Forli Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Sydney

Ok, if you're not italian you would think this is italian. It's a really good fake. Definitely not worth the money.

How to tell before sitting down:

Forlì is the name of an Italian city. It's missing the accent on the last letter.

As you get it inside, you feel something like Portugal or Turkey with all those tiles on the wall, nothing to do with Italy.

How to tell once you sat down, too late now to leave (hehe):

Only 1 out of 6 dishes we ordered was actually good (mussels).

The pasta was very very salty and you couldn't taste the mushroom at all. The Mushrooms were shredded and there was no mushroom cream. The past was handmade but not fresh. Cooked al dente but it wasn't from a fresh dough. In fact, it wasn't soft.

The pizza was ok, we don't use salty pitted olives on pizza. We use tasty italian olive oil. The pizza was dry. For the same money you have real italian almost next door, same price double the value. The pizza should cost $10 less, not even wood fire 🔥.

The service was appaling. We were not given tap water and drinks. They had 3+ waiters and only 5 tables to serve, somehow, they managed to deliver the wrong dishes to the wrong table. Also, we had to ask twice for water and bread...I mean...I would have understood if the place was packed but it wasn't. It was almost 1 person per table...

As an Italian, I do not recommend this place. One of those cases where the high value of Google review means nothing.

EDIT RESPONSE TO FORLI:

We would never chuck leftover overpriced food, even if the quality is mediocre. It's part of our culture, your living and loving italian "encyclopaedian mum" (as you defined her) I'm sure can relate to it.

That does not mean the food was superior or excellent quality.

Also, other italians left similar feedbacks complaining about the same things, what a coincidence, huh?

Just want to highlight the smart move of highlighting that we were complimenting the food during the "experience" and we should have told you on the spot. Well, no. That's not how it works. We had a lovely night with our friends and we were a little embarrassed with the low quality and lack of authenticity. We all agreed on this. We wanted to capitalise on the positives and the good time we had, rather than the negatives. What would you think would have happened, we eventually would have end up arguing the point and ruining the night. It was Saturday night, most places were booked out. Although, the truth had to come out somehow.

I gave you plenty of constructive feedbacks with the review. Maybe take it onboard next time, especially if I'm not the only one.

It is not fair for the real authentic, high quality italian migrants to have to compete with fake high reviews. We definitely wanted to save other italians (and not) to experience the same embarrassing food and service experience we had, or, at least to know what's going on.

The history of the tile is a good insight, however, I applaud the extra financial investment and efforts other italian entrepreneurs make to provide a better, higher quality and more authentic experience that includes: food, service, presentation, location and surroundings while consuming the food.

Presentation alone with good photos and high reviews,...

On first impressions I was kind of weirded out about the mirrors…but once we ordered and the food stared to come out the mirrors no longer existed.

The food; starting from the perfectly cooked homemade plain pizza base that we broke apart to dip into virgin oil & balsamic vinegar to the garlic bread, plum salad with fresh basil leaves and buratta cheese ball that seemed to melt open once we cut through the centre to have it’s creamy deliciousness ooze 😋😋😋…truly mind blown with all the flavours.

Then the share Pasta Platters arrived…seriously amazing Homemade Pappardelle with the slow cooked Ragu and the Squid Ink spaghetti with nap sauce, crushed cherry tomatoes, prawns and calamari. You couldn’t say one was better then the other as they were equally mouth watering.

We then put a hold on the food for a little to space things out and it worked beautifully.

The next meals to came out was the pizza’s, schnitzel with cream gravy, mushrooms & onion…by this time I truly thought I couldn’t finish it, but the whole thing went in with a big smile on my face that I couldn’t wipe away.

We then ordered coffee and their Homemade Classic Signature Tiramisù and by this time I truly couldn’t move as there was no way that any of us we’re going to leave anything unfinished.

Full to the brim we talked Hanna the waitress in thanks for the chef’s who then introduced us to one of the owners of Forli; who’s recipe for the Tiramisu has come from his Grandmother & slightly tweaked by him and then we met the New Chef to the Forli, Joe. Hand’s up/down how ever you want them 🤣…keep the great delicious food coming out 🙌👏👏…I just truly wanted to take this opportunity to thank all the above mentioned staff for our families great first time experience and...

We went in not long before they closed last night and firstly ordered a pasta (her) and pizza (me). Not long after ordering a guy comes over to our table and advised that some of the ingredients weren't available for the pizza I ordered, that I don't mind, as other places have just substituted or left off ingredients thinking we wouldn't notice, and it was like the gods were looking down on me as I then ordered a pasta, that I very rarely do, as I've been burnt ordering too many average pastas previously, even though the look on this guys face had a level of confidence that he knew I was going to like it, and boy was he right. The pastas was cooked perfectly, the tomato sauce was rich yet well balanced and the absolute star if the dishes were the prawns mixed in the tomato sauce that were cooked to perfection and tasted like they had just been pulled out of the ocean. The only thing that I could've done to make this dinner any better was order a garlic bread to come out a little after the pastas so I could've wiped up the leftover sauce at the end. Safe to say there will be a next time where this will be done. Spent $60 on two pastas that I normally would have said was on the expensive side, but when we walked out talking about how good the dishes were for the next 2 hour, you realise that it was money very well spent. Can't...