Il Forno Pizzeria — Restaurant in Brisbane City

Second time returning and unfortunately not a great experience. We booked a table of 5 via phone for 6.30 to arrive to no reserved table. We waited 10-15mins before being seated. We didn't leave the restaurant until 9pm! Not because we wanted to as i had a 2yr old boy who desperately wanted to go home to sleep! So 2.5hrs dining at a pizza restaurant, on extremely uncomfortable stools. Where we'd have to stand up due to discomfort. But unfortunately it took over 1hr for our pizza to come out. After we had finished that we didnt receive service of a dessert menu for another 20mins at least. By this stage the restaurant only had 3 tables to serve. However we continued to get no service so went into find a dessert menu ourselves. We also had to ask for our table to be cleared ready for dessert.

Pizza: one of them came out with chilli on it, seemed to be in the base sauce, when there was no such ingredient of chilli to be included which totally took away from the actual flavours the pizza was meant to be. We didn't send it back due to how long we had waited (did i mention over an hr)

Dessert: burnt!

Although the pizza was nice, not amazing! I wouldn't recommend it. We felt embarrassed taking new friends. I don't understand how a pizza restaurant can have us seatinf there for 2.5hrs, with over a 1hr wait for pizza then continued to receive little to no service.

Thanks,...

A few days out from Christmas, hubby and I met up with friends at Sandgate for a quick meal. It was 6pm, and it was a busy night here at Il Forno. Staff were friendly and zipped around looking after the customers, handing out Covid forms as well as menus. Rosé, beer and ginger beer were our drinks. All four of us ended up with woodfired pizza, as the spinach and ricotta cannelloni was not available (sadly for hubby). Our mates are vegans so they chose from the vegan menu – the Mediterranean with mushies, eggplant, rocket, olives and tomato, and the pumpkin with balsamic onions, spinach and tomato. Hubby went for the spinach and ricotta (reminiscent of the cannelloni), well covered in tomatoes, spinach, ricotta and roasted garlic. I chose the salmon and capers, which had lots of tasty salmon, red onion, fetta and capers. We all loved the thin and crispy bases (which are made daily and hand rolled) and the ample toppings. They were all fresh and filling (hubby and I took home a doggy bag), and perfect for a hot, humid Brissie night. Understandably being so close to Christmas, they had run out of various items, including the tiramisu I was keen on, so we went home sans dessert. But we were full and happy nevertheless, and would eagerly trot out to Sandgate again for more pizza. (And to try the...

had the Lanatra Rosso (red duck)

a very very ordinary pizza.

Last time we had the Moroccan Beef and it was lovely. This pizza was wrong on many levels. The main being zero flavour. No tomato sauce on the base to speak of (barely a swipe of a spoonful of sauce i'd say). The pizza indicates Basil, again barely 4 of the tiniest basil leaves on the entire pizza. Throw in some chewy bits of duck (Cartlidge I imagine), a thin soggy base that fell apart towards the center and there yu go, a very very ordinary pizza.

I guess at the end of the day, like any endeavour, one either wants an outstanding achievement in the direction of their choosing or they do not. The only way to achieve outstanding is to hone ones skills, in this case develop exceptional recipes and then duplicate, duplicate, duplicate, repeat, improve, assess and keep pushing a very high standard.

The only thing you achieve with a pizza like this evening is to miss out on return business. You were at the top of our list with the Moroccan pizza, now you are simply off the list.

We would return what is left of the pizza however this is seldom worth the effort.

I hope you take this review in the way in which it is intended and improve the quality of your Duck...