Portobello Italian

No longer open. This restaurant is no longer here. It’s now a Japanese Steak House. Not sure how good it is yet.

Portobello is closed but they are reopened in Soddy-​Daisy under the name Chianti. The best in the Chattanooga area by far.

We both ordered the lasagna, which came with a table salad and fresh, dense bread. The lasagna was flavorful, with a bright tomato sauce.
The salad consisted of shredded greens, cut grape tomatoes, red onion slices. Sweet peppercini’s and shredded mozzarella cheese.
The table bread was superb. A roll of dense bread, which we dipped into the sauce from the lasagna.
The lasagna was a roll of layered pasta with beef, cheese and sauce. The presentation included a tomato sauce with herbs and crushed tomato.
Our server was attentive to our needs.
According to our server and menu information, all items are prepared on site.
We thoroughly enjoyed our meal here.

Portobello appears to be a relatively new establishment. The interior has clean lines with some interesting shapes, but the result is that noise carries. The furnishings are average quality. (We had to move to a third table to get one that did not noticeably wobble.) The front door has one of those loud ding mechanisms to announce the arrival and departure of every guest since the front door is not visible from employee areas.
The salad was great, as was the bread, and they both were delivered in a timely manner. There were two other occupied tables when we arrived, and three tables more were filled while we were there. There was only one server and she was hard pressed to get back to us after she served dinner.
I ordered baked ziti and my date ordered penne. Both dishes actually used penne. The food was hot and tasted quite good. We decided to take home some dessert (cheesecake and cannoli) which were both ho-​hum.
All in all, this is an OK place when you want variety, but unless they improve on the basics of order accuracy and service, it would not rate going out of your way.