Il Fornello

As a chain restaurant, the food here is decent and overall pretty good. The pizzas are freshly made and the highlight. I would recommend the Diavola and the mushroom pizza. However, the service is rather shallow, meaning that they hire a bunch of young and pretentious waiters who think they are better than everyone else. Not the best service but food and overall interior atmosphere is satisfactory.

Second time, dry greeting, empty atmosphere, no house bread. Beets salad good, kids pasta and cheese pizza simple sauce and penne our meals both were pasta with chicken however chicken under cooked, didn’t eat after one piece. Quite pricey based on location, cutlery missing from table they say us on. And missing napkins. All in and once a year huge maybe

Good place for constantly good Italian food. Service is good too. Wood oven pizza and lasagna are my favourite’s. Worth a visit.

We went first to this place upon opening. Portions were big. Prices were a little higher but manageable because of the quality and quantity of food. Now we have noticed quality and quantity have slipped and are quite disappointed only because we knew what this place use to be. Also we feel the prices don’t match up to the quality and quantity served. We rarely come here now. And I mean rarely, only for events that we are invited to.

Beautifully decorated with a great patio. Food is good and the fried mozzarella balls are fantastic.

Excellent customer service
Better food I had the lamb shank and it was delicious my date had the salmon and she enjoyed it as well

Pleasantly surprised! Service was fantastic. Food was served piping hot which made me very happy. I hate getting cold food. Portions were big. Boyfriend and I shared calamari which was delicious. Sangria was good. When server was asked for the cheque, it came promptly. (Another peeve of mine is having to wait to pay).
Not only would I return, but I’d order the same pasta dish. (It came with spinach, tomatoes & mushrooms which I loved. Nice to see restaurants that have veggies!)

Wow! Totally NOT impressed with this place! Had the risotto, which I love, but not this one. It tasted more like dirt than mushrooms and was a complete disaster. I ate 10 bites and gave up. Service was fine, wine was good, but they should learn to allow couples in conversation to just enjoy themselves without continual check ups! Too many interuptions by the waitress to make even the conversation enjoyable.
Tried it once but will never return

It’s been a while since I visited il Fornello’s, but I’m glad I did. I was told there was a 15 minute wait for the dining room, so we decided to eat in the bar. Service was quick and attentive. Food was amazing, wifey loves the Margarita Pizza. Will comes again.

I have only been here twice but I find the food is very good it is comparable to Terroni downtown and tastes like very good authentic Italian food. the service is a little bit slow compared to some restaurants but I find that the atmosphere is generally fairly nice and most times you can get a table. They also have a wood oven which makes the pizzas taste delicious.

The service and ambience was good, but the food was okay. maybe I should have ordered something different. I had the Connolly and it was kind of plain. it tasted bland and boring, and like the other reviewer said, its missing that ‘something’. My red wine was good, can’t go wrong. My dessert was good (crème Brule) but not the best. I had better. It was my first time, so I don’t know if I would go again. but I herd good reviews for the Toronto location, so maybe I will give this restaurant another chance, and I said Maybe.

Overpriced. Small portions. The kind of joint you leave somewhat hungry, unless you fill up on lots of bread. Not worth a return trip.

I had a really nice meal here on my first night in Toronto. It strikes me as a fast-​casual restaurant — yet they manage to create a warm interior that is inviting. We split a beet salad which was pretty standard and I went for the rigatoni with a Bolognese; the others tried the baked cannelloni and the salmon dinner. Perfectly fine meal — nothing terribly wrong and yet nothing out-​of-​the-​ordinary «hey welcome to Toronto let’s do this up» either. I would consider this a safe bet for a lovely Italian meal.

Il Fornello has a trendy atmosphere that makes you feel like you’ve arrived underdressed. Made me feel all trendy just being there.
We looked over the lunch features and quickly put them aside; the main menu is where it’s at. After my mom and I changing our minds 100 times, she went with the Gnocchi Asiago and I selected the Cannelloni Fromaggio. The dishes arrived and they were beautiful; we couldn’t wait to dig in. My cannelloni had cheese inside, cheese outside and cheese all over. The sauce could’ve used something; it was a plain tomato sauce. I know it had a lot of cheese going on, but to have a plain sauce, made it a little unbalanced. The gnocchi, this was clearly the star of the show. After deciding it was awesome, my mom ‘allowed’ me to try a few bites. Wow. Just plain wow. The asiago sauce was creamy and rich. The gnocchi were light and tasty. It didn’t need anything else, but the spinach and crispy shallots were a nice touch.
The service was alright. They never refilled our coffee and barely came to check on us. We didn’t need anything (except coffee), but if we had, she was nowhere to be found.
It was a delicious meal and I’d go back. There are many more items on the menu that caught my eye! I hope the staff is a little more attentive next time!

