and see the number of people queuing outside this modest little establishment.

What it is about this dining place that brings so many to eat here? Perhaps it is the exuberant owner.

Born in Italy, Portofino owner Cesare Maranzana won a scholarship to the famed Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and studied with the likes of Tom Courtenay and John Hurt, but it was Roger Moore who changed the mind of this soft-spoken Italian.

It was the future James Bond who persuaded Cesare against acting and fame.

"Roger told me'' says Cesare, "that when you are famous, the public -- they own you. What's the attraction in that?'' In the early 1960s Cesare decided that he needed to have a good look at the rest of the world and one day found himself working in Bermuda as a beautician. It was when he met a Bermuda girl, Sandra, and married her, that Cesare decided to settle here.

He quickly realised that one thing that Bermuda needed was a good Italian restaurant, one that delivered good food at reasonable prices. Back in Italy his family had always been involved in the restaurant business so, in 1978, the Portofino opened its doors in the very site that it still occupies.

"We were the first true pizza place in Bermuda. Really good pizzas,'' he says.

CESARE AND FAMILY -- Portofino owner Cesare Maranzana and his family, Sandra (wife) and Simone (son) and Elka (daughter).