Il Fornaio

Il Fornaio is a really weird chain. It is way fancier inside than I thought it was. The ceilings are crazy high, and the waiters wear white tuxedo jackets. I have never seen a chain that fancy. I was curious, so I checked, and there are 23 of them, mostly in California. Within a couple of minutes of entering I saw Ailene Voisin, Jack Gallagher, and had John Burton pointed out to me (I don't recognize many Cali politicos on sight). I was surprised to see so many local celebs. I never hear anyone mention this restaurant so I didn't know that Sac's movers and shakers hang out here.

I will point out for this review that the meal was generously paid for, and that I enjoyed the ambiance and had a lovely meal (because of the lovely company). However, the food was not oustanding by any means. They bring you a crapload of Il Fornaio breads of various types to start with oil and vinegar. We ordered an appetizer of braised beef over polenta. The polenta was very soft and the beef sank into it. Smiller called it "beef oatmeal". It tasted almost exactly like enchiladas. Pretty good, but weird, and awkward for an appetizer because you have to just spoon out little portions of it onto your plate while trying to avoid dripping it everywhere. We also got carpaccio. It was served with slightly wilted arugula (not intentionally it just looked a little old, but i am being super picky right now), shaved parmesan and capers. It was just OK. The other carpaccio I've had melted in my mouth, but this almost tasted cooked.

For the entree I got a butternut squash and walnut ravioli served with brown butter, tomato sauce and sage. I was intrigued because no one ever serves butternut squash ravioli with tomato sauce so I wanted to see where they were going with that. The ravioli pasta itself was not so fresh looking. The edges were a little dry. The stuffing somehow did not have the richness that butternut squash usually adds. I don't know how they did that because just squash on its own is quite rich tasting. The brown butter was a little too sweet and the small spattering of tomato sauce was essentially tasteless. And they deep fried the sage leaves! It rendered them tasteless as well. Why they gotta do that to the sage? So the overwhelming flavors of this dish were sugar and butter. Those flavors are always good so it wasn't terrible, but it should have been much better. A dining companion ordered short ribs and expressed disappointment but I didn't try those. Smiller liked his sausage ravioli but said every third bite was crazy salted, and I thought it was too salty, too.

We ordered a dessert of pears over a pastry crust, served with a pistachio gelato. The gelato was good, but had an extremely strong pistachio flavor, and was a really weird pairing with the pear pastry. Very strange tasting together.

Overall, just so-so and for those prices, I probably will never go back.