Portorosa Cafe

The waitress proclaimed «We didn’t realise it was going to be this busy!» Little did the restaurant realise that it’s actually a Saturday night of the long weekend in Perth.
We arrived at 6.30, and luckily were seated right away. That was about the only fast thing that happened for the entire evening.
The place quickly filled up to capacity with the owner/​manager running frantically between tables taking orders, while the other 3 – 4 hostesses ambled listlessly around.
We ordered our drinks and meals at the same time, as we had a show to get to at 8pm.
First sign of trouble, my wine didn’t turn up with the drink order. It took a follow up request after 10minutes before the wine showed up.
We received cutlery, but only knives. Apparently short on cutlery.
After almost an hour,
My pizza arrived first, with a secondary pizza we didn’t actually order (the first sign of trouble to come). A pasta showed up & a steak, but not the 4^th meal. Trouble brewing…
Nope. It didn’t show up. Another 2 requests to follow up on it and at least a honest apology from the owner for the mistake and the pasta arrived, so she was left to eat alone after watching us finish all our meals.
The only reason they aren’t receiving 1 star, is because the food (when it arrived) was without fault absolutely delicious.
Pizza supremo had a great slightly spicy Italian sausage on it.
Pasta marinara I shared had lovely plentiful seafood, balanced sauce and fresh Al dente pasta.
Just don’t come here if it’s busy or if you’re in a rush.
(we were late to our show)

Amazing food. I had their pork belly and the crackling was just delicious. My husband had their spaghetti bolognese and my in laws had their steak burger and chicken breast main. All were so good.

The restaurant is quite popular as it is packed on a Saturday night. Might want to call ahead.
The garlic and prawns entre was big enough to be a small meal on its own, and delicious. I normally skip the carbs (aka, the rice), but I found myself stirring in into the sauce so I could soak up the rest.
The cutlets on the rack of lamb were a little small, but very good. Simply done, just the way I like it. I find the ‘fancy’ sauces on the meat tend to screw things up. I was going to swap out the mashed potatoes for chips and wish I would have remembered because the mashed were only so so.

Good homely Italian meals here. Nothing too fancy or over priced. Just a great selection of authentic Italian. I’ve only tried there pasta and antipasto but the better half said the pizza here is good too. Good selection of wines too. Although cheaper to stick to their local selection. Some of the more known bottles are a bit too pricey. Although you can buy most of them by the glass too. Unless it’s a Saturday night or a public holiday, you probably don’t need a reservation. Just walk up from the street and take a table. Good for last minute dinner out idea!

We went to Portorosa café Not in our plan. I was really hungry and it wasn’t had any line on. I had chillie mussels for me it’s seems like tomato soup mussels. totally for me is Good services, a bit over priced, really noisy.

Love this place! About as authentic as a Freo Italian restaurant can get.

Our party of six had a great time at Portorosa Café, an Italian restaurant in the middle of Fremantle.
The menu is large with a variety of choices to suit everyone. There are a number of seafood pasta dishes. For me though I love woodfired pizza and went with the Tropicana pizza which was served with a nice amount of good quality cheese. The homemade gnocchi with gorgonzola sauce was delicious although the serving was much smaller than the penne alla vodka which was huge!
Service was fantastic.
The highlight though was the dessert menu. It was a tough decision between the dumpling dish (Italian pastries with hazelnut dipping sauce) and the crème brûlée. I went with the crème brûlée as it was served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream — yum! The vanilla ice cream was smooth and went so well with the warm crème brûlée.
The sparkling menu was average, would have been nice to be able to have a prosecco by the glass instead of the Yellowglen piccolo bottle. There was a bottle of Prosecco however it was $ 40.00.

There are reasons Potorosa why gets to capacity during the dinner time rush and in winter patrons are quite happy to sit in the al fresco area to dine. It has a humble appearance bathed in the bright lights around it but the service and food is not just good, it’s honest.
The servings are generous and they don’t skimp on the ingredients or have you searching for them in swathes of pasta. The sauces are full flavour and consistently so. After many wanderings of the menu including pizza, gnocchi, pasta with a light subtle sauce, I finally ordered the Penne Arrabbiata because it’s a favourite of David P.‘s and he has rarely wavered from the order.
He ordered the Moreton Bay Bug Fettucine instead after spotting it on the Specials Board right next to the door we entered in. It didn’t take long for our orders to arrive.
I did try one of the Moreton Bay Bug pieces. Perfectly cooked. No sign of overcooking or undercooking. It had been frozen but there was no sign of mushy cooked crustacean texture. The meat was still held together and tasted sweet.
Penne Arrabbiatta was what I needed. Rich tomato sauce with chilli hit the spot with my latest craving of spicy foods. The pasta wasn’t drowning in the sauce but it was so thick it coated the pasta and sausage. There was Italian sausage throughout the entire dish.
If you want to take the kids somewhere for Italian and don’t want to be waiting for a table, make a booking at Potorosa. It is family friendly. And for the folks without kids, don’t stress, rarely have I had a child run around shrieking because they’re too busy eating.

I don’t no if its because I am from Melbourne and the standard of food over there is far higher
You would not think you could kill a meal that is roast lamb rack with mash potato
Oh yes they can

Good service, good food. Not a long wait, either. I would go back.

Good pizza. I’m like a ninja turtle for that shit. Portarosa know what I’m talking about. They turn it out on their epic pizza oven for packed houses of hungry punters every weekend. Service is generally pretty decent by Fremantle standards and you can get all kinds of other Italian goodies here, but trust me, don’t bother with the rest of their menu. The pizza is where it’s at. No, don’t look at me with your judgemental «I’m not eating pizza in a restaurant» eyes. No. You will eat the pizza and you will like it. Oh, OK, everyone raves about the pasta too, but we’re not here to talk about pasta. ORDER THE PIZZA.
Other than that, the atmosphere is enjoyably busy but not overcrowded and the winelist is pretty decent. It’s a great Italian restaurant.

Fremantle is great for restaurants and cafes and well Portorosa is slightly out of the way of some of the big restaurants. This doesn’t mean it isn’t worth the walk. It is smaller but really has some amazing dishes.
I’m not sure if it really lives up to some of the other Italian restaurants in Freo, but it is certainly up there and I like the fact it is a little smaller and in a sense more humble.

This place is definitely the David in the neighbouring relationship as Goliath towers above from next door. Although its smaller, it definitely has more appeal for those who don’t like big showy restaurants.
Although the pizza here is pretty good, the pasta steals the show. The gnocci is also much better than some other Italian restaurants in Freo. The sauces are oozing with flavour but not too rich that you need an antacid.
It is defintiely worth a detour from the cappucino strip to for this spot.