Cafe Assisi — Restaurant in Wrentham

Chicken Parmesan & Linguini:

Chicken was texturally on point - good breading/chicken ratio. But the bright red sauce was acidic and a little watery, as if the tomatoes hadn’t spent much time cooking after leaving the can. The most glaring mistake was the sauce being simply ladled over a pile of boiled linguine. That’s what pizza places do. The most basic Italian secret is to cook the pasta with some of the sauce to give it depth & flavor. Otherwise you just get slippery noodles which cool before they can absorb anything from the sauce on top.

Bolognese: “Angel hair pasta tossed in a hearty meat sauce, with a blend of cheeses, and a dash of cream”

My son is a Bolognese junkie. His word is solid when it comes to this Northern Italian ragu and he liked the sauce on the one at Assisi. But again, regardless of menu description, it wasn’t tossed with the pasta. Just poured over the angel hair and sent out.

Kristin’s Calzone: Mushrooms, black olives, artichoke hearts, chicken, asiago cheese, mozzarella

This is a tough review to write. Assisi really knocked my socks off a few years ago and it had been on my mind to get back there when in the area again. You expect good places to mature into great ones, not the other way around. I probably would’ve skipped making a review if it wasn’t for this calzone. I’ll never comprehend how any cook thinks throwing raw chunks of mushroom into anything is a fine idea. Without some kind of pre-cooking mushrooms just become weird, dry spongy things in a meal. Does Kristin like them like that?? At least they had some company in the overcooked chicken. Olives aside, the whole thing was really bland. It’s something you encounter all over the suburbs - capable chefs, great ingredient’s and nearly fantastic execution all ruined because nobody reached for the salt while cooking.

Not cooking pasta together with a sauce can make the difference between a great and a so-so meal. But the ultra-simple omission of salt can take “I really love the food at…” to “I don’t remember anything about that place at all…”

There are a lot of great reviews of Assisi. I hope our lunch was only a fluke day where the line cooks just cut a...

Ok. So, I was out shopping at the Wrentham Outlets with my mom and we got hungry and decided to grab lunch. Well, the wait at one place was longer than we wanted, and the other place was closed. So, we got in the car and went driving to see if we could find a place to eat. When we pulled in, Cafe Assisi looked really cute and we thought why not try it out?

As soon as we walked in, the intense smells coming from the open kitchen let us know that we definitely made the right decision. It was fairly warm inside, but that's because it was like soup outside and we were standing next to the kitchen. We were seated on the other side of the wall, and it was actually quite pleasant. The servers were all so sweet and very helpful. Our waitress, Taylor, was particularly fabulous!The lunch menu was 2 full pages front and back filled entirely with the most delicious sounding Italian foods: pastas, sandwiches, pizzas, salads, everything looked amazing!

After a long deliberation, with many suggestions from our server, we finally chose what we were going to order (and believe me, it was a DIFFICULT decision).  We ended up sharing the soup of the day, which was a tomato basil bisque, the asparagus appetizer, which was wrapped in prosciutto di Parma and had roasted red peppers and buffalo mozzarella, and the eggplant parm. One lunch serving of the eggplant parm was enough for both me and my mother to eat AND to each have almost the same amount we ate take home. Wow!

Everything was absolutely incredible! We kept taking bites and couldn't help repeating comments of how delicious the food was. Hands down, the best tomato basil bisque I've ever had!! Now, we're Italian, and we make our own red sauce, so we typically steer away from red sauce meals at restaurants. However, I was very pleasantly surprised and would 100% come back to try every meal possible! What a serendipitous find! Can't wait...

Casual with upscale service and food. For awhile my foodie friends have told me I had to try Cafe Assisi. Wow! I should have listened sooner. My daughter and I got there just before the dinner rush. I highly suggest reservations. We had the option of sitting outside, the lounge area or the dining area with an open kitchen. I love open kitchens, we sat there. The tables were all white table cloths and the servers were all dressed in black. This added to the ambiance. It is still casual though. Super close to the outlets.

Water and warm bread with a delicious dipping oil was on the table before we ordered. My daughter ordered a Shirley Temple, I got one too. Fun to be a kid. Plenty of great Italian dishes to pick from. By the time we ordered the place was filling up.

I ordered the Bake Stuffed Haddok. This was delicious! A good sized piece of haddock with a Ritz crabmeat stuffing that was buttery and had a soft texture to compliment the fish and risotto. It had some spinach on top and two jumbo perfectly cooked shrimp in a scampi broth with the risotto.

My daughter had the Chicken Sorrentino, friend chicken cutlets, prosciutto, cheeses sauce. I took a bite and it was amazing!

We were both full. They have a long list of mouth watering desserts. We both took home a piece of...