Al Forno — Restaurant in London

Updated review; following the below. The owner called me on my personal number at 11.30pm to say our group was rude and I was banned from booking with them again, for that to effect me I’d need to actually want to return. How inappropriate to call a customer on a personal phone number to tell them they’re rude, and continue to lie - 12 people yet they bought out 2 extra mains? We weren’t rude - is it rude to ask for your drinks / food, apologise for the inconvenience - as stated by the owner, I told them I’ve worked in restaurants so I know it’s stressful, yet that doesn’t excuse poor service. If you can’t handle big groups don’t let them book. Terrible. Video is attached in parts. What kind of sick person calls a customer past 11pm! Pretty sure that’s illegal and will be reporting this to open table, as you aren’t supposed to take customer numbers and call them from your personal mobile!

Honestly, should’ve taken the insurance payout and closed shop.

Original review;

Been a regular for years, and since the place had a fire and reopened, food is terrible in comparison to what it used to be. Service is also shocking, takes forever to get someone’s attention. Clearly overbooking to make up for losses. By the time the food finally came, we were all starving so just ate the bland shocking excuse for food. Orders were wrong, took 45 mins for drinks, no flavour on anything, carbonara missing bacon, pizza with ‘buffalo mozzarella’ which was evidently 4 tiny pearls, soggy unsalted calamari, olive cheese & meat board with no olives, extra pizzas added to order. When discussed with a manager, a plethora of excuses and arguments, we were told ‘we’re not McDonald’s’ ‘we’re busy’ ‘if you didn’t like the food you shouldn’t have eaten it’ ‘you’re a large group, you should have pre ordered’ (no one told us to) ‘you’re a large group, expect slow service’ ‘we are shorter staffed so you need to be understanding’ Overall, never coming back, stay away. Should’ve stayed closed down! Offered measly free desserts, but a total of 3hrs later we were all desperate to leave, we asked if we could get the starters off instead and were told ‘we don’t do exchanges’… shocking. And expected us to pay service charge… lucky we didn’t all walk out without paying it was that terrible. We were better off getting frozen food...

Tonight was probably the worst night at the Al Forno Putney chain and one I probably won't forget (not for good reasons).

The service was dreadful from the start we waited ages for our order to be taken and for drinks to arrive (I'm still waiting for my glass of rose wine)

we was then asked what we wanted for our starters and I had asked for my glass of rose again (I'm still waiting for my glass of rose wine). At some point the starters came and some starters was missing items or the portions was different even though everyone ordered the same or similar stuff.

A waiter came by after 2 or so attempts of going up to ask for our drinks and said sorry we lost your drinks order and we was waiting for 20+ minutes and at this point I had ordered my rose again (I'm still waiting for my glass of rose wine)

The mains came, and they had brought out some correct items, and some that definitely wasn't ordered so they decided to go through our order list again to make sure everything else was correct and I had tried to order my drink again (I'm still waiting for my glass of rose wine). The rest of the mains came and they still managed to bring us the wrong pizza after ordering it the first time and then checking the list the second time.

They came and spoke with us giving us all the excuses on how busy they was and service was chaotic and slow because they had online orders as well but if you know you are struggling to handle table service maybe focus of the customers in your restaurant (stay to the end to find out if I got my glass of rose) we was then offered free desert which none of us wanted and we wasn't the only tables affected by this we saw small groups of 2 to 4 asking where their drinks was as well.

After having a disappointing meal and practical servering ourself by getting our own cutlery, parmesan and pepper we wasn't offered offered a discount in any sort and we then asked if we was getting service charge and they said yes its included in the bill so I'm expecting my share at the end of the month as I had to help myself to stuff and my friends.

(I never got my glass of rose wine)

AFTER LEAVING 3 BAD REVIEWS THE OWNER CALLED MY FRIENDS PERSONAL NUMBER FROM THE BOOKING AND STARTED HARRASSING HER AND WE RECORDED THE WHOLE COVERSATION AND WILL BE...

TL:DR I was little disappointed. 2/5 from my single dine-in experience. Note: I have ordered takeaway from here before, that experience was much better.

The atmosphere is lovely - 4/5. Toilets are little cramped, but serviceable and clean. Dining area is clean, homely and not too cramped.

I had the soup of the day (mixed vegetable) - lovely clear soup, is was obvious it was made fresh. Nothing complicated or special, good portion. Would have been nice if it maybe came with bread - but not a big issue. 3.5/5

For mains, I had the lasagne. It was sadly unseasoned and bland. I could only taste the grated parmesan on top. The bachamel was a little underseasoned, the ragu was not seasoned at all. The ragu was also a little watery, leaving large pools of liquid at the top of the dish. 1.5/5

I did voice my concerns initially with the lasagne, I was asked if I wanted more pepper. However, when I pressed the matter at the end of the meal, the waiter said that Italian food was generally bland. I would strongly disagree with this, and I have actually ordered takeaway from here previously - the Spaghetti allo scoglio (seafood spaghetti), which was a strong 4.5/5.

I was little reassured when the waiter said they would raise it with the chef, as there possibly was an issue with the batch. I think this might be the case, as many other reviews suggest this is normally a strong dish.

Rating due to dismissive concerns of waiter and (possible one-off experience) poor experience from what should be a...