food. That’s the second time now this has happened so we’re completely turned off by it.

I have only written one other review for a place in my entire life. I usually don’t because I like to give restaurants the benefit of the doubt and would never want to intentionally hurt a place, but hopefully this is a learning experience for the staff. It’s not fun staying late, but we signed our check at 9:02 PM (9:00 PM is closing). It’s...

We had a really good meal, I had a small caesar salad to start and then I ordered Shrimp Borgo, my husband had the arancini risotto balls and then the lasagna. The food was excellent, but our server Lester was terrible, He came by us and never said anything to us, we were waiting for our waiter, we looked at the menu talked and then we waited for someone. He finally came by and said our you ready, Did not offer any suggestions, we asked about wine, because we wanted to order some.and then for a wine menu and that was like asking a lot of him. He did tell us the price and I said no I do not want any and then he dropped off a drink menu, but he was not in the least interested in promoting any wine. So we had no wine. My husband ended up having a beer. Lester looked at us and decided he did not want to wait on us and that is the message he sent. The other waiters where great and offering suggestions and friendly to their tables but not Lester. We had to go to the hostess station to let them know we wanted to pay. He stood behind us talking to the gentleman and his wife and son for at least 5 minutes and did not even offer to get the ticket. We have waited tables and we know how it works. Everyone was helping bring things for him, our food was served by others not even him. I hate to say this, but we stiffed him in a sense, we left him 10 % which is not us. We know everyone has a bad day but this guy just had the worst attitude. I will try them but just...