Il Fornello is located on Highway 2 between Harwood and Salem on the South side in the same plaza as McDonalds and Smokes Poutinerie. My boyfriend and I came in here on a Tuesday evening around 7.
We were seated right away and were given a specials/​extras menu as well as the regular menu — on Tuesdays pizzas are only $ 10 and they had a few extra specials they were offering this month. We ended up ordering a mini pizzetta which had cheese, sauce and prosciutto on it and I went with the Gnocci Asiago and my boyfriend got the Lamb Shank.
Shortly after we ordered we had some bread delivered to the table while we waited for our appetizer. Now I may be nitpicking, but at a restaurant that looks as nice as this one does and has some amazing fire grilled pizza, you’d think they could NOT give out butter packs. I would have preferred to see a little container of butter or something instead of a bunch of butter packs thrown in. The bread was good, nothing amazing but a nice start.
The mini pizzetta was quite good, thin crust, not too much sauce, enough cheese for it to be stringy and good sized slices of prosciutto. I think the only thing I would change about this is to make the pieces of prosciutto smaller since there was only one piece (maybe two) per side and they were hard to bite through in one bite so they would slide off the pizza. Otherwise, a nice start to our meal.
The Gnocci Asiago was quite good, I had quickly popped on Unilocal to see if anyone recommended anything and this one stood out. Soft pillowy gnocci tossed in an asiago cream sauce with baby spinach and crispy onion strings on top. While the sauce was rich, it wasn’t super heavy and neither was the gnocci. It’s hard to find good gnocci that aren’t gummy or chewy and these were melt in your mouth amazing. I couldn’t finish the entire thing but I kept going back for more even after I said I was finished.
I did try a bit of the lamb shank and while my boyfriend quite enjoyed it, it didn’t do it for me. The lamb was a bit dry and the potoatoes weren’t anything special but since I only had one bite, I can’t really give an accurate description.
Overall, we really enjoyed our meal, good food, good service and a nice atmosphere in the restaurant. We’ll be back to try Il Fornello again.

2.5 stars
they left the doors to the patio wide open for the breeze to flow through to the bar. patio is quite spacious and fenced off from the parking lot so you get to enjoy your dining experience undisturbed. it was slightly chilly out of the sun, so we opted to sit in the bar dining area.
service was attentive, and food came out in reasonable time. the CALAMARI FRITTI was quite tender; and the SALAMI BOARD was a bit skimpy but hard to mess up.
my date and I had a MARGHERITA PIZZA to share and it was definitely over salted. for a pizza with such simple ingredients, you’d think they’d get it right?!
nothing was horrible but I don’t particularly feel inclined to return either.

We stopped in with a large group on a Saturday night. The staff was very accommodating and friendly. This is the only location I’ve been to. The restaurant is large, clean, bright and well decorated.
The group shared different pizza’s. The quality and variance of the toppings were excellent.
Overall I was very happy with the experience of the evening.

Quite disappointed at this Il Fornello.
Hostess: Surly and didn’t let us know we could sit at the bar. Had to wait despite seeing lots of empty tables.
Waiter: Andrew D gave us lots of attitude and little of his attention.
Food: Caesar salad was okay (lacked the saltiness of anchovies). Enjoyed the Calamari. Husband loved his Fettucine Alfredo. My Linguine di Mare was meh.
Dessert: Didn’t have any because Andrew D left us alone for 20 minutes. By then, I wanted to GTFO.
We asked for the bill and waited another 5 minutes for the machine.
Summary: I wouldn’t come here again. I’d rather trek to the city either to another Il Fornello location or another (better) Italian place. Just because it’s the suburbs doesn’t mean we don’t deserve good service and food.

Took my girlfriend here yesterday for her birthday. The inside décor is very contemporary, which looked awesome. We opted to sit on the patio. The patio is separated in two areas (by a warm fireplace), one for dining and the other for lounging. Our server was very nice. We had a pitcher of the white sangria which was really good! So refreshing and lots of fruit. We ordered the ricotta dip but it was disappointing. Didn’t think it was gonna be cold. Wouldn’t order it again. For dinner I had the gnocchi and added chicken. It was so delicious. Felt like I was in heaven. It is heavy so keep that in mind. For dessert we had the cheesecake to share which was ok, nothing to brag about. I would definitely go back for the food and sangria!

Love that there is an Il Fornello now located right in the heart of Ajax so I don’t have trek all the way downtown Toronto!
This location has a great vibe and is very bright looking with it’s white brick walls and beautiful dark hardwood floors, high grey industrial looking ceilings, and lots of funky hanging lamps. They even have a large bar side and a lovely patio!
We had an awesome waiter, who was really helpful and funny. We took all his suggestions and ended up ordering all his favourite dishes. The boy definitely has great taste because everything we ate tasted phenomenal.
This is what we ordered:
Pizza Pollo «BBQ» — Tomato sauce, mozzarella, slow roasted chicken, chipotle BBQ sauce, charred red onions +add bacon for $ 3 more
The thin and chewy crust with crisp edges definitely packed that beautiful wood burning flavour. The pizza was packed with ample fresh toppings, real sliced chicken breast, gooey melty mozzerella, and the sweet & spicy bbq sauce plus the crunch from the crispy salty bacon helped hit all the flavour bases.
Gnocchi Asiago — House made gnocchi with asiago cream sauce, spinach & crispy shallots
Wowww was this ever good! That lush rich creamy asiago cream sauce was soo delicious I wanted to drink up all the remnants left over after I ate all those plump pillowy gnocchis and the addition of the crispy shallots which were like mini onion rings added just the right crunch!
Tagliatelle Stefano — w/​slowly braised beef short ribs in tomato sauce
Perfectly cooked al dente pasta and those tender flavourful fall off the bone meaty ribs were perfection.
Finally onto the dessert which our waiter also recommended, totally knocked it out of the ball park!
Double Pistachio Gelato — Double scoop of creamy pistachio gelato evenly blended with real pieces of pistachios.
Perfect balance of sweet and salty, loved the intense taste of pistachios with every bite and the crunchy bits of real pistachios evenly blended throughout plus the addition of the gingersnap biscuits on the side was a pleasant surprise. Pistachio is now my favourite flavour!
Overall a spectacular meal from start to finish. I can not flaw a single thing, our waiter was very attentive the whole night, refilling our glasses without mention, making superb recommendations, food was fresh, flavourful, and delicious to the last bite. I’m will definitely be returning here!