Trattoria Portofino - Berlin

After reading reviews of this little restaurant we decided it was just what we needed. However we were left so disappointed with the food and the quality. And wondered why is it always busy?! (Maybe it was just a bad night to try it!). I go by this restaurant regularly and it is always busy. So I was dying to try their Italian food. We ordered a few different things (carbonara, lasagne, chicken tagliatelle, minestrone soup). We were all left extremely disappointed. The carbonara was bland, mainly tasted of a scramble type egg, not much garlic was added and there seemed to be zero parmesan used. The bacon was of the cheapest quality (which would be fine it it tasted ok), but it was chunks of chewy awful bacon and quite a lot of chunks of fat. It wasn't pancetta. It was gross bacon! As a carbonara lover, this dish was simply horrible. How can an Italian place mess up carbonara?! The lasagne was just basic! Nothing else to describe it than meat, no seasoning, layers of pasta and burnt cheese. The tagliatelle was probably the best of a bad lot! But again it was absolutely drenched in oil and not much else. The soup, sweet divine, the soup! So minestrone, a basic Italian soup that one can't mess up. Yup they did! It was just broth (like actual stock cube broth, zero tomato in sight) with a few veg thrown in and a pile of cheap stringy cheese (to be honest, they must have run out of Parmesan!) at the bottom. Why oh why was there a mound of cheese thrown into the bottom of my soup?!Honestly, the food was board-line disgusting. I like to give a fair review (and I feel bad writing this), but with this place - I can't find anything that made it one bit enjoyable. A lot of people had pizzas, so I'm hoping they do good in that area. Otherwise I'm bewildered! For an Italian, it lacked the good tastes of herbs, tomatoes, garlic, Parmesan.

We went to this place close to our hotel thanks to TripAdvisor and it was a true surprise : we didn't book but still managed to be at a table right away outside. The waitress was nice, speaking Italian which was delightful! The food was amazing and for 4 people we only paid 45€ which is pretty cheap for Berlin (I think).

Decided to go here after reading all the great reviews on here! First thing to say is it felt, in a good way, a little far out from the buzz of the city. Upon arrival we were greeted with complimentary olives and bread with balsamic and olive oil. The menu is typically Italian with good selection of pizza and pasta all at FANTASTIC prices. We were honestly shocked by the value for money. We had bruschetta to start, ham salami and mushroom pizza and a salmon tagliatelle for main and split a tiramisu for dessert. We also had a carafe of wine and were offered complimentary amaretto and Grappe to finish. All this came in at less than €35 we couldn't believe it! It was great. Whilst our mains were pretty standard there were some more flamboyant dishes prepared at the table including a saltcrusted fish and some kind of flambéed noodle dish cooked on top of what looked like a Parmesan block? Your guess is as good as mine but it smelt wonderful! If you're in Berlin go here. Be sure to book!

If you want some real good Italian food, without a special view, nor expensive interior.. Go to this Italian, way time ago I had such good Pizza!! Would highly recommend this Italian. Also the service was perfect, and very polity servers!

I love this trattoria. You can have a huge pizza or portion of pasta for a very cheap price. The owner is very friendly and the service is excellent.