Il Falco Restaurant — Restaurant in New York

We visited Il Falco during Restaurant Week with two friends and unfortunately left quite disappointed.

The menu included an appetizer, main course, and dessert. We started with the burrata, which came with just three slices of fairly basic tomato, a bit of sun-dried tomato, and a supermarket-style burrata (very similar to the one from Costco, if not the exact same).

For the main course, we ordered the “Linguine Cacio e Pepe,” which were actually spaghetti, not linguine. Instead of the creamy texture you’d expect, the pasta was dry, and the sauce had settled at the bottom like a soup (as if it had been plated and left sitting too long before serving).

The desserts looked more homemade, which was promising, but the tiramisu I ordered had absolutely no sugar or sweetness at all. It was entirely bitter. We mentioned it to our server, and only as we were finishing up and asking for the check (just before closing, they offered to bring a different dessert). At that point, it felt too late.

To worsen things, the check came with the full menu price, including both inedible tiramisus, and they had automatically added a 20% tip (calculated on the taxed total, which pushes it closer to a 24% gratuity). Even though the bill itself suggested tipping 18% or 20%, we weren’t given a choice; the 20% was already included without a word.

The service was not rude, but also nothing beyond the expected. And while offering a replacement dessert was appreciated, it came too late and didn’t make up for the oversight, or the fact that they didn’t remove the faulty desserts from the bill, even after admitting the sugar had been forgotten.

Restaurant Week is meant to be an opportunity for restaurants to attract new customers and win them over with a great experience. If a restaurant cuts corners or downgrades the menu to make it more cost-effective, guests will assume that’s what the regular experience is like, and simply won’t return. Instead of creating loyal clientele, they’re just cashing in on one-time diners. I’ll Falco should see Restaurant Week as a chance to earn repeat business, not just make quick profits by cutting back.

Sadly, we won’t be going back, but I hope they reconsider how to envision restaurant week; I really think they could make a better use of this Restaurant Week spotlight...

Il Falco advertises itself as "fine Italian dining" but comes nowhere near it. The service I received was astoundingly bad: I shouldn't have to sit around waiting for a menu for 10 minutes and only receiving one when I asked for it and it shouldn't take an hour to bring out the first thing I ordered, an appetizer. The wine list is also a joke; I tried ordering a bottle, then waited for 5 minutes to be told they don't have that one, ordered another one, and waited another 5 minutes to be told they don't have it. At this point I was curious to see if they would tell me which ones they do have, so I started pointing at different ones until after a few misses, they finally told me that they only have the two cheapest bottles out of a list of about a dozen Italian whites. Once I actually received the bottle, the service was still almost comically inattentive; they took the bottle away to keep in ice so I had to wait 10 minutes between refills. Once my patience started running visibly thin or simply because it was getting late and several tables had left, they finally started being a bit more proactive. When the food finally arrived, it was actually really good and flavorful, but given the quality of service, I found everything to be overpriced. Overall, the experience left me in a worse mood than I came in. I absolutely cannot recommend this...

We visited this spot during NYC Restaurant Week, expecting a decent $45 pre-fixe menu. Unfortunately, the food was… underwhelming at best. The burrata tasted like the lowest-tier supermarket version, served with basic pear tomatoes, and the pasta—while not terrible—had a sauce that felt far from homemade.

The real disappointment was dessert. We ordered tiramisu, only to discover it had zero sugar or sweetener—just pure bitterness. Even the staff tried it, admitted it had no sugar, and by the time they offered us a replacement dessert, the restaurant was closing, so the gesture felt a bit too late.

To top it off, the bill included a mandatory 20% tip (for a party of four), calculated after tax—so closer to 24% in reality.

The wine was the highlight, but that’s only because they didn’t have to cook it.

Would I return? No. But at least my friends and I left with some laughs, joking about how bad the experience was. If you’re considering this place for Restaurant Week, I’d recommend looking elsewhere unless you’re just in it for the wine and some...