Fresco Smithfield — Restaurant in Smithfield

I'm Italian, and from Rhode Island. We have some great Italian restaurants in the ocean state, this however is not one of them. I'm a little shocked this chain has survived here, though this is the only location I visited I won't be trying any others. It was medium-high priced and the food was disappointingly average, like Italian food cooked by a cafeteria staff. The clientele was older, maybe they make bland food to cater to elderly people who might complain about strong flavor. Pasta was cooked to death, practically soup limp. Portions a bit weak and the more expensive ingredients were skimped. Watery sauces. At least my girlfriend (also Italian) and I didn't get sick. Staff seemed kind of disorganized and out of sync, our waiter should have been in detox. You could have probably skiied down the rails this guy must have run before serving us. Atmosphere open and loud, no soft surfaces makes for a noisy dining experience. The floors were that fake laminate wood and coupled with chairs that had plastic slider feet I'd worry about some of their older patrons having trouble getting up and having a chair slide out from under them. Faux upscale, hard to take seriously with giant TVs above the full bar and take out boxes sitting on top of a shelf in the corner, like the food the atmosphere was incongruous and seemed to lack authenticity. Bad feng shui. With so many places to eat Italian fare locally with similar pricing and exceptional food and service like Luigi's or Marchetti's, we'll skip on Fresco in the future. Not terrible but not worth paying for when I can make much better...

I walked into the restaurant to a wet dog smell. Sat at the bar and the bartender looked up and ignored me. Waited for her to acknowledge me and about 7 minutes later she gave me menus and didn't ask if I wanted a drink. A little later, I asked for a Manhattan, once she came back from slicing fruit. She made the drink and it was very short. She made a second mix to top it off. Maybe just make it once and give a decent pour. Once I received the drink, there were two black sea monkeys. One was very hard and no idea what was floating around in the glass. The glass slightly cut my lip and upon further examination I observed 3 chips missing from the rim. Not sure what they are doing to the glasses. Where is the chipped glass? I ordered the stacked eggplant and one layer was fully cooked and the other layers were fairly hard to cut through with a knife. I left 3/4s of it and paid $30 for a bad drink and appetizer. I left a $6 tip and should have left less. This site is awful. Cranston Fresco is good. This restaurant seems mismanaged. Extremely disappointed. I don't leave 1 star reviews very often but this...

Had dinner on a Friday night at 6:00. The restaurant was clean and neat. Our server was attentive and pleasant. The food however for our liking was not “exciting” or very “unique” whatsoever. I ordered the grilled chicken entree. It was served with a whole seared tomato and steak fry wedges. The fry’s were on the bottom. Then the chicken breast. And finally the seared tomato. It looked cool. There was absolutely no seasoning on anything. And the fry wedges were completely soggy from the chicken drippings and the tomato. Again the tomato had no seasoning. The chicken was grilled with no seasoning. And the potato wedges tasted like a plain baked potato. The food was “good”. But again nothing very special about this dish. Extremely plain tasting and ordinary. The chicken Marsala was good. The mashed potatoes were creamy but again… very bland and plain tasting. The meal cost $80 with a soda and a glass of wine. Don’t know if we’d go back. But everyone was pleasant and...