INFERNO - Wood Fired Pizzeria & Grill — Restaurant in Jacó

We come to Jacó at least yearly if not more since 2006. We try to visit all the new restaurants and stay loyal to our favourites. We decided to take a chance at this one, however, strongly regret our decision. I was so upset about our experience that I decided to read about this restaurant on trip advisor and wish I did before we went there. Bad service does not describe it, there was no service. We arrived around 6:30pm and it was not very busy. There were 2 servers on the floor. We were acknowledged fairly quickly and sat ourselves at the patio table. Our server approached our table. I asked for an order of French fries right away for our little one to be served with our drinks while my husband and I decided on our meal. I ordered the mango mojito after requesting the description of the drink. Another server brought my drink 3/4 full. It was nothing like the description. After a sip, I asked our original server for another drink as it was awful. It tasted like fruitopia. I ordered a piña colada instead and it was amazing! The second server brought my drink. It had been a while since we seen our original server so we asked the second server if we could order our meal. She said hold on and returned with a note pad. We thought she was going to get our original server. We told her we wanted a vegetarian pizza. This was about 6:55. In the meantime, no one came to our table. We were very confused why it was taking so long for French fries so I got up and went inside as our servers (being that we seemed to now have 2) completely ignored our table. It was 7:12pm and neither our French fries or pizza arrived. I went to the counter to ask what was going on. I found our original server and asked her where was our French fries order and she said to me, “you never got them? (In Spanish). I am bilingual and had no issue communicating with her. She asked the second server what happened. Apparently, they went to another table (table 13). She then implied it was my husband’s fault for ordering our pizza from the second server because it confused her and she didn’t know we originally ordered French fries. At this point, I was furious. I just wanted to leave immediately! There was no accountability or any attempt to resolve this problem. When I asked to speak to management (Eduardo), I was told the manager was not in (this was a Friday night). I told her to cash me out for the 2 drinks. She told me what about my pizza? I told her I wanted to leave. I also told both servers that this was the worst service I’ve ever experienced. I was upset at their lack of hospitality, organization and absence of making any efforts of connecting with guests. There was absolutely no feeling welcome here. I have no comment about the food and wish we had the chance to try it but service is key to happy customers. Issues with service is definitely a problem and pattern at this...

We ordered two pizzas and one pasta amongst four people. The whole order was vegetarian. Their pizza dough doesn't have eggs and they make pizza sauce without onions and garlic. Ambience and vibe of the place is good. But service was super slow. We never got menus and had to ask for it after 10 mins of arrival into the restaurant. Also, they charge you for water and only have bottled water. It seemed they were super busy or understaffed when we went there, because there were only two servers attending 5-7 tables.

Pizzas that we had were vegetarian pizza (includes tomato sauce with vegetables and Margherita pizza. The vegetarian pizza was very flavorful. However, the Margherita pizza was okay (I wish they had added more basil to it). Pizza crust was nice and well done.

We had ordered roasted vegetables pasta which was a mix of tomato and pesto sauce with veggies and pasta. Pasta taste was nice overall, except it was missing pesto taste. And when we asked for some pesto sauce on the side, the server completely forgot our request and we never got the pesto sauce.

Overall, we had okay experience and I have definitely had better wood fired pizzas elsewhere. I was glad that they accommodated my special dietary restrictions. But giving it 3 stars for very slow service.

#jainfoodavailable...

The crust is a thin Neapolitan style. It was the best thing about the pizza - it wasn't bad, but then it wasn't really good either. Let's say it had potential, but didn't live up to it as it came out overly hard and dry. Don't bother looking for any scorching or leopard spots - it's not playing in that league.

The toppings were uninspiring. The sauce does not have much flavor and the pepperoni, ham, etc. were very skimpy. For example, the roughly 12" pizza was cut into 6 slices and each slice had one, or at most two, 1" pieces of pepperoni. At the price point they are charging (which is high for Costa Rica), I had been expecting a much better pizza.

They advertise a "Wood Fired" oven, which I guess could be true - as it's absolutely a gas fired oven but they did have a few pieces of wood burning on the side. If they had to use only wood to heat the oven, it would take a lot more and I expect the pizza would have a lot more flavor.

While sitting outside waiting for the pizza to arrive I smelled wood smoke and looked across the street where a huge plume was coming out the chimney of Caliche's Wishbone Restaurant. Where there's smoke there's fire, so I'll be trying that one next. Will not be going back...