Cafe Portofino

Food was good and sitting out on the deck was great. A little on the spendy side but would go back again for a nice meal with a good view. The wait staff was very friendly but don’t expect to get your drinks refilled.

Decided to try this restaurant as a Marriott guest you receive a free dessert with main. We ordered the lemon butter lobster tail and marinara. Lobster tail was over cooked, rubbery and lacked flavour. Needed a steak knife to cut through it and drown it in the lemon butter sauce to make it edible. For a $ 65 dish this was disappointing. Spaghetti marinara was fine however pasta was not drained properly which resulted in excess water diluting the sauce. The tiramisu dessert was fine, probably because it was free. It’s a bit of struggle to find decent food near the Marriott. I would stick to Dukes. In summary the food which was overpriced and bland. Service was good.

Staying at the Marriott. Got a $ 10 coupon for this place. It’s just a few steps up the beach, so location is perfect, view is gorgeous. They seem understaffed, especially for a Friday night. Host didn’t crack a smile, which was unsettling, but waiter was nice. The harpist added some odd ambience, but he was also very nice and probably skilled, but I don’t know much about harps. I got the eggplant parm. I know people say this is authentic Italian, but I have not been to the part of Italy where they deep fry the eggplant and drown it in sauce and cheese. It was reasonable quality food, but the sauce was so salty I had to scrape it off and chug water. Even after choking most of it down, I was hungry. Portions are smaller than usual for the island. The boyfriend got the penne with sausage, which he said was reasonable quality for rustic Italian, though his sauce was too sweet. Probably cooked down too far. The prices were pretty outrageous for the food quality and service, even on Kauai where everything is expensive and food options are limited. There’s no excuse for cooking good food poorly, and I hope they step up their game.

Best dinner of our Hawaii trip! Great food, great wine, beautiful atmosphere, and wonderful service. Thanks mostly in part to our waitress, Dianee. Ask for her if you can!

We went there for my birthday expecting excellent service and food. My husband had talked with them about it being a bday dinner and how he wanted it special. The service was bad the food ok but nothing to write home about and the birthday was not acknowledged. Took 20 min to get a drink which both were wrong and another 15 to get them right and constantly wanting us to order. Meals brought before appetizers. The only redeeming quality was the view. When we told about our dislike nicely we weren’t even acknowledged after. DON’T go there

We’re staying next door at the Marriott and we decided to give this place a try despite it’s 3 star rating. Our server, Lana, was extremely busy so I will attempt to be as objective as possible keeping that in mind. My wife ordered the caprese salad and the meat lasagna… I ordered the cesaer salad and linguine & clams/​white sauce. The caprese was fine the cesaer was bad. (Wilted warm romaine lettuce store bought croutons) The linguine and clams were really bad… Dried out cold pasta with no flavor. Clams were edible but not good. Lasagne worse than that actually… Pasty and flavorless…
When I reported this to my waiter, she snatched my plate without saying a word… And shuttled it back to the kitchen… She returned to tell me, this is an Italian preparation… And they won’t do anything about it… Extremely disrespectful and down right rude… I felt as if I was the problem… No mgr response at all! I still tipped her 15%… but should have stiffed her… AVOID THIS PLACE… It’s horrible!!!

Great service, very nice menu selection. They do serve real Italian pasta, seafood was fresh and well cooked. Had the salad with fresh mozzarella and tomatoes. Great olive oil my only complaint was the taste of the tomatoes– hard and tasteless but can’t blame the restaurant just must be hard to source good produce on this island. Freshly grated parmigiana cheese rather then from a bottle would have been a nice touch. Bread was fresh. Would be happy to come back.

We were staying at Marriott and had a party of ten so we thought we would try this restaurant for proximity. The service was really slow. We were seated for more than 5 minutes before a waiter swooped by and said he would be right back and another ten minutes before we even saw him again. After we ordered, another ten minutes went by before we got bread on the table. Our waiter was rude and service was lacking. If it were not for the big party, he certainly did not deserve the automatic 18% gratuity. all in all, all the restaurants on Marriott’s premise are disappointing.

Food was acceptable. Unfortunately I was stung by a bee. Granted, not their fault. However the manager thought it was funny, said that’s never happened before and told me to enjoy my dessert. After multiple requests, they brought me some baking soda. I don’t know what they could have done, other than give me a shot of scotch, but their lack of concern ticked me off.
Our server did a good job. As I said, the food was acceptable. I had the fettuccine shrimp and mushrooms. While the shrimp and mushrooms were not very plentiful, the flavor was good. My wife had the same and fared better than I on the shrimp count.

