D'O — Restaurant in Cornaredo

Cuisine only does not make a 2 stars ! Visited in April 2022

The cuisine was excellent, with a special mention for the signature onion and parmesan starter, which was particularly appreciated, as well as the cooking of the rabbit, which was very pleasant. The chef personally came to greet us.

However, we experienced a disaster in terms of service, far from the 2-star expectations, both before and during our dining experience. Due to the fact that my guest tested positive for Covid the day before the reservation, I tried to contact them to cancel our table. They explain to me that I will be charged 300€ because we will not honor our reservation. I expected more understanding and flexibility, especially considering the current period. In addition the person on the phone told me he cannot find my reservation in the file, and therefore I won't be charged because I don't have a reserved table to honor. I was highly surprised and not trustful (and I was right) since I had received a confirmation, I asked him to write me that I would not be charged in order to avoid bad surprises. The person got my email down. After 2 hours, I haven't received anything so I contacted them on whatsapp to confirm this story. I received an answer the next day, 2 hours before my reservation, telling me that it does exist and that I have to show up in order not to be charged. What a lack of professionnalism and clearly no consideration for clients !

Luckily, I managed to convince another friend to join in order not to lose my reservation. We met a deplorable service throughout our time at the restaurant. Starting with the arrival, an army of waiters but all of them to tell us that the reservation does not exist, we are made to wait in a small place behind the locker rooms without unloading us (coats, bags). We finally get a table, then we are forced to choose the same dishes to be served as one table! It was then a continuous ballet of waiters around us, cutting off our conversations, loosing intimacy, dropping our things after multiple passages behind our chairs, a dish barely finished already cleared without taking into account the fact that the other has finished or not, no break between the dishes to truly appreciate it, a very displeasant and imposed rhythm. Nothing to do with the expected care towards 2 stars clients!

Then, when it was time to pay the bill, even though it is expressly written on the website that payment by credit card is not accepted, and therefore we withdrew money on purpose for this experience, the waiter finally asked us to pay by card! Such a lack of consistency which is not acceptable at this level.

Too bad, we were looking forward to it and finally remain on a negative note. How can such place be...

I had the Menu "Lightness", because they proposed it as the vegan option to "Multiplicity" Menu, which my companion had, together we shared a bottle of Friulano. Most of the vegan alternatives were by far not equivalent to what my companion got. E.g., a Risotto containing only plain rice, lupines and a whole lot of olive oil, which made it not creamy, but, for my taste, aggressively greasy and heavy. Instead of pigeon breast, I was served some peels of carrot. No truffles or anything else fancy, like in the classic dish (truffkes, caviar, foie gras), but the very same price... Shameless. German style Laugengebäck was terribly in structure and ratio between crust and inner was bad, because of the small size of it. Neither a good copy nor a creative reinterpretation. Only two satisfactory courses for me: Zucchini cream with pine seeds, raisins topped with almond sorbet and white asparagus with cream of grren asparagus and some notes of sicilian pepper. Overall, this menu was disappointing and very uninspired both in ingredients and taste, only serving was with some finesse, and therefore 2/5 instead of 1/5, wine and sommelier was fine. Talked briefly to chef Oldani, he didn't see my point and I understood from his reply, that he just thinks eating vegan means a cuisine reduced to only some vegetables. Menu was lacking proteins at all (chef said that the puffed rice on some dishes contained protein, but imho there were not more than 5 grams of this in all dishes combined). For me, Oldani seems to be stuck in a very old fashioned understanding of vegan cuisine, or he is lacking it completely. Proof for this is, that he served bread with honey as a vegan alternative... My companion instead had a great time with his menu. I really ask myself, if it would be more suitable for this restaurant to relinquish from vegan options and concentrate on their competences, both for kitchen...

D’o has truly exceptional food and world class service. The flavours and sensations are unique, surprising and wonderful. Our server was fantastic, answered all of our questions, or went and got the answers for us if he didn’t know, and made our time in the restaurant fun and engaging.

So why not 5 stars? At a 2 Michelin Star restaurant everything has been thought out to give you an immersive experience. You’re paying a huge price for a flawless environment. We were the last ones in the restaurant and everything had been perfect…until we suddenly realized the staff had stopped making that a priority. The maître d left, servers gathered near us and began having conversations interrupting the ambiance, and a staff member even started carrying/putting away tables near us while we were still seated at our table. Normally this kind of thing would not bother me but when paying over $1,000 CAD for dinner it was disappointing to see that we mattered as customers only until dinner service ended, then this 2 Star experience became a chain restaurant cleaning up for the night. A sad end to an otherwise perfect...