Il Fornaio is a chain of twenty (as of 2019) Italian-themed fine dining restaurants operating primarily in California (16 locations of its 20) in the United States.

[1] Initially unsuccessful, the chain was re-sold in 1986 to Larry Mindel, who had run local restaurant holding company Spectrum Foods and launched or bought a series of successful restaurants: Chianti in Los Angeles; Prego (one of the originators of California-style pizza), MacArthur Park and Ciao in San Francisco and Guaymas in Tiburon.

[2] Mindel sold most of his equity and retired from daily operations of the group in 2001 (his son, Michael, continued and is Senior Vice President of Marketing as of 2014), and in 2003 opened Poggio at the Casa Madrona Hotel in Sausalito as a personal project.

[3] Under the direction of Executive Chef Maurizio Mazzon, a native of Venice, the company launched a second concept, Canaletto Ristorante Veneto, at the Venetian in Las Vegas in 1999, with a second location in 2008 in Fashion Island shopping mall in Newport Beach, California however the Newport location closed in 2022.

Regular customers averaged 12.7 return visits per year (later reported to be 17), considered very high in the industry.