Il Fornaio — Restaurant in Corte Madera

Really bad service now for two consecutive recent visits, from different servers. Something’s changed recently because the service here used to be good.

Friday 27th January 4pm-7pm. We (four) sat on the patio of the bar area. The server would serve the other table in the patio area but completely ignored us. We asked her a question about the wine and it took her 20 minutes to get back to us. My wife even went to the bar to try to get a drink where our server saw her and told her to go and sit down. One glass of wine never arrived which still made it onto our bill. All other interactions with our server were rushed and a little unpleasant. She was lucky to receive a 10% tip.

Thursday 9th February 5pm-8pm. We (five) sat at a tall table in the bar area. The server (different from the previous visit) seemed to hate her job. She was moody and would snatch things out of our hands. It would take an infuriating amount of time to receive drinks. Also, one of the drinks we ordered never made it to our table, but did make it onto the bill. When it came to resolving this, our server didn’t apologize (for not giving us the drink or for adding it to our bill). Instead she expressed how inconvenient taking this extra drink off the bill is for her and asked us if she could just give us the drink (as we’re trying to leave). Again, she was lucky to receive a 10% tip.

The others we were with are Italian and have been visiting Il Fornaio for many years, since they opened. They too have noticed a distinct change in the level of service recently and all of us have decided to give Il Fornaio a break for the foreseeable future. It’s a shame because the food...

Usually, I don't like to post negative reviews without multiple visits because I understand that sometimes service is different per crew and different days of the week yield different results. But this experience definitely doesn't even warrant a second visit. First off after we got our food order in we never saw anyone ever again to check on us and we had to get up and find our own pitcher of water multiple times because no one even walked by. Also, there were ants all over the place which should not be acceptable for a restaurant. The second red flag should have been. It was maybe 30% capacity on a Friday night so obviously people are noticing something is not right. The food was the best part of the meal but again just felt flat under seasoned uneven cook temperatures like piping, hot pasta and freezing cold scallops not a great experience. Went with a few people and everyone else had the same experience. The food was just subpar. Spending over 115 for 3 people with no drinks or dessert is not what I expected from this place. At least parking is easy in the shopping center and the atmosphere is quite charming unfortunately, That can't save from...

June 2024: Came here for lunch on Father's Day and enjoyed a nice meal. My father enjoyed his meal. Dessert was really good. The chocolate cake was very tasty. Paired well with ice cream. Also had a tiramisu which was also very good.

Unfortunately, I ordered the lasagna and was not happy with it. It was covered excessively with bechamel sauce and was, in my opinion, overcooked to the point of being unpleasantly mushy. Quite a shame because I used to eat at Il Fornaio on a monthly basis back when the San Francisco location was still open. I used to really enjoy the regional menu that they had on a monthly basis.

Someone ordered the margherita and I tried a piece. It was uninspiring.

Bread used to be complimentary with a wonderful variety (olive 🫒 bread, ciabatta, bread sticks)... but now they charge $3 for a little bit of a baguette.

Service was not consistent. Our server was friendly but ignored us a few times.

Would consider trying this place again due to my fondness of the Regional menu (pre-pandemic). But I'll order a different pasta next time. And...