Ana Restaurant/Brick Oven Pizza — Restaurant in Town of Warwick

Located right off downtown Warwick, my family came to Fratello hoping it to be the answer to our search for consistently great Italian in the Hudson Valley. Fratello looks like a really nice restaurant from the outside, but it actually is quite casual. The wood burning oven--a woodstone I believe-- is front and center, with a full menu backing it up. Their decor was really nice for the season (fall), with country-ish stuff all around, scarecrows hanging from the chandeliers in the dining room, and Halloween stuff by the bar area. From all of this to a promising menu, I was excited for the meal. Unfortunately it ended up being pretty bad. First off, the service deserves a paragraph alone along with a pink slip. Our waiter was one of the worst servers I've seen in action. He not only disappeared for long stretches of time, but served us cold food, never once apologized for anything that was wrong, couldn't answer basic questions about the menu and made a sarcastic remark when he finally decided to saunter over with our check at the end. Did they find this guy hanging out by the dumpster in back of the restaurant and give him a job because they were short-staffed? There was a stark difference between this slimy-looking individual and the rest of the staff too. I'm not sure what the issue was and I don't care because it was not us. My family and I are never coming here again for this reason alone. The food itself was very poor. As alluded to above, our mussels appetizer was served to us cold. When we tried to find our waiter to bring this to his attention, he was nowhere to be found. We grabbed someone else who took them away, only to return them microwaved. It was obvious in that we recognized the dish, they were badly overcooked to mush, and they came back steaming like they literally just came out of a microwave. The other weird thing was that the tomato sauce was orange, seeming to have some cream and/or cheese in it; sadly, this turned out to be their base sauce for all entrees, and no it was not good at all. That aside, I have no clue why we didn't send this appetizer back outright. My order of ravioli was clearly defrosted, and was thoroughly mediocre in that crappy tomato-cream sauce. My Mom's chicken parm was incredibly thick, and the sauce turned out to also have sugar in it, meaning she could only eat so much as a diabetic (not that she enjoyed it to begin with). The bright spot was the pizza, which wasn't exactly revelatory but was decent. The crust was light and crisp, although without any bready character, rise or char from the oven. The toppings--pepperoni on one, the other a white pie with pear, gorgonzola, walnuts and proscuitto--were all fine although there were noteworthy balance issues. It was basic restaurant pizza, and it succeeded in this regard. Even so, it wasn't even what I would call good, and that's the highlight of the meal. Bad service made this meal worse, but the food was bad to begin with. I suggest avoiding this place like the plague. Warwick is a very nice town, and it is lucky to have far superior restaurants to this. If you think the tomato sauce here is drinkable--as one reviewer here noted--then you know absolutely nothing about Italian food and you probably think Papa John's is great stuff. Another item worth noting is that there's a reason this place doesn't have its prices on their website. Fratello's is not cheap, and is an especially poor value for the quality of food and the portion size; you're basically paying for random pizzeria-level food in a nicer setting. If you've never seen a brick oven before this place might seem cool, but once the food comes you'll realize why it isn't worth it. I recommend Carbonella's in Middletown NY for better brick oven pizza, and I can't imagine that the other Italian places in Warwick are...

I feel that it is very important for this review to be written. My mother, friend and I attended lunch at Fratello’s restaurant this past Sunday. I am currently on the east coast having my home remodeled and have frequented this establishment many times through the years. As a result of this horrific experience, I immediately was under the impression that it was under a new management. The manager, who later represented herself as the owner, truly requires communication and customer service training, for she surely failed as a Hostess/Manager/Owner when addressing a discrepancy on our bill. It is because of her ignorant behavior, that I will NEVER recommend this restaurant to any of my friends and family in this area as long as it is run by this woman, Cheyenne.

I have owned property in this area for over 30 years and am very familiar with the dining environments afforded to us in the beautiful town of Warwick. We thought that it would be a nice treat to go to Fratello’s for casual dining, however we will certainly stay clear of this establishment in the future.

