The best restaurants serving Italian food in Wirral North West

Bizarre customer service... We enjoyed excellent meals at Portofino New Brighton, over several months, but on this occasion we have have been put off from going there again. On the plus side, the food quality is normally excellent , and on most visits staff were attentive and helpful, but one of the young Italian waiters is unfortunately not good at English, and this impacts on service; he often has to refer questions to his manager, because he doesn't understand them. He doesn't even understand some basic restaurant terms, such as 'gluten' On this latest occasion though, it was the manager who took our food orders; his English is good, but the Sea Bass my partner ordered, came with a completely unrecognisable sauce, not one described on the menu. She also suspected that the sea bass was mackerel (or another different fish). When my partner questioned him, he was adamant that it was sea bass, but bizarrely said that "we sometimes change the sauces". Er, no....I thought, restaurants do not "change sauces" without discussion with the customer. The manager also offered to go to the kitchen to discuss the matter with the chef and he would " come back shortly" But he didn't return. At all, ever..... He hadn't left the restaurant because we saw him chatting to other customers at the bar, on our way out. At the same sitting, I was given Ravioli in a rather sickly cream sauce, instead of the Canneloni dish which I had ordered. I didn't complain because we had already questioned my partners dish, so I just eat the meal, which I didn't enjoy. So this restaurant has lost 2 regular customers due to what appeared to be odd, bizarre behaviour by the manager. I notice that Portofino, New Brighton, don't respond to any of these reviews; They obviously don't care, not interested. They should be . If you go there, be careful that the staff have properly understood your order, and reject it if it isn't exactly what you ordered , is my advice.

...I thought long and hard whether to review at all, but whilst I like good local restaurants, there are certainly better ones than this and at £90 plus for 4 you might be better spending your hard earned elsewhere in this instance... We went over Easter and it did feel a little Fawlty Towers when asking what wine they had to be effectively told they had two types - red & white, and that's it, two bottles of white, one of red. We ordered starters which took about 50 mins to come and they'd nipped out in the meantime to buy the Italian meats I suspect (we did see them go out and come back ten mins later). They also said that the focaccia was fresh but unfortunately it was far from it. The mains were woeful - we all went classic - Chicken Milanese (which used the wrong sauce), meatballs (which were actually Spag Bol), Parma Ham & Mushroom pizza ( the base was so tough you couldn't cut through it) and Carbonara (which to be fair was ok). In the end we laughed and put it down to experience but our friends decided to bring up the meatballs issue - the lady was apparently visibly upset but blamed the chef and didn't try to remedy the situation. They often say you know how good a restaurant is by how they deal with problems, and this one didn't... There's not a lot of alternative in Hoylake, but what there is significantly better than Bella Mamma's.

Este es uno de los mejores de la pizzería alrededor. Su comida es normalmente de alta calidad y rápido para entregar.

We arrived a little early and I asked the waitress if i could sit on a table outside where two people had previously been sat. She didnt seem keen to sit us there but we wanted a sunny spot. It took ages to take our order, first course arrived, tasted fine but wasnt very hot. The second course came completely wrong. They only brought out half the order so took it all back. By the time it came out you could tell one meal had been microwaved. We waited a fair time for someone to come to give the bill to pay. Not at any time did anyone ask if the meal was ok. Service was shocking so wont be returning.

Tortellini which was always my favourite was very salty. Since I last went they have changed the ham. Could live with that but not £7.50 for one portion of cheese & garlic bread. Really!!

Nope. Don't. Mistake. Pepper. Milk. Avoid the lamb burger. Warm cream mushroom. Why try, when the word try means, make an effort to do something. No effort was made.

The food and atmosphere was lovely, have already booked to come again as it was so amazing.

I really enjoyed the spaghetti bolognaise it was lovely

Fantastic Tandoori mixed main properly marinated rich and tasty with plenty fried onions and coriander 👉💯👍

Ordered food, said 40 min delivery, waited over an hour and when I asked how long it would be they stuck another 40-50 mins on the order wait time . I phone regarding a small issue with the online order and was met with a vile man who clearly doesn't like his job very much, he proceeded to argue with me and say the food had been sent out an hour prior to the phone call and there was nothing he could do and that it was my fault. I explained that he had prolonged the wait time by 40 mins and from what I could see it hadn't left yet so the small issue could be easily resolved and he argued with that too, he then went back and checked and gave me the delivery man's number, the food hadn't left yet after all the shouting and blame gaming from him. Luckily the delivery driver was lovely and helped me with the issue with no complaints. Unfortunately the food was stone cold when it arrived and to be honest I'd lost my appetite after dealing with such a horrible person. From what I've seen on other sites I'm not the first person he's done this too.

Still waiting for my food now 2 hours ! Poor service no one answers the phone when you call to se where your order is

I used to rate this takeaway highly and always recommended it and was a regular customer but the past couple we have had have been awful so unfortunately we won’t be ordering again. Tonight we waited an hour and a half for cold, greasy and soggy food. Last time we had meat from a kebab that was that tough it could’ve been mistaken for an old leather boot and a burger that would’ve made a good frisbee. So it’s a no from me