Il Bacaro — Restaurant in George Town

I ate here years ago and wasn't impressed. Today was a different story. They have definitely improved their cooking and I truly enjoyed my meal here. Their location is fairly easy to find since they are located at the corner with big signages.

Their menu is pretty easy to navigate and consist only of 2 pages (front and back). As with all Italian restaurants, they will also have their specials of the day written on a small blackboard.

Starter was tasty. Oily with full bodied gravy, perfect to dip the accompanying bread. Clams I felt was a little small but both it and the prawns were fresh.

Gnocchi was impeccable. Loved the Gnocchi construction, the taste and the way it combined with the pulled duck were delicious. The duck itself was cooked well without the presence of gamey smell. As far as the fish and squid ink mash potatoes goes, it's an interesting dish. My brain and tongue has a confused moment as it tried to decipher the black mass sitting next to the fish. The squid ink gave an interesting 'sea' taste to it. It's something I haven't tasted before but I liked it. The fish however was a little too dry, maybe overbaked. Sadly no juice in it and a little disappointed with the mild parchness.

Pizza however has a minimalistic topping. The centre is delicious but as you move towards the periphery, the topping becomes a little too sparse and inadequate. Pizza is always a divisive dish, so what works for me is not necessary what works for others. And vice versa.

I had a great end to the meal by enjoying their dessert. Absolutely loved their tiramisu (served in a cup). Spongy, moist, chocolaty. I would recommend you leave a bit of your stomach for this. Their panna cotta had a nice wobbly consistency and soft melty texture. Not as good as the tiramisu but delicious nonetheless.

Their dining atmosphere is quiet, comfortable and calm. I must compliment the staff and owners, they were friendly and constantly checks up to make sure we had a great meal. It's a place I wouldn't mind...

I rarely leave reviews but felt that I had to this time because I am very disappointed with my experience at Il Bacaro.

To start, the food was okay (not the best Italian that I've had but acceptable and decently enjoyable). Towards the end of my meal however, I found a dead insect (I believe a fly) in one of the clams served in my pasta (vongole). You may see the image attached. Seeing it really ruined my appetite and made the meal less appetising immediately. Having said that though, I understand that mistakes/accidents happen, and I wanted to inform someone immediately so they could be more attentive next time. I imagined that anyone running a respectable restaurant would have wanted to be informed, and be apologetic about the incident. Instead, the owner's response was shocking to me. She just looked at it, mumbled something along the lines of, "I suppose that happened sometime during the cooking..Sorry!" nonchalantly and just walked away! Her entire response was less than 3 seconds; she was completely unbothered by it.

She did not take my plate or the fly away, or sound in the least bit sorry. In fact, her response was borderline rude. For a restaurant of this supposed caliber, I thought that she would perhaps offer a complimentary dessert, or at the very very least, be sincerely concerned and apologetic about an incident like this.

The only saving grace was that (entirely dissatisfied with her response), when we later informed one of the male waiters, he was much more apologetic and immediately assured us that he would inform the chef of this occurrence.

The owner's behaviour was sincerely distasteful and in my opinion, unacceptable. Mistakes happen and that's understandable, but the way one responses is crucial, and her response ruined our evening.

Overall, I'd recommend that you spend your money elsewhere. There are plenty of other great eateries in Penang. Il Bacaro's food is average and service leaves much...

WORST DINING EXPERIENCE DVER! The service of this restaurant is extremely poor! Not just the service, the food here upset me too, it was simply a very unpleasant lunch. Firstly, we checked on Google and found that this restaurant opened at 11:00am. Then, we make our way there and arrived at the restaurant around 11:30am. However, the waiter mentioned that they’re not ready and restaurant only opened at 12:00pm. We told him that Google stated open at 11.00am and he replied that it was written by Google, and nothing to do with them with unfriendly voice. In total we have 6 with us, one of us is OKU and 3 senior citizens. After several times of asking, he finally decided to let us go in and wait for the kitchen to open. When the kitchen is ready, we started to make our orders. In total we ordered four main course, a soup and a serving of mash potato. Just when we’re deciding on one of our main course to go with the chicken breast, the waiter suggested us to take grill half chicken set so that everyone could share. As a customer we of course love suggestion from them and accepted his suggestion. When the chicken was served to us, my mother mentioned that there was a sticky smell like salted fish appeared out of no where and I questioned my mum and joke about how an Italian restaurant have salted fish. At the same time, my auntie tasted the chicken and she immediately run to the toilet and vomit out the chicken from her mouth. When she came out from the toilet , she told us that the chicken was stinky and disgusting. Originally it was a happy lunch but the chicken ruined it all as the food was not fresh. Not sure why we’re able to smell it but this restaurant dared to serve sticky chicken to their customer. Also, the carbonara was too sticky, the pasta was mushy and soggy! Not sure if you guys still dare to try out this kind of restaurant but definetely is a NO...