We ordered simple meals, they didn’t appear to be as up to par as I remember, however forgivable at any restaurant. We received our bill and they forgot to bill for one of two cups of soup, however charged for a cup as a bowl… which was an additional $2. One of the meals was listed as $17 on the menu, and the receipt charge was $19, and the other meal was misleading on their menu and when clarity was sought from the server, was misrepresented. It was billed as $5 more than represented by the server when ordered. When we brought this to the attention of the server, he referred it to his manager to address. Cheyenne came to our table, represented that she was the manager and immediately came across an abrasive attitude. We attempted to explain what occurred and her responses were aggressive and rude. When my mother said to her there was “No need to be so rude”, her response was “You are rude for reading the menu wrong and then blaming it on the server”. This was a ridiculous statement, it was a matter of a few dollars and we trying to explain the incorrect bill. This issue escalated inappropriately and became embarrassing in the middle of a restaurant. I cannot believe that they made the errors on the bill, forgot to bill for one item and over charged on everything. Cheyenne’s response was “that’s too bad, you have to pay for it”. WOW! We had full intention to pay the bill, we were just trying to point out the discrepancies. If she would have only listened, instead of becoming so arrogant, the bill would have probably balanced out. She actually said to my mother “You can leave now” right after we paid the bill. I have never heard anyone talk like that to my mother or have ever been asked to leave a restaurant because a “Manager” could not maintain her composure.

I will NEVER go to Fratello’s again given this experience, poor management and ignorant behavior. It was abusive, disrespectful and did not represent the ambiance of what I, my family and friends seek for dining on a peaceful...

Do yourself a favor and go anywhere else. We should have left based on what was happening when we first walked in the restaurant and there were four different groups of people waiting right inside of the doors not being seated. Someone comes a few minutes later running out of the kitchen seats one group and proceeds to go back into the kitchen and makes each group wait right inside the doors for at least a few minutes at a time with no explanation communication or apology, and that can all be excused especially because the place looks so beautiful and sometimes restaurants are just having a hard time. But of course things get progressively worse, the staff on last night seemed to be two waitresses and one very angry busboy who didn't really understand what his job was. We got Waters to the table and a glass of wine pretty promptly, that was maybe the only acceptable part of the evening. We were rushed through our orders and no one on the restaurant staff would make eye contact for the next hour and a half while we waited for our entrees. Roasted potatoes and vegetables came out to the table cold, chicken francese was good, lasagna looked beautiful however it was not only still cold on the inside maybe even had been frozen at some point. Also I'd like to point out how weigh overstuffed this dining room is with tables and people and how insanely loud this restaurant has become because there are way too many people stuffed into this tiny dining room. The place looks beautiful the pizzas look really nice and this place has potential, but the story gets worse. We have to ask the busboy to get our waitress because she has disappeared once again and I let her know that the inside of the lasagna is in fact cold but that no I do not want her to take any food away from my table because of how insanely long the wait was how to get the food to the table so she goes to talk to her owner as she puts it. Owner never comes to the table, witches comes back and says that the owner wants to give us a free dessert, I explain once again that we have already been at that's restaurant way too long and no we don't want dessert and we are not trying to get anything from her I just wanted to make sure that she knew that after waiting an hour and a half to get entrees that somehow the kitchen sent them out cold. At this point I would say that the situation is still savable, however they choose to not do anything at all she leaves and tells the owner that we don't want dessert and she comes back to the table once again and says that he wants to take 30% off of the piece of lasagna. she also explains to us that the kitchen has been difficult and not doing a good job all night and how sorry she is that this is what we have to deal with however at this point I look across this extremely dirty dining room and underneath the wall of straight Booth seating you can visibly see all of the food that has been dropped for however long that hasn't been cleaned up and surprise, there's a mouse. Clearly no one at this restaurant cares. I am feeling lucky the morning after to not be sick right now....