Cafe Mediterraneo — Restaurant in Portsmouth

My wife and I were dining with a friend and the restaurant was not overly busy on the evening of March 9th as the snow must have kept some patrons home. Our three meals were delivered at the same time and almost immediately our guest found a hair on the top of their entree. It did take some time for us to flag an employee who was going to tell our server, “W”. As we waited for “W”, my wife, and I did not touch our food to respect the situation and our friend. “W”, came to our table after being told that we had an issue and reviewed the plate and said, “the hair must be from one of the guys in the kitchen”. She politely asked, “would you like for us to remake the dish” and our guest said “please”. As frequent diners we understand that this situation does happen, and we are not going to a make a scene out of it. This situation was an inconvenience to our night as my wife and I ate our food while our guest awaits the remake and vice a versa when the remake arrived. “W” said the remake would take a couple of minutes and, it took approximately 10 – 15 minutes although we were not keeping a stopwatch. So here is my peeve. The situation of the hair in the food was never acknowledged again after "W" asked the question about the remake or not. In my experiences with similar situations the server, manager on duty, or even the owner has apologized for the happening and typically would do something to try to make the situation better. Minimally, I believe "W" should have apologized when presenting the check to me. I did not approach the owner who manages the front end of the business as he was hustling meals out of the kitchen most of the night. Maybe I should have approached him regardless as he can’t fix what he does not know is broken. ...

We made a reservation for a party of 6 by the window and they were ready for us when we arrived. We purchased bottles of wine as we were celebrating 2 birthdays! We ordered our dinners and bread and water arrived quickly. It was a delightful atmosphere and our wait people were attentive. Food came out and looked delicious and proportions were generous. I ordered the seafood risotto which the presentation was amazing! My husband ordered the veal piccata on penne which was delightful. However, to my great disappointment my seafood risotto had mussels lining the sides of the dish...but had those nasty beards and small chips of shells that I crunched on the first bite. I thought maybe this was one off - and I tried another one...I was so afraid of chipping my tooth as I crunched another one. At that point, I took the mussels out of my dish. I let the waitress know and her response was "oh we just have new cooks back there." I did not want to make a scene and she didn't offer to take the dish back or maybe order a new meal, or anything! At that price range I cannot tell you how upset I was- but everyone at our party was having a good time but I couldn't eat it anymore and asked for her to package it up so when I got home I can take a picture of what I was expected to eat. I will not go into details.. but it was not eatable. New cooks, mussels have beards that need to be removed fully, and please be more careful when handling the delicate shells- they crack! This was incredibly disappointing for me... I had 3 small scallops 3 shrimp and black olives ( many of those ) and the risotto. Very disappointing because I had this dish last year and it was perfect! I also got some lobster too in my dish last year! Very...

Pricey but pretty good! I would go again.

We went here for dinner after a wedding. Had the bruschetta, which was fantastic: great crunch, lots of flavor with the balsamic, moz and tomatoes were fresh.

Got the frutti di mare, which was not worth the whopping $32 to me... it was not really spicy, but had lots of calamari, tiny mussels (in shell), few clams (in shell), and literally just half of a small lobster claw (#CheckTheBox) , all sitting in what looked like thicker spaghetti/thinner linguini pasta. I like it saucy so for me it was a bit on the dry side.

Lobster ravioli was pretty good though. Fantastic sauce... but I'm guessing the ravioli itself was store-bought because of the banding/coloring on the pasta. (I could be wrong though.)

Tiramisu was a fantastic finish. No idea if store-bought or made in-house.

Wine selection is pretty varied and the menu is very descriptive so you know what you're getting.

Service was okay... I think the waitress was having a bad day and she felt kind of short. Didn't bother me at all because I know it can suck waiting on a large table, but it bothered the other guests enough that they talked about it.

Atmosphere was rather dim further in the restaurant but it wasn't so dark that you were sitting in catacombs. A bit tight with seating... would have been (and probably is now) a COVID breeding ground.

I would definitely give this place another shot but try something else. There's TONS to...