Elizabeth's Portofino Tuscan Grille — Restaurant in Warwick

Great dining experience, beginning to end! Space is beautiful. The lighting was appropriately low but still allowed for a 61 yr old to read the exceptional menu of solid classics. Hostess was exceptional, true pro in action. Server Marie was knowledgeable, attentive but not intrusive, and customer-experience focused. Impressive cocktail menu from a creative and seasoned mixologist's hand.

Really good bread with EVOO and unique twist - a head of smooth, spreadable garlic. Never saw this before - can't live without it. Fried Calamari and the Beef Carpaccio for apps. The calamari - in a state that thankfully KNOWS fried calamari - was sublime in a light batter, sumptuous garlic butter (more of a sauce, really) and banana peppers. A standout! Not to be outdone, the Carpaccio was perfection, with the just right amount of arugula, diced onion, capers and parmesan shavings to complement, rather than overwhelm the impossibly thin and beautiful slices of artfully arranged beef. A squirt of lemon with a kiss of EVOO brought it all to life. I'd go back just for that.

The ample serving of delicate Veal Milanese was a crisp, moist and flavorful delight. The portion size was enough for my wife to bring half home for lunch (if I don't eat it for a midnight 'snack'....I'll blame our imaginary dog for the mysterious disappearance). Again, the kitchen displayed a deft hand in dressing the dish with just the right amount of arugula, shaved parm, EVOO and lemon. WOW!

The Seafood Pescatore - pasta with fresh seafood in your choice of a red or white sauce - is a dish at many restaurants that can go wrong quickly. Not here, though. The kitchen once again displayed mastery of the simple to create the exceptional. The pasta was actually al dente (!!) and finished with a rich, slightly zesty red sauce chock full of clams, scallops, calamari and some very large shrimp, each perfectly cooked. The portion size was somewhere between large and holy-cow-I-don't-know-if-I-can-finish-this. (Peleton Alert: I finished it.) OMG it was so good!

You'd think we were done, but no.....our diabolic server Marie brought the dang dessert menu, and described a few specials along with her favorites. Oh, She, and her evil sweet-toothed ways! We split the Lemoncello Tiramisu (I know, right?). If you like lemon, don't think, don't wait, just order this creative take on a classic. Thank me before you plotz. Light, sweet/tart, great textures and delicious! My wife was going to have 'one bite'. Rather, it was I who managed to get just one bite, after a spirited spoonsword battle mid-table.

2 words on the owner: Rock. Star. Visibly but unobtrusively gliding from front of house to back, checking in on diners to make sure everything was to their satisfaction. She would spend just a moment at each table, greeting first time diners and regulars with equal familiarity and a smile that made you instant family. You felt at that moment, as if you were the most important diner there. She would graciously move on to the next table or to the kitchen where she would ensure everything was to her impeccable standards. She made it all look effortless. Serious Kudos to an extraordinary restaurateur!!

On prices: Were this restaurant in downtown Providence, Boston or NYC, the rents would be built into the prices, portions would be halved and it would take a month to get a reservation. At 897 Post Road in Warwick, in an unassuming building there is exists a true Rhode Island gem for a true Rhode Island bah-guhn. For those lucky locals in the know - I'm jealous. If you want date night, special occasion, or the evening where you just don't feel like cooking and are sick of delivery pizza, you have to go. If you're in South County, the East Bay or Lincoln/Smithfield, take the ride....your state is only this big, it's not fah. And if you're in Providence or near the airport on business/school visit, save yourself some money on more spendy or lesser quality places - Uber/Lyft yourself over to Elizabeth's of Portofino and eat where the...

While having grown up in the area near this restaurant, I’ve heard much of it and passed by it hundreds of times. Finally this past weekend I got a chance to go.

Initially the restaurant looks cozy and quaint, which fits this small location. Upon being seated, where we were against the wall, a lot of smaller things were noticed. Walls that were very visibly dirty with dust, stains and many left over hooks or nails hanging from them. A dirty glass that was left on our table, which upon looking at others there was one or two others that had this as well.

While ultimately the noise level of an Italian restaurant will likely be higher, which is fine, there was very inappropriate conversations being had by other customers. Being able to hear their conversation as if they are at the table with you, and details, you do not want to know. That does make for a rather irritating time.

The menu has a wide variety of wine options, nice to see on a ‘fancier’ Italian style restaurant. The menu had nice diversity as well, if not lacking descriptions on some meals that could need it, while having them on things that didn’t need them.

