Il Fornaio Irvine

"Amazing! Held our Wedding reception dinner in the Sala room. I can't say enough great things about this place. Great food, attentive service, and obvious focus on atmosphere. Steve provided top notch service. This was also the location of our first date and it was so great to bring our family to this restaurant to celebrate. Highly recommend!"

"A little overrated. Affordable prices, very good pizza, but don't order a special. I went on a weekday for dinner and it was very slow. I ordered the risotto listed as a special of the day and... well, it wasn't risotto and the entire dish was mainly one flavor. I expected more overall, because you can see that the food is made fresh (you can see the chefs making pizza and you can see rotisserie chicken being made. We weren't offered bread, but ended up asking for some right before our food came out. Bread was great, wasn't warm like others have described, but still delicious with the oil and balsamic. For the "risotto" they really should have placed the chicken on top and seasoned it differently than the rice instead of mixing it all together. There was a sauce underneath with the same flavor that was present throughout (mushroom). I mean... it was okay but not what I was expecting for being advertised as a special. It really just seemed like ingredients they were trying to clean out of the kitchen, without a lot of thought. My boyfriend ordered the pizza, which was fantastic and really the only reason for the 4 star rating. If you go here, definitely order the pizza. It's the closest to an authentic Italian flavor I've experienced outside of Italy (and I've spent a lot of time there). The weird thing was this part. My boyfriend doesn't eat pork so he asked about one of the ingredients being pork and the server confidently told him "yeah it IS a type of pork". But I Googled it and sure enough... cheese. Not pork. It didn't bother me that he didn't know, but just that he pretended to know instead of just asking someone."

"Loved everything here. The service was excellent, the food was amazing and delicious, the atmosphere was incredible. My food was so hot I know it was freshly made. This has been the best day I've ever had dining out, I rarely give 5 stars but everything about today was just so magical. Fresh pasta and pizza wow, just everything we ate was so delicious"

"Nice location, spacious area and restaurant. The staff is very easy-going and friendly as much as their guests. Easy to talk to other people, especially if you will sit at the bar. Jana from the Bar staff took good care of me and my friend. Good food. Will go back."