Worst judgmental service ever. If you’d like treatment where the host receptionist judges you by the color of your skin or what you’re wearing, come here. This is a white tablecloth haughty formal place for poor food. I’ve never been denied service for looking like I was incapable of spending, yet it happened here when I was directed to Duke’s for food that wasn’t on its menu yet was clearly on this café’s. I’m a disappointed Marriott Elite who won’t be returning here.

Stop looking for a place to eat on Kauai. This should be you go to. Perfect linguine and clams, filet Perfect, Alfredo light and spit on. I’m an L.A. foodie and I cleaned my plate barron every time I ate here, 5 times in a two week stay.

This place def hit the spot when looking for some Italian and fresh fish. Took the wife out to dinner had the ribeye nd the wife had the fettuccine everything was great as ordered just no beer on tap

Made reservations for 7pm for 4 and sat down in a timely manner. We were warned that there was going to be a wait. Ordered food and drinks at 7:17. Received drinks at 735. Received appetizer at 747. Received all dinner plates at 814…3 minutes short of an hour. I understand when there’s a wait, but it’s even worse when you watch tables around you be seated after you, served and leave before we even got our food… the one star was because the waitress was nice.

Wish I could give zero stars.
Food took over an hour to come out, while we watched others who arrived after us, not other ear but tab out and leave before we even got our food.
When we did it was horrible. All questions asked before ordering were completely answered wrong.
The steak was horrible. When the owner came up he asked us if we wanted him to reheat it. Reheat it. Not sure how he was going to do that since it is completely illegal to put something back on the grill or cooker once it’s reached the table. Which means he went microwave, sure yes microwave my 60 $ steak.
The list continues and we all took one bite and left. But at least the server offered to give us a round of free sodas.
Wasted night in a horrible restaurant.

OMG!!! This restaurant is the bomb!!! The food was so delicious. There were 10 of us and we all ordered something different… The chicken in Marsala wine was so moist. Usually chicken breast is dry but this meal wasn’t. I had the Shrimp with Filet Mignon in butter, garlic white wine sauce, my daughter had pasta so did my grand son, my son had the surf n turf and my husband n FIL had the Filet Mignon with eggplant, they had 2 pieces of meat, and the meals comes with lots of vegetables. The pupu’s were delicious but we waited 45 minutes for our food, and when we asked the waitress for couple take out boxes, she never came back… The owner came out and greeted us which was nice. We were looking for a restaurant that have good steaks and this restaurant nailed it, cannot wait to go back again. Valentines Day. We celebrated mines and my grandson birthdays. We got to bring our own cake but next time, I will order dessert there, yum!!! Hopefully the next time we go back, the women’s will be more friendlier and more Aloha spirit especially towards the locals because we are the ones that will keep on coming back.

Bad food with good service and decent ambiance if you catch it before sunset. Food was just below Olive Garden quality.
Owner is on hand to be very friendly with guests, but that doesn’t make up for the disappointing food quality.
Even our hotel welcome center warned us of the poor quality food. It’s clear the food is garbage, but on this small island there are few enough options to keep them in business.
Owner seems like a good man, I wish he just kept his kitchen the way it sounds like it used to run in the 80’s. Skip this spot and head to Dukes next door for much better food.

Had to try the Mong Chong to-​go. I would not advise ordering a fish dish to-​go.
Mong Chong ($ 36): pretty good, but over priced. We are definitely mong chong fans now.

Exquisite food. Amazing view.
Lemon shrimp is utter perfection.
Escargot was a bit over cooked.
Loved it!

My husband and I went here on our second night of our honeymoon and were highly disappointed. We made a reservation on OpenTable at 3:30pm the day of for reservations at 6:30pm. We got there and they didn’t have our reservation. The host insulted me saying that I must have only made it 30 minutes prior and I pulled up the email on my phone showing him I in fact made it hours beforehand. There was no apologies for the error, nothing but «we have two other couples in front of you so you need to wait». Given that I had made a reservation and was able to prove that to him, we felt we should have been ahead of the other walk ins or at least some sort of acknowledgment there was clearly an error. Instead I had to tell him that he should probably check in to his open table account because the systems appear to not be working. To which he then acknowledged he probably should.
Aside from that service, our waitress was really slow. Dinner was good. Antipasto plate was average. Opah Piccata style was good. Seafood Fri Diablo was also good.

They have great food. Always fresh and always a lovely place to eat with a great view and great food. The presentation of the food first off was lovely. Everything very neat and very appetizing. They have great steak and lobster. They have some of the best servers I’ve ever had and love coming to eat here every time I am on the island. They also have great wine ¹⁰⁄₁₀.
The owner is really nice and always is walking around talking to the guests and that makes us feel like we are at home. They have a lovely harp player who plays beautiful music. What more could you ask for. I would recommend this to everyone who visits the island. Reasonably priced food for the island and a great family friendly place to eat.