Portofino’s

I have never been to this location before and I liked it. The inside was very cozy and inviting. The hostess greeted us right away and there was no wait. The waitress was just wonderful! She was attentive and helpful throughout the entire meal. I ordered what I always get from their Eastway location: fettuccini with spicy marinara! I’m a little boring, I know… but it’s just so good. I love spicy food and this sauce is great. It tasted even better than the other location, more fresh. The food came out quickly and I have no complaints! I would love to come back when I am on the area.

Food was excellent here. Kids loved the pasta and the garlic bread. I enjoyed the pizza (and this is coming from a NYer).

Not sure why but this Portofino’s does not have the same flavor as the other Portofino’s — less sauce on the pie or not enough salt in the dough it is just lacking flavor.
Love the one on Park Rd and Arsley haven’t been to Eastway Rd location in 15 years.

We were celebrating my Daughter being selected as the Teacher of the year for Charlotte Mecklenburg school district so there were 15 people in our group. After the awards ceremony we headed to Portofino’s without a reservation. It was crowded but we were seated promptly on the front porch. The wait staff worked with us to seat our party of 15! They quickly pushed tables together and directed us how to sit so that everyone was together. It was tight but we were delighted to all sit together.
Our dinner orders were taken quickly by a very patient and professional server who got every order right the first time! He quickly rolled off the list of specials and seeing the size of our group offered us the lunch menu which contained more sandwiches. All of the food ordered arrived together and the presentation was appetizing. I wanted to try everybody’s food but just asked for a thumbs up from our group. All 15 gave their food two thumbs up. My daughter had the Cheese Steak from the lunch menu. You can customize your steak sandwich about 7 different ways and there are a number of subs, cold sandwiches, baked dishes, fish etc. I can’t wait to come back for lunch.
I had the Grilled Salmon Salad for $ 11.95. It comes with mixed greens topped with grilled salmon and marinated vegetables. The salmon was cooked perfectly, moist but seared. You can’t go wrong with a basic salmon salad at this point if your salad greens are fresh and your dressing is delicious. Score for Portofino’s on both! My husband had the same salad with Grilled Chicken. He says the chicken was very moist and well seasoned.
To top it off at the end of the meal the servers brought my daughter a Tiramisu with a candle to celebrate her accomplishments. It was a delightful experience and I will definitely be back to visit one of the three locations in Charlotte.

Fantastic osso bucco, grilled chicken cutlet parm. I heard that they have chicken cacciatore so definitely have to try that! It’s alot of work so can’t wait to test it out. The bruschetta is wonderful and I want to try the calimari as it seems to be made in flour. Awesome restaurant and I can not believe I missed this gem.

Store front restaurant is small, casual and usually crowded. We ordered the cheese garlic bread for an appetizer and it was huge! Also, the Italian Wedding soup with lots of meatballs in chicken broth.
I had Chicken Sorrento with gluten free pasta. Chicken was tender with eggplant, peas, tomatoes covered with cheese.
The wait staff was attentive, smelled awesome and the place was clean.

I’ve eaten here probably 5 times at this point, maybe more. The people here are very friendly and the food is good. I’ve had pasta and pizza dishes. All very good! Today I ordered the baked ziti. As usual it was very good. My only complaint, and it’s minor, is that the red sauce is sweet. I wish they’d temper it a little more. Always worth a visit.

We LOVE this restaurant! We have tried the Mozzarella sticks, Lasagna, Tortellini Alfredo, Pizza, and Caesar Salads. It’s all DELICIOUS! We have also tried the Chicken Parmesan, but we were not fans. There was no breading crunch to the chicken, it was soggy, and the flavor wasn’t the best. However, that was only one dish we didn’t like. Every dish is made from scratch and you can taste the freshness in every meal. The service has also been great during every visit! The wait during prime dinner hours on the weekend can be very long with no place to sit or stand so beware! Make a reservation or come at less demanding hours. We love this place and will continue to eat here!

I had Zuppa de Pex and it was superb! Great Italian bread served with seasoned olive oil and balsamic… Bobby had the chicken Parmesan and said the chicken was moist and tender with a light crust and excellent marinara.

Chicken Parm.
Chicken Parm. All day. Every time. Order it. I can’t not order it. I can’t even explain the feeling of excitement I get when it gets put on the table in front of me.
Everything about this is fantastic. The chicken is cooked just right (could maybe use a little more crisp, meh, i don’t need it), the sauce is just right, and the pasta is perfect. The people are friendly, food is good, it gets a little loud when its crowded — but its good. Go here. Take a date here. Take your parents here. If you’re single, take me here. haha. I’m going to order the chicken parm.

Extremely poor service. server gave us a lot of attitude.
Charged us 5 $ for adding a pesto sauce. ridiculous

Hm, it was a 3 star eating experience.
The service was fast and the food was fast too.
We were seated immediately and asked for drinks within 15 seconds. We ordered a large pizza for the four of us and a tossed salad to share.
The salad came out fast and tasted perfect except for a few pieces of lettuce that were soggy. Then the pizza came out and tasted average… The crust was slightly burnt and could have used some more butter around the edges.

A generous antipasto, full of fresh ingredients with a flavorful dressing started our meal. Our pizza was delivered before our second mouthful of salad. It to was fresh with generous toppings but a bit dry with to little sauce for my taste. When near to Arboretum give it a try!

Portofinos is so good. I’ve gone there 3 times this week. I have fallen in love with in there bolognaise.

