Ferrara Bakery — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

Most of the bakeries my brother and I wanted to hit were closed on Mondays, so we decided to give Ferrera a try. Our main objectives were to get pistachio cannolis, rainbow cookies and tiramisu.

Rainbow cookies are my family’s favorite, so we bought all of them. They turned out to be dry and flavorless. They tasted like the inside of a refrigerator.

We couldn’t see the cannolis they had on display because they were individually wrapped in parchment paper. That was a red flag off the bat. Cannolis should be made to order and filled on site. Especially if they cost 4 bucks each. We ended up getting a dozen anyway, because we like the regular ones too. But we really wanted the pistachio ones to bring home to our family (we were visiting from out of state).

The customer service was nonexistent. The girl at the counter looked bored with us and answered our questions with shakes of her head and the least amount of words as possible. It was clear she wanted nothing to do with us. When I asked her if they had pistachio cannolis, she told me they didn’t make them anymore. When we unwrapped the cannolis at home, guess what kind they were. The pistachio ones.

It wasn’t much of a relief, however, because we’d already gone to a second bakery to acquire pistachio ones. So instead of regular and pistachio, I ended up with twenty-four pistachio cannolis. I wouldn’t have had to spend double the money if the girl had known what it was she was selling.

Last but not least, the tiramisu. The flavor was fine, but when I tried to eat mine it was frozen. After my brother’s slice had time three hours to thaw it was okay. But between the pre-wrapped cannolis and the stale, fridge-tasting rainbow cookies, this was the final nail in the coffin.

We went at eleven am. Two hours after they opened. There’s no reason the baked goods shouldn’t have been fresh. I don’t know if they get their pastries from somewhere else or if they bake them WAY ahead of time, but don’t get them from here. It won’t be fresh, and you’ll just be...

My wife ordered two 10in cakes, an Oreo torte and a whipped cream banana cannoli and paid $146. However, the lady on the phone answered as if she was already having a bad day and was rude from the get-go. She kept calling my wife by a different name and couldn't get the order correct. So we had followed up to ensure our order was correct a few days later and it wasn't. It sounded like the same lady picked up again, and she had put down the wrong names on the cakes and order, did not include the extra cannoli, and one of the cakes was a 12in cake instead of 10in.

Once the order was correct, the lady hangs up, even though we were owed a refund b/c they had overcharged us. So we call back and ask to speak to the manager, the same lady picked up again, and didn't want to pass us to a manager and really wanted to know our names. Finally, she did pass us to a manager, who was also rude and she didn't seem to care that the order was wrong nor cared that her employee was rude to us. She said we would get a refund and then hung up.

I called back a few hours later to cancel the order, and this time passed me to a gentleman who was respectful and processed the whole refund within minutes and hit my credit card immediately as well, which makes me wonder why the other refund was taking hours; they probably never passed us to the manager to begin with.

Unfortunately, the past few cakes have been sub-par. My family and I always ask for extra cannoli, but we rarely get it even though we pay for it. We've gotten frozen cakes before, or missing ingredients. These are expensive cakes, however they're not worth the price anymore. My entire family used to buy cakes from this bakery since the 70's but given the price and quality, their cakes are not worth...

Went for lunch today, had the Tuscan chicken sandwich, it was flavorful and the bread was great , I added fresh mozzarella and hot gardinera. The reason for my 1 star is the cookies I had were awful, so gross we couldn’t eat them, they taste like a dirty basement freezer, they definitely froze them and obviously not covered well. It was the fig plain and with icing and their version of kolachy apricot and Nutella, all was in inedible, first time in my life actually spitting out a dessert. Tried the sofgliatella, awful again it was like a rock with no flavor in crust and not supposed to be like that, it’s supposed to be several layers of flaky crust, the pasticotto taste like freezer, napoleon was just okay and again you are freezing it so the layers were mush and not much flavor, we tasted some tiramisu that was delicious, the cannoli was tasty and not mushy, the apple slice was awful again it was in the freezer and had a nasty taste to it. I had always heard Ferrara was the place to go to for bakery. I won’t be coming back here for that, glad I didn’t get more cookies or pastries, it was a waste of my money. I grew up in my Family Italian bakery decades ago, Albano’s originated over on Taylor street then moved to North Ave in Elmwood park. I lived on all the pastry, fillings and cookies plus my Grandmother always baked at home outside the bakery, that was the most authentic Italian pastry...