Eating in Portofino is extraordinarily expensive — there is no real budget option in the village itself, and the lunch menus on the Piazzetta routinely run over €100 per person. Go in with that expectation or eat in Santa Margherita and come over by boat.
The classic Portofino lunch is at one of the harbour-front restaurants — Ristorante Puny is the long-standing favourite, with frescoed walls and pasta al pesto that justifies the bill. Da Ö Batti, tucked into the lane behind the square, does the best seafood in the village. For special-occasion dining the Belmond Hotel Splendido's terrace overlooks the harbour from the hill and is genuinely worth the spend at sunset.
The local pasta is trofie al pesto — short twisted pasta with the basil-pine-nut sauce that originated in this exact stretch of Liguria. Order it once.