IL FORNO NYC - HELL'S KITCHEN — Restaurant in New York

I had an absolutely awful dining experience at this restaurant. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to demand better service so I sent an email to the restaurant after our visit. Over a week later and I never got a response, so I'm posting it below. I'll never return due to the lack of professionalism...

I dined with my mother at your establishment last night and I want to express my disappointment with our meal. Service was severely lacking. We were greeted by a gentleman who I assume was the manager and we took the last available 2 top by the door around 5:50pm. We were assured we would be able to eat and get to the theater in time for a 7pm curtain call.

We placed our order from the prix fixe as soon as the server arrived. Sadly, things fell apart from there. The salads arrived; no problem except the food runner tried to serve them to the table next to us. That should have alerted me things would only get worse from there.

My mother’s entree arrived at 6:21pm. I waited 5 minutes before I had to flag down staff (the manager?) to ask when my entree would arrive. It was finally delivered to our table at 6:31 - 10 minutes after the first entree arrived. I specifically requested the mahi mahi be cooked rare. When it finally arrived, it was well done. At this point, I was so irritated that I didn’t want to deal with waiting longer for my meal to be properly cooked. I took a few bites and requested a to go container in less than 5 minutes. We needed to allow enough time for dessert. Once our entree plates were removed, the server asked if we were ready for our bill. We still had not been served dessert! At 6:45 our desserts still had not arrived. I had to find our server, request our desserts be packed in a “to go” container and handed her a credit card to pay the bill. I hate being rushed to eat and that is exactly what happened. Was I supposed to swallow my dessert in one bite if it had been served to our table at 6:45?

I have been working in the service industry as a server and bartender in NYC for 15 years. The lack of attention to detail and service at your establishment is severe. Our server clearly was embarrassed and gave a half hearted apology for what happened. That was not enough. The manager was avoiding our table after my entree arrived. He should have come to our table after my entree arrived at the very least. He never came to apologize or acknowledge the problems. And as we were leaving, the host did not even acknowledge us. No “good bye” or “thanks for dining here.”

I look forward to...

We had very low expectations going here, but like most people who probably stumble into Il Forno we were quite hungry after a show and decided it would probably be fine. And it was fine! There was no wait, we were seated immediately, and the interior was a pleasant, rustic Roman-style with a nice view into the pizza kitchen.

We started with a Caesar salad, which by all accounts looks like it came out of a bag (maybe the theme of the whole meal). That said, the portion was generous and the dressing did taste nice. The pastas we received were a bit overcooked and certainly not fresh pasta, so it tasted alright at first and then quickly was a bit too mushy. The chicken in the chicken parmesan was 100% just a frozen chicken strip but hey, still tasted ok. Towards the end of dinner we were at last offered the free bread service which was pretty funny timing, and somehow unsurprisingly about half the pieces were pretty burnt on the exterior.

When it was all said and done we were certainly fed food that we ate, and it could have been much worse. Everything is fine at best, but it's certainly not cuisine of any sort. Perhaps if you do go their pizzas would be decent, because at least I could see them making those by hand. Amusingly, for the two of us they automatically added 18% gratuity before we even paid the bill, so just be aware of that as well. The food is absolutely no where near ~$28 a plate of pasta but if you're in a pinch and want food reminiscent of Italian, give Il...

What a disappointing experience. The only reason I am giving two stars is because of a couple of servers who tried to make it better. There was a woman working last night who probably needs to find something else to do with her time. I’ve worked in customer service for over 2 decades and to watch her go from table to table with one of the fakest smiles and attitudes I’ve ever seen was disheartening. Whenever she wasn’t face to face with a customer, she had a sour scowl. What’s scary is she floated the entire room which leads me to believe she may be a manager. It feels like she’s doing it out of expectation instead of truly wanting her patrons to have a good experience. When my entree was delivered, I asked for a refill on my drink and asked again half way through my dinner. It wouldn’t have been that bad if we would have been offered water when we were seated. Instead our water glasses sat empty for the entire meal. I eventually got tired of watching her stand around talking and after I finidhed my entree, I went to the bar to get it myself. No apology what’s so ever. Overall, the food was decent. The starter salads had great flavor, our entrees could have used more flavor, and the desserts were pretty standard. I’m not normally one to leave bad reviews and am usually pretty forgiving but the overall experience would have been so much better...