Ristorante IL Porcino — Restaurant in Fremont

I increased my rating from 2 stars to 3 stars because of the restaurant's response to my rating. It looks like they take feedback really well, and I appreciate that!

I was really hoping to like this place. Fremont does need more high-quality restaurants.

I came with my family to celebrate an occasion. We requested to sit outside since some of the members have not had COVID and may be in a higher risk category. While this restaurant has outdoor seating, it is a tent, so it creates a wind tunnel, making it quite cold. We asked the waiter to bring over one of the two unused heat lamps. The first time we asked, he seemed to ignore this request. The second time he brought over the heat lamp and started it, though he made some comment that seemed sarcastic, something like "We'll see if it runs out of gas." The food was average, similar to the food that you would get at a place that charges half to less than half the price. We ordered a Caprese salad. It had four slices of mozzarella, four slices of a mediocre tomato, and chopped basil for about $17. I ordered a vegetarian ravioli that tasted pretty dry. The marinara sauce that came with it was decidedly average. My wife ordered an okayish-tasting spaghetti with meatballs- The spaghetti seemed overboiled. The bread that came with the meal was somewhat stale.

The décor was also unimpressive. All of the tables outside had a clear plastic covering, which felt cheap. The music they were playing was a little over-the-top/kitschy and slightly too loud.

The prices were impressive. All of the dishes are $23+ (including very plain dishes like the vegetarian pasta dish I got and the spaghetti with meatballs that my wife got) and the waiter doesn't mention the prices on the specials, which turn out to be over $10 more than any of the entrees listed on the menu. The portion sizes were generally small.

As I said, I really wanted to like this place. We were celebrating a special one-time occasion. I suppose I could have complained, but I wanted to be there to celebrate this occasion.

My suggestion to the restaurant is to bring in more folks who understand how to run a quality restaurant. I know you have a number of good reviews- I'm not sure what to make of this. But, it seems like the issue is systemic and the restaurant either needs to improve its overall operations or cut the...

Made reservations for Mothers Day and were completely disappointed. This isnt our first visit, in fact this is our special occasion Italian food place to go. It wasn't crowded so can't use that as an excuse but:

1. The limited menu made no sense when 90% of the dishes we could have had anywhere from Dennys to neighborhood diner.
2. only way to get bread was if you ordered a pasta
3. 4 choices for pasta, few other protein, and as mentioned remainder of dishes were basic or appetizers
4. No one at our table were able to say they liked what they ordered, normally we love our dishes.
5. And had to ask if they had kids menu, which they didn't so then asked if they would be able to make spaghetti for the kids. Like I said, if they had a crowd or if there were people waiting over an above the patronage there from opening at 10:30am, we arrived at 11:10am and didnt see many others enter restaurant after-we left at 1:45pm and even then only seen 1 party of 6 and a table of 4 but for that entire time to have limited menu, bad service and with nothing to justify all above mentioned.... disappointed is an under statement. They should have been able to have full menu, and special brunch - Ive worked in restaurant and prep is done for full menu regardless of a special occasion. And to limit patronage when restaurant was far from busy, and tastless food - the cherry on the cake is the prices for dishes that were not worth a penny paid. Hate to say it but are forced to find another Italian place for family special occasions...

If it wasnt for the fact that my family was all there, my day would have been ruined -- I am fully bummed about this experience, hope they realize and do right in the future but my family will not return.

And came home to order food because what we got wasn't worth...

The most expensive frozen pizza “Margherita” and cold spaghetti with fake parmesan. This "Italian" restaurant pissed me off for several reasons. The environment is quite clean and nice, but the food is terrible and the service is not great. My husband and I each ordered one simple pizza, which had absolutely nothing to do with Italian pizza. We waited a long time for our food, the table that came after we had already ordered got their food before we did. I don't mind waiting for good food, but this was awful, both pizzas were semi-finished, probably frozen, see photo. We ordered spaghetti with parmesan for our daughter. When the waiter brought the spaghetti without parmesan, I asked him for it and he was back a moment later and grated "something" on my daughter's partially cold spaghetti, it was definitely not freshly cooked spaghetti but badly heated and most importantly it was not parmesan. The waiter was otherwise nice but if he didn't have parmesan he should have said so. We didn't finish the pizza, it was impossible to eat even when we were extremely hungry and my daughter wouldn't touch the spaghetti with the fake parmesan, when I tasted her pasta I couldn't get mad at her for not wanting to eat it at all. That was the worst restaurant we've ever been to in America....