Starting with the bruscetta, that was the high point of the meal and it went downhill from there, like how the initial look of the restaurant was nice but looking closer there was a lot of cleaning needed. Something to note though is the menu does say their trio of their signature bruscettas, however we received only one type alltogether.

The bruschetta was wonderfully crisp with all the ingredients on it tasting very fresh, the cheese melted perfectly and it was very fragrant.

With the meals that were ordered, Veal Parm (18$) and Baked Stuffed Sole (22$) there were large issues with both meals.

The Veal of the Veal Parm itself was a large portion which was nice to see, smaller amount of pasta than normal at an Italian restaurant, however the issue with this dish was the sauce. Upon having tasted it myself and my date tasting it, we both immediately recognized it as canned cause. Being an extremely familiar taste and having the metallic tang of canned sauce, we were less than thrilled over that, especially since it seemed as if it was just heated up, not even attempted to be changed or covered that it was canned. The instant thought that came to my mind, is that a place like Olive Garden does this better.

With the Baled Stuffed Sole the large majority of the plate was the rice and vegetable, both of which was good, however the portions of Sole were very small and took up at most 1/5 of the meal making its price point very unworth what was received. While the fish itself was tasty, albeit small, the very alluring sounding Limoncello sauce was in kind words, unpalatable. This sauce tasted like a jarred Alfredo sauce, mixed with Limoncello, that wasn’t even cooked down to reduce the alcohol content of it. The sauce was broken and sperated, making for a very visually disappointing looking sauce that was draped over the fish, and after tasting it, pushed to to side as to not ruin the rest of the fish.

On leaving we asked for a Antipasta to go, as we wanted to have it later on that night. As we weren’t eating it there we didn’t check it at the restaurant, however it was missing ingredients that it said it would have. Namely the mixed greens, roasted red peppers and salami.

Being an Italian restaurant, something like the sauces you receive hold a lot of the weight of the food you get. Both dishes were extremely brought down by what was put on them. That combined with missing things off of the two other dishes, the general lack of cleanliness of the restaurant upon looking, and the inability of the wait staff to ask customers to keep their inappropriate conversations at an appropriate level of volume, all added up to an experience that will not be repeated. I went in with an open mind having heard both good and bad things of this restaurant, however another time will not be had. Maybe Portofinos was good years back (as was what most good accounts I heard said), however it is...

Lured to this restaurant due to its stellar OpenTable rating, I perhaps was expecting different food than offered on the relatively straightforward menu pervaded by pasta with meat sauces that was more "red sauce"-style Italian-American than purely Italian. That said, you can still serve this type of fare and do it "the right way" - incorporating the slow-cooking methods of old Europe to these mid-20th-century "second and third generation" Italian dishes.

I started with "Chef Angelo's Tuscan Beans & Greens," which contained cannellini beans sautéed with garlic and prosciutto, and served with grilled crostini. This is straight-up "grandma food," and I mean that in a good way. A liberal amount of garlic was used, and the prosciutto was strong in this dish, its flavor extracted during cooking and seeping into the beans and greens, which seemingly consisted of spinach, rabe, and chard. I liked this dish better than my entrée, even if I felt $10 was a bit spendy for such a simple dish with unexotic ingredients.

Next, I ordered the "Veal Portofino," ($24) which my waitress informed me was the restaurant's signature dish. I was skeptical, as I read the description of veal rolled with prosciutto, spinach, tomato and provolone, topped with a mushroom tomato demi-glace. The description made it sounds a bit overengineered and perhaps even gloppy. Unfortunately, my instincts were correct - this just wasn't my "style" of entrée. The dry veal was certainly overcooked (no one asked me what temperature to cook the veal to), and I couldn't understand what the chef wanted to be on my fork with the meat: The chunks of tomatoes? The mushrooms? The cheese? Because I couldn't pick up everything at once. The flavors were mostly alright, but this dish had too much going on and could have benefited from some editing.

I finished my meal by ordering the "Tiramisu." ($7) The kitchen uses a classic recipe, soaking savoiardi in espresso, then layering on mascarpone cheese, coffee liqueur, and cocoa powder. No complaints here.

Service was efficient and professional but a bit cold on the frigid Wednesday night in January that I dined here solo in a mostly empty dining room. I normally wouldn't mention, and I can't put my finger on why, but my waitress left me feeling a bit uneasy and perhaps unwelcome.

A complimentary shot of homemade limoncello was provided at the end of my meal, which was a nice touch. This wonderful send-off never gets old, and one of the many pleasant touches that makes my dining experiences more enjoyable at family-run Italian-American restaurants around Rhode Island like...