Fratelli's Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Salisbury

Trying to be fair and not hurt a local restaurant too much with a lower rating than a 3. Fratelli's is always a disappointment. If you're a senior citizen, you'll probably love Fratelli's. Otherwise, someone younger looking for good food, it's not going to be for you. The food is very bland and mediocre in quality. All of the signs of a tired, dispassionate owner, just going through the motions.

Their salad is probably the one item you can't go wrong with. Usually fresh enough, and their house-made salad dressing is very tasty. The breadsticks are acceptable only when fresh and hot (50% of time), however are very bland. They throw a dollop of food service whipped "butter" in the basket, but it doesn't coat each breadstick, it's the luck if you get butter on yours. No garlic salt, or any fresh garlic, honey or anything in the butter, just plain. Seems to be made with plain white flour, not a good quality bread flour, no "nutty"/"yeasty" flavor.

They hype up that they use housemade pasta. I'm sure they're being truthful, but if they do, they are wasting their time. Their pasta is always flavorless and mushy. It certainly doesn't seem fresh. Maybe they do make it every day, maybe more likely they make it well in advance and freeze it or refrigerate it and it loses any quality. I'd rather have boxed pasta than this "homemade" stuff.

So one of my tests of a good Italian restaurant is Chicken Cacciatore. (I'm allergic to beef and cheese, and I don't like seafood, so chicken it is). Every time it's a huge letdown, and I'm almost afraid to eat much of it. Everything in the dish is always at a different temperature. The pasta is cool in temp (seems they take their cold pasta and quickly dip it in hot water), the marinara sauce is piping hot, their peppers are lightly/barely cooked, and the chicken definitely seems to be slightly reheated and only luke warm (I wouldn't be surprised if they microwave it from cold). None of the ingredients seem melded together, none of the flavor have blended. Just separate ingredients thrown together each at their own separate temperatures. There is nearly no seasoning. There's a "perfume-like" flavor, I suppose perhaps basil? But the pasta isn't salted, there's no other seasonings in the dish, no fresh garlic, no cracked black pepper, no oregano, no marjoram, thyme or rosemary. Just the one seasoning.

The chicken doesn't seem cooked fresh. It seems like it's made well in advance, then somehow slightly reheated. Whether that in the pan for a couple seconds before throwing the rest of the ingredients and immediately serving without letting simmer. Or it's thrown in the microwave for 20 seconds, I'm not sure. This is the part that always weirds me out, and I'm always scared to death of getting food poisoning from eating here. I don't know if when the chicken was first cooked, was it quickly brought down to cold temp and not allowed to sit out to cool at room temp. How long has it been in the fridge since it was cooked? Was it brought back up to 165f before serving to me? Too me it seems "luke-warm" and that scares me. This always detracts from the meal, and the whole night I'm just waiting to see if I get sick or not.

The wait staff all seems pleasant. I don't fault them at all. I think they want their customers to have a good experience. I just feel maybe it's time for the owners to retire and find someone passionate about making good food.

Too many mediocre restaurants on Delmarva. Too many lazy/cheap restaurant owners. Many other places are even worse than Fratelli's I suppose. It seems everyone is trying to buy the cheapest of the cheap ingredients from food service company to make money. You should be sourcing quality ingredients, preparing them well, and charge whatever a fair price should be! If the food is good, repeat business will follow. I'd rather pay $32 for a dish and be wowed by it, than paying $19 for one and feeling like it was a...

Rude, rude, rude manager. Let me explain: We're a party of 8 celebrating a birthday. One person orders a pizza with peppers and pineapple. Pizza comes out with peppers and peperoni. We send it back. Waitress was great. She checked and it was ordered correctly but a mistake was made in the kitchen. No worries, it happens. Except, the same pizza comes back quite quickly with cheese hiding the peperoni and lots of pineapple. Problem is, this person doesn't eat pork, and the peperoni was discovered when they bit into the 2nd piece and had peperoni literally in their mouth. So, back it goes again and after awhile a new pizza comes out with peppers and much less pineapple...hmmm. So, time comes to pay the bill, which with deserts comes to well over $200.00. Naturally you'd expect by now some sort of word from the manager with an apology. Usually in a mistake of this magnitude someone with customer service skills would simply remove the pizza from the bill and perhaps provide additional concessions in order to retain happy customers. But no, we ask the waitress (she was really great) about removing the pizza and a minute later the manager marches up and very rudely declares she can't comp the pizza no matter what. Upon trying to reason with her she simply walked off while we were speaking. Several attempts were made to reason with her which only resulted in an escalation of her rudeness, now which included smirks, and while speaking to the hostess glancing our direction smiling. Now, it's not about a $12 or $14 pizza. What they have succeeded in doing is losing a number of previously regular customers. From now on it will be Olive Garden for us, or if we want a little finer fare, Joe's La Roma Ristorante. Certainty this was the last time we'll darken the doors of Fratellis. Oh, the person who had the pizza is a local restaurant owner themselves and a friend of the Fratellis owner. Wonder how...

Sadly I am sharing a bad review for my favorite restaurant. Last month my sister in law made a reservation for four. We arrived on time and had a thirty minute wait after being told that we had no reservation. Okay, chalked it up to just a fluke mistake. As we were being seated at one of the side tables I asked if we could be seated at one of the middle tables with the bench seats on one side. I was told they were reserved. Food and service were okay that night. Fast first to last night. I called during the week to make reservations for four. Requested middle table with bench seating. Our friends were vacationing in Ocean City. They drove from Ocean City to meet us at Fratelli's, our favorite place to eat! We arrived on time and were told it would be 15 minutes. Okay, we waited. 45 minutes later, after inquiring twice as to why we were still waiting and watching others be seated, we were seated at a side table not the middle table I reserved. When I questioned this I was told that they tried when possible to accommodate those requests but that was not possible tonight. So, we said okay and sat down. Our guests were less than impressed with their meal. They stated their pasta was heavy and over cooked. My cheese ravioli was wonderful as usual. Our server was great. I am posting this in hopes that the management will address the problems we keep encountering. Reservation problems. Seating requests. 4 people shoved against wall. No elbow room. Not enough room on table. These tables have always been this way, so Covid is...