Portofino Italian Kitchen & Wine Bar — Restaurant in South Carolina

Below is a review and rude response by the owner, first he misrepresented my issue and second even though he could see my history of visiting fine dining restaurants he chose to insult me. There are plenty of excellent Italian restaurants within 5 miles of this place that do care about customer experiences and have better food without gouging their customers.

Food was good but not spectacular , service was excellent but the reason we won't return is the price gouging, I asked if I could substitute my marinara that comes as a side on the veal parm and I was told it would be 10.00!!! I was afraid to ask if I could switch the spaghetti for penne that probably would have cost more than the meal, INSANE! that was about 40% of what the whole dish cost just to add a little cream to the marinara. The owner tried to justify it to me saying it was a time and labor issue but if they keep this up they won't have to worry about the kitchen being to busy. Too bad because we have a 2nd home in North Myrtle and eat out 5-10 times per monthly visit but they lost us as customers. Portofino Italian Kitchen & Wine Bar Public Responded 3 days ago Mr. Scott, I certainly remember talking with you, when I was EXPLAINING the cost of the OPTIONAL modification you asked. Indeed, in a restaurant 'a la carte' ( as Portofino) managing time and labor is a very complex job and indeed I have to make sure the kitchen is able to work efficiently / for the sake of ALL customers. You should know that most restaurants nowadays do not allow any modifications to the menu, exactly for the same reason. 10$ is nothing for a dedicated 'a la carte' dish. I wish you luck finding food which is good and cheap at the same time / which (I believe ) is what you are looking for. Your reply Responded 3 days ago It was NOT an ala Carte dish it was a side with an entrée. As far as the comment "Most Restaurants do not allow any modifications" You need to get out more, We frequently visit fine dining and casual restaurants in Charlotte as well as Myrtle Beach and exactly NONE charge to alter a side dish they even accommodate switching a side completely, much less just switching which sauce goes on the side. Actually I mentioned this to 2 other fine dining restaurant owners in NMB after we went to Portofino's and both were stunned that you would charge that much to change a sauce on a side dish. So anyway good luck on your endeavor My comment at the restaurant were meant to be constructive, I really want restaurants there to be successful but the impression I got from our conversation and your response above is you don't care how customers feel. By the way, I encourage you do go online and look at your competitions menus and see how many have the audacity to charge what you do for a side dish change. And I'm not looking for good food cheap, I'm just not used to being gouged for minor changes. You have a lot of competition and small things like this will not end...

I had high expectations after seeing multiple commendatory reviews; however, based on my personal experience, I left disappointed and hungry. I can only deduce the high ratings are due to this restaurant being located in MB and not NY. Assume South Carolina does not know good Italian food. First off, my grandfather came directly from Italy in the early 1900s. My Italian grandmother and mother cooked for me for twenty years and I then learned from them. To begin: Our cocktails were excellent. My two classic, dirty vodka martinis with stuffed olives were exceptionally prepared topped with a thin layer of ice crystals. Perfect! For our meal we started with the Zucchini Fries. They were thin straws of deep fried breading. Not a taste of zucchini was evident. The only way I could tell there was possibly zucchini in the dish is you could see little lines of green. This could have been deep fried anything. The flavor reminded me of McDonald's french fries. Bad start to the meal. My wife ordered the Italiana Salad. It was an interesting salad mixing apples with olives, tomatoes and cheeses. Unique, large portioned and my wife enjoyed it. I ordered the Lobster Ravioli with a side salad. The salad was a handful of mixed baby spinach with, literally, one grape tomato cut in half and two slices of cucumber. The balsamic dressing was very good. Overall it was small portioned and completely unimaginative. Not a lot of effort was put into that. The salad came with bread and oil. I just rolled my eyes when I took a bit of the bread, tasted like white bread from Walmart. Truly bad. How was it made? Just bland white bread. No way anyone could even label what was served as "Italian Bread". My main course came with two very small shrimp, two scallops, and four ravioli. I enjoyed the Vodka sauce, the scallops were well prepared. The shrimp, although tiny, had a nice, sort of broiled crunch to them, which I enjoyed. Lastly, the ravioli. Could only assume that the minuscule filling was lobster (?!) No lobster "flavor" was evident. Could have been stuffed with anything. The pasta itself was flat and doughy. And I say this with no malice, tasted like something out of a can. I can only assume that the pasta was not from scratch. My entire meal was more like a snack and I left hungry. Just a very disappointing and forgettable experience. In summary, I have been eating amazing Italian meals longer than your chef has been cooking. I invite any comments. This is an honest review without prejudice. I am just not happy as I am out $130. I could have taken that money, went to the market and made a fantastic meal for my entire family for about half of what I spent at...

My goal here is to write a fair review of Portofino. Most people who have a bad experience would be inclined to simply give 1-star, but our server was very nice, therefore I will give 2-stars.

We were celebrating a 50th birthday dinner with 7 friends and family members. After having made a reservation for 8pm, three of us arrived at 7:55pm and were asked to wait at the bar until our entire party arrived, which was totally reasonable. Our guests arrived 5 minutes later. At that point we were asked to stay by the bar because the kitchen was backed up. Yes, it was a Saturday night, but the dining room was about half full at most.

We weren't seated for at least 30 minutes, which was disappointing because by now it was almost 8:45pm.

The server greeted us and was very nice. We ordered a few appetizers and two different bottles of wine. One of the three appetizers never arrived and one of the bottles of wine wasn't available, so they provided an alternative.

I ordered a fennel & orange salad that was 90% arugula and VERY dry...almost completely undressed. I asked the server for additional dressing which she provided, but that didn't help. It was very dry in general, and simply flavorless. I asked her to take it back because I didn't care for it.

Two of our guests ordered lasagna and it was pretty clear that it was either microwaved or not heated through properly. It was hot on the edges, on a hot plate, but cold throughout. It also had some sort of stringy meat inside which was unrecognizable.

I had spaghetti carbonara which was unlike any I've ever seen before. It was swimming in a soupy sauce, reminiscent of Alfredo, but very thin. I likened it to white cheddar cheese sauce from boxed macaroni & cheese, but with far too much milk. The dish was luke warm at best as well.

One of our guests had Veal Marsala and enjoyed it. Another had a caprese salad which he enjoyed as well.

Overall it was a disappointment. We were looking forward to an authentic Italian meal and it was far from authentic. The delay in seating, the $100 bar bill during the 40-minute wait for our reservation, and the sub-par food will be the reasons we don't return,...