IL FORNO — Restaurant in Chesterfield

Worst Mother’s Day meal for everyone. I don’t write reviews but my god this one is needed. Me and my husband has bruschetta and ribs to share. All the meat on the ribs was just fat, the bruschetta was like cheese on toast with bits of diced tomato. Nothing Italian about it at all. Mains husband had calzone didn’t taste right and was hardly any filling. I paid £25 for sirloin steak, it came with 3 bits of cucumber, a tiny lettuce leaf, new potatos that had 100% come out of a tin from aldi and warmed up, the peas and carrots was swimming in oil so couldn’t eat them (same with potatos) . Asked for my steak medium to well done, came cremated, hard and chewy. Ordered a side of fries and was served homemade chunky chips which again tasted like oil and grease. They should have said they dont do fries when I ordered them, £5.50 for oily potato. We was a table of 7 and nearly all had chips, no one ate them. 3 people who had the calzone left nearly all of it. My daughter enjoyed her children’s spag bol, my son enjoyed the chicken but didn’t touch his chips and he eats everything. Drinks was forgotten when we ordered them on a few different orders, food came in waves with a big gap inbetween so we all ate at different times. 2 meals came then about 10mins later a few more came. The quality of the food was awful massively gone down hill. We spent £210 on food that tasted cheap. We raised our concerns after the meal but the so called manager wasn’t interested at all so we paid and left. Attitude and just not giving a damn is why your restaurant was very empty on a busy day. Last Mother’s Day when we came the place was rammed, today there was loads of tables empty and besides us I think there was about 5 other tables Occupied. Very quiet for Mother’s Day and going to a restaurant at dinner time. The staff aren’t great, like they haven’t got time For you, not massively friendly and welcoming. Got home and threw up due to how oily...

The restaurant was well lit and nicely presented from the outside. Unfortunately not welcomed much since it was a busy night. We had to shuffle through the madness and await seating which is fine.

We was placed right near the pizza oven which was nice to see freshly baked pizza, but unfortunately VERY cold! Like I was in Italian Alps and not a restaurant.

We did not get asked about drinks or food for 22 minutes. We did indicate that my wife was gluten free but somehow she did not alert us that the chocolate fondant was NOT gluten free luckily my wife questioned it. Therefore the female chef doing Pizzas had intervened and offered chocolate brownie.

The starters was amazing and truly felt authentic taste with great flavours. The mains were beautiful with lovely sauce. The desserts were gorgeous with such chocolate aura, it was nice and rich, with ice cream to smooth it down.

The food without a doubt is super tasty without a doubt.

Alot of the service needed we had to call out which makes it difficult in busy days. Simple things like we asked for water so they gave a jug but no glasses, when I wanted to pay the bill, I wanted to pay by card and I asked do I need to go to the bar or pay where I am. I was asked it can be brought to me if I wanted. As a restaurant just needs a little thought of let's make the customers comfortable and just bring the card machine to them. I know service charge is optional but you feel bad for staff working hard to deny them.

The toilets were colder than the restaurant but let's see. I will becoming back to see what the food tastes like again.

2025 update: Food was great and service was great Very stark comparison from...

I'm not sure why it is like a fine dine restaurant. I wish there were negative reviews to give. Firstly, a restaurant like this the service is appalling. You need to keep calling the waiter. Which is not a big issue. But when your restaurant is only 30% full, how does it take 15 minutes to bring drinks and 50 minutes to bring your food. It looked like all staff were very lethargic. The worst part was the menu. When your dish says 'Gnocchi Al Pesto' and the description says it's made with Pesto sauce, you would expect to have a Pesto taste in your dish. But the dish came with tangy tomato sauce, which tasted nothing close to Pesto. When mentioning to the manager, she was adamant that the menu mentions Tomato, so Pesto sauce is mixed with tomato. It doesn't make up to your taste, but they never had complaints. I explained that your dish name and description mention Pesto and Pesto sauce. So, as any normal customer, i ordered a dish thinking to be tasting like Pesto. But she was adamant that they couldn't really do anything regarding it and won't replace the meal and would charge me. Worthless argument and not ready to serve customers. She was pretending as if i had never had a dish containing Pesto or didn't know what it was. She didn't even try to compensate or offer anything to make it. Worst service and experience ever. In the end, I had to take the dish home in a container. Please look at the pictures below what you had given and what exactly the dish should be like. Other food was average...