Fork On York — Restaurant in Guelph

I don't typically write reviews, but I feel like this was necessary, especially considering how many 5 star reviews there are that I can only assume are friends/family. My wife and I went for a date night and the entire experience can only be described as laughably awful. We were seated (with only 1 menu, they were apparently short menus) and it was over 40 minutes until anyone came to our table...no water, no drink order, nothing. When we finally had our drink and appetizer orders placed, we then had a martini come full of ice, which was a hilariously novel experience for me, and our appetizer (bowl of soup) took half an hour to come. Against our better judgement, we stuck it out and ordered mains (pasta and pork), but of which were incredibly underwhelming and served on the most comically large plates I've ever seen. I understand there are kinks to work out with a new restaurant, but I honestly cannot come up with a single redeeming quality (aside from maybe the bread that came, but we did notice that they clearly ran out of that bread as the diners next to us were just served an uncut chunk of baguette). I've never been more disheartened paying a $130+ bill for a dinner in my life, especially considering how many amazing Italian restaurants we have in...

Disappointed…. I had really high expectations. This could possibly be because their menu, website and social media presence boasts a fine dining and upscale experience, however the food definitely fell short of that. The website shares the chefs decade long experience working in Italian cuisine, the second I saw tri-blend shredded cheddar on my chicken parm I knew I had been fooled. Not to mention, the sauce was NOT authentic, if you like jarred Ragu then this place is for you! The service was great, the atmosphere was okay, however to describe the food as “authentic and modern artistry” is diabolical. Furthermore, the comically huge plates they choose to serve the sub-par food on is just to give the fine dining illusion when in fact, it does the opposite. In general, this establishments online presence, photography and descriptions are far more sophisticated than the quality they are offering.

EDIT: thank you for the chatGPT response. When I do go and enjoy a chain restaurant I’m not going there with a fine dining expectation. I unfortunately made the mistake and went to Fork on York with one. We’ll happily stick to Buon...

I honestly will not be coming back. We made a reservation and were early, and got seated at the time of our reservation so that was fine. Took a bit for our server to get to us, but I understood because our server had 6 tables throughout the restaurant that I counted. As a server myself, I’m struggling to understand why she was running around as much as she was, her tables were spread far apart, making her job difficult. Because she had so much going on, she didn’t frequent our table, which was fine, but other tables didn’t seem as understanding. As for the food, the tomato sauce tasted like it came straight out of a jar. The gnocchi was baked (which the Italian side of me didn’t understand). Spinach and ricotta ravioli barely contained any spinach and were definitely undercooked. I will say the fish tacos were good, but an appetizer shouldn’t have been my favourite thing. All in all, I definitely will not be back and I do not recommend. There’s cheaper places with better food...