Il Fornaio Palo Alto

Before heading out to watch Coco, my mom, brother, and I went to II Fornaio in downtown Palo Alto for a nice Italian meal. As soon as you enter, you see the nice homey, yet classy feel of a nice restaurant. The slightly dimly lit atmosphere could do with some nice background music though. Anyway, after being seated, we received a basket of bread and some olive oil and vinegar. The bread was pretty decent. We ordered a Linguine Mare Chiaro, which is basically a seafood pasta, a margherita pizza, and a monthly special of risotto. The seafood pasta was nice and flavorful, and it was especially good, since it didn’t have the typical overpowering seafood taste. However, it was a bit over salted in some places, so the salt was not evenly distributed. Next, the pizza came piping hot straight out the oven, but it really wasn’t anything special. Lastly, the risotto was pretty good, but the rice didn’t have a chance to soak in all the flavoring and soup enough, so it was not as creamy as regular risotto. It was also way over salted, but otherwise, the flavoring was quite nice. Overall, this is a nice family-friendly restaurant for people who want a quiet Italian meal. However, there are so many Italian restaurants in Palo Alto, especially downtown that this is probably not a first choice option. Atmosphere: 3.5 Service: 3.5 Taste: 3 Price: 2.5 (a bit on the expensive side considering the quality of the food) Uniqueness: 2 Presentation: 3 Overall, 17.5/30 or 58.33% #IIFornaio #linguinepasta #margheritapizza#risotto #italianfood #ambersfoodreviews