The food here us not bad and we use to come here with a certain frequency. Tiday was an awful service experience, with an disinterested waiter, who barely knew the menu. 15 minutes to tell us that the pizza I ordered can’t be done how I ordered it is not cool and very disappointing. Here’s hoping for a better experience to others who venture here.

I am giving them zero stars, due to the fact that the hostess lied to us about the wait. We were a 6 top. We were told 25 – 30 minutes and after 70 minutes we weren’t seated to our table yet. When we asked about our table they told us we couldn’t be seated because the table we we’re assigned hasn’t left yet. This was a «2 hour dinner» so we were told. When I asked them to ask the guest to move to a open four top of which they were, they informed us that they couldn’t ask a guest to move. During this time they had seated more then one table of 2 tops in a 4 top table. Still wondering why they couldn’t put 2 tables together. Needless to say I will never spend a penny with Portofinos. Very disappointed with the management for not stepping up and taking care of their guests.
Randy

I am updating my review for this place. I have been told that the other locations are better but I assume its just esthetics. But, every time my wife and I eat here. We both have horrible stomach reactions. The food doesn’t taste bad and I don’t believe it’s bad either. Just something about it.
Personally I don’t think I’ll be going back. Gave tonight a shot and back at it.

Had another great dinner here. For a saturday night we got seated in about 20 minutes, slightly under the expected wait time. The wait staff was excellent all through our meal and the working together was excellent. Our waitress was particularly great at timing the courses so that we had time to enjoy each one. Everything was great but the salad dressings were outstanding. We had the house and blue cheese dressings. The only thing we couldn’t enjoy was dessert because we had no room left. But seeing everyone around us dnjoying them is a good sign. Maybe next time we will reverse the order. We will be back, it’s worth the 95 minute drive.

While in Charlotte earlier this week (Monday through Wednesday), we wanted to eat at Portofinos since last year we had a delicious white pizza from one location. Not being familiar with Charlotte, we kind of sort of knew where we had been; however, we relied on GPS and ended up here. Either the owners have read the reviews about service OR the folks complaining went on a bad night, but service was excellent. Our waiter, Stafford, was there when he was needed but not hovering. Another young man stopped by to refill water and remove dishes as needed. A table with some young women and children was to our left, and they also appeared to be getting good service.
It is VERY casual.
The bread… it’s worth a visit for the bread!
The food: okay, this is where we get on the roller coaster! Although the bread was great, ours was a little burnt on the bottom. Not sure if it was on Unilocal,but I had read reviews saying the house dressing was great; we found it to be bland and would not get it again. The side salad has no cheese or croutons. I just didn’t eat the burnt bottoms, because the bread is so darn good.
The main event: again, based on reviews, and NOT my normal preferences, I ordered the Chicken Portofino. I’d personally never get this. Again, this is NOT what I’d normally get, so keep that in mind! The mushrooms in this dish should have been sauteed in butter, the ham should have been something other than what appeared to be the ham you buy in the prepackaged deli meat section of your grocery store. The «cream» sauce tasted like a white sauce with milk without allowing the roux to cook long enough to kill the raw flour taste.
My honey ordered the salad with that same dressing; he agrees it’s not great. Although he complained to some degree about the lack of croutons and cheese, the main thing was that blah dressing.
His main event: Zuppa de Pesce. THIS dish and the bread (we’ll get to dessert later!) are why this place gets 4 stars! Since his favorite seafood is anything but shrimp, I got those. The sauce was so good. Very flavorful with just a hint of heat. I’ve been with honey now for almost 10 years and this is the FIRST time I thought he’d actually have held the plate up and licked it clean. You could tell the sauce was made with fish and/​or shellfish stock, not water or chicken broth. I believe he’d pick this as his last meal.
Dessert: normally, I’m the sweet eater, but between the bread, the 4 HUGE shrimp, and what I did eat of my chicken, I was full. Upon hearing that they have «real» spumoni, my honey took a chance on getting both that, a cannoli, AND an espresso. Of course, I forced myself to try both! According to honey (a real, true to life Italian!), the spumoni was «real», the cannoli was wonderful. He thought the espresso should have been warmer, but oh, well, he managed to drink it and finish off the cannoli and spumoni.
So…if you get burned bottom bread, just eat the rest! Unless you really LOVE «cream» sauces, personally, I’d avoid the Chicken Portofino, and try their Caesar dressing… now that’s a good a dressing!

Just as good if not better than my first visit.
I suggested this place to my girlfriends on Saturday afternoon, I knew it was going to be amazing but neither of them had been before. So I knew their mind was going to be blown!
When we walked in everyone… seriously everyone the hostess, waiters, and managers greeted us at the door! After we sat down we orders some wine and two appetizers the mozzarella sticks and the mozzarella alla caprese. The mozzarella sticks arrived hot and golden brown and that marinara sauce is addictive! And the caprese was so fresh and delicious!
For my meal, I decided to go with a classic… the lasagna. I asked the waiter if it was any good and he simply smiled and said everything we have is good but that is one of our signature dishes.
When it arrived, I was impressed with the portion size and the presentation but hands down this has to be one of the best lasagnas I’ve had! It’s loaded with cheese and meat, the sauce acts as the perfect compliment and the noodles are cooked perfectly! I could only manage to eat half, but when I ate the rest the next night it reheated very well!
Its official… I’m a fan. I’ve even decided that from here on out this is going to be my top go to choice for really amazing Italian food.