IL FORNELLO Barrie

Went here with friends on a bz sat. Night. Surprisingly for Barrie this was a very pleasant place. Nice décor just a bit too bright for dinner hour but then great as family restaurant too so in sure that had lots to do for keeping it bright.
Great food & service. Would go bck again

My wife and I thought we would go out for a nice dinner on this our 15^th anniversary. Being from the Barrie area we decided that IL Fornello looked like a fit for our evening. We were dress up and ready for a good meal.
Unfortunately that was not the case. First the staff is dressed the same as the staff from Buffalo Wild Wings. My Italian meal was spaghetti and meat balls. You would think they could not mess that up.
Well… the meat balls were barely above room temperature, not sure if thier microwave was working properly. The spaghetti was completely flavorless. I could have had a Michelinas that had more Italian flavor and saved ourselves a lot of money. Unfortunately I can’t figure how to do a half star.

The Prix Fixe Lunch Steak Sandwich at a surprising $ 17. OK, I have had many a steak sandwich before for $ 17, but it is open faced with a nice, solid slab of steak. This was really a panini, with thinly sliced steak that added up to about ¹⁄₃ the amount of meat enjoyed in a normal steak sandwich from a place like Jack Astor’s.
The meal included an appetizer, a choice between a Butternut Squash soup, salad or Rice Balls. I had the Rice Balls, which were nicely done, crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, with a decent marinara sauce. Again, the inside should have contained proportionate meat and cheese, but in this case, the two golf ball sized rice balls were mostly rice.
The key benefit I found is that Il Fornello has gluten-​free offerings. As for me, I just left hungry…

My boyfriend made dinner reservations at il fornello for my birthday. We were quite excited to try a new Italian restaurant, especially since it claimed to be fine dining. Unfortunately, it was a major disappointment! We had two friends join us for dinner and they had brought me a birthday balloon. The staff at the restaurant acted as if it was a big inconvenience to them that we had a balloon at our table. They made numerous comments about it. The staff also does not do anything special for your birthday! The food portions are small and taste like frozen entrees. We ordered a bottle of wine, and they did not decant it for us, which seemed quite strange. The price of the food makes you expect much better quality, and the entire experience was very upsetting. We will never be returning and absolutely not recommending this restaurant to anyone. We’ll continue to eat at the other, finer spots in Barrie.

Bad food, pizza was a dried out cracker with no toppings. Go to Toronto for high end pizza like Pizzeria Libretto. This place is an Italian Milestones with no clue. Cutlery and glasses seriously dirty nobody managing this place that just opened! I give it 6 months and it will be gone.

Was excited to see an upscale Italian place arrive in Barrie, so with the promise of a free bruschetta for using the online service I had to try it. Wait staff were obviously inexperienced. Bartender used our time to address her recent car accident and her struggles with multitasking. Silverware was seriously dirty… not just a spot, but never made it to the washer dirty. Wife had Asiago Chicken — bland and not worth $ 22. Papardelle Stefano was edible but overpriced at $ 19.50 and only a step above the canned stuff at Eat Side Marios. No bread, no dessert offered, no free bruschetta as promised, and they pushed the bill at us while my wife was still eating despite not being busy. Not impressed by any stretch of imagination especially for $ 75 plus tip. No intention of returning.