Porcini Restaurant — Restaurant in Louisville

First time eating at one of Louisville’s finest, or so I had been told. For starters, finding the front door shouldn’t be complicated. You never want a patron to feel unwelcome and trying to a open locked door does just that. Signage would have helped. After trying 2 locked doors, I headed to the open back porch, where a hostesses immediately sees me and says, “Oh, you are trying to find the front hostess station inside, aren’t you?” Obviously I wasn’t the first to have issues. She personally walks me inside. I should have gotten her name as she was an excellent example of how to make someone feel at home. Inside it was dark and cozy. Nicely decorated. The atmosphere was old school which I was good with. It is pretty noisy so if you are looking for a quiet place for dinner or if you have someone hard of hearing this might not be the place for you. Our waiter seemed a tad stand-offish. He didn’t come around often so when I had a problem it took longer than it should for a resolution. Our table for 4 seemed a little crowded. I ordered the Gamberi e Risotto. It presented nicely. The shrimp were truly jumbo, well seasoned but a little over cooked. The risotto, on the other hand, was thick and clumpy, having the consistency of oatmeal. It was like eating wallpaper paste. I tried to quietly get the waiter’s attention. At one point, we made eye contact but nothing came of it. After 10 or so minutes, my husband finally got another staff member’s attention who managed to find our waiter. By the time he came over, the rest of our party had finished their dinner, except my brother who ordered the same thing I did. I asked our waiter to take back the dish. He didn’t apologize. He offered to bring Gnocchi which I agreed to and thanked him. He picked up my plate of 4 shrimp and risotto, which was more than half filled, and he brought back 2 of the shrimp. My original plate had more than half of my entree left. A few minutes later another man, no introduction was made, brought out the Gnocchi. It was delicious but we were all ready to go at that point. Our waiter came back with the check which included charges for the original entree and the Gnocchi. No kidding!!! Charged for both. My husband called the waiter over who took off the Gnocchi but not the original entree. My husband commented and the waiter did not said nothing. Didn’t apologize for anything. Still got charged for the more expensive entree that I sent back. Unbelievable. Not the best service. Not the best food. Can’t recommend it. Just wasn’t a...

I wanted to like this place, it has such a cute little vibe but the whole experience was laughable. For beginners, if you don’t fit their 50+ age, wearing a suit and tie you’ll be offered seating in the bar area, despite plenty of seating available in the dining room. This is also frustrating as we made a phone call prior to determine if reservations were needed which we were told no. To add to the inconvenience, the high top tables were extremely small, our cocktails and the bread basket couldn’t fit without us moving the decor and our water cups to the window sill. The food was mediocre and definitely not worth the price. The gnocci was bland. And the carbonara is not actually carbonara. While a decent dish it is definitely listed wrong. Our server was also the bartender and while decent in her work, was short with us in every way possible and didn’t even wait for a response on how our dishes were before walking away and she was hardly busy at this time. The thing that I found most hilarious and questioned many times whether we were being “punk’d” was that no one seemed to be able to clear dishes. Not our server, not the bussers, and certainly not the manager who all walked by multiple times and saw our tiny table being overflowed with dishes. Our server multiple times picked up only one dish out of a nicely stacked set of dishes from our table. To top it all off, on our way out, the manager quite literally went to check our table to see how much of tip we left.. we can see through your windows. 🤦‍♀️

It’s sad every staff person assumed we weren’t worthy of their establishment because we weren’t their usual clientele. We have money to spend and this was the first time in all of our travels domestically and internationally where I have felt so strongly compelled to leave a negative review. This place is so undeserving of anyone’s money with the way it is...

Updated review 6/2019: Unfortunately recently I haven't been left with the best impressions of this establishment. This past visit, I ordered a half iceberg wedge salad with dinner. When I got it, I almost needed a microscope to see it (was not the case a couple of months ago). It was literally four small layers of the end of a head of lettuce with ONE cherry tomato. It was embarrassing the kitchen sent something out like that, but for $5, I said nothing. On a good note, the linguine gamberi half portion I ordered was ample and delicious as always, as well as an outstanding peach cheesecake.

A customer nearby asked about wifi and was told, "we don't provide wifi because they are afraid of too many people slowing our internet down". Huh?! People spend average $75-250 easily here, that is ridiculous. With 200 Mbps speeds min. for business, not going to happen, just FYI. Apparently prices have been raised by average of $2 on many entrees too. I also heard (from a VERY reliable source) for the KY Derby weekend steaks that costs $105 were being served to guests. When choice cut meat ran out, they started using cheaper cuts yet still charged the same price. This was disappointing to hear but not shocking. Fine dining establishments in Louisville have been ripping off people on Derby for many years now.

Got to say though, they have some great staff. Especially bartender Cookie (wasn't there this night) and chef John. I am not anxious to return after this however. Maybe I am not the only one as it was a Saturday night and the place was just half full? I don't think raising prices is going to help their cause very much either....