Fratelli Italian Restaurant

Good day my friends,

Last week I received a gift certificate to a restaurant in Oldsmar that I had never heard of before.  The name of the place was Fratelli and I figured it must be Italian.  I was correct.  What I did not realize until much later though, that Fratelli’s was a hidden gem.

It is certainly nothing special to look at from the outside.  It really is the epitome of a hole in the wall restaurant.  We walked in and found it to be much bigger inside than we anticipated and also substantially un-crowded.   Plenty of sets available.  One of the girls at the bar said we could take a seat wherever we chose and we took a booth. 

Almost immediately we were greeted by our server, Meaghan.  Meaghan asked if it was our first visit and we said yes and showed her the gift certificate.  She gave us some menus and took our drink order.  As we perused the menu I heard the voice of our little prince saying that he wanted calamari.  Now, I do not and will not eat any sort of seafood, but he wanted to make a meal out of it so we said okay.  I cannot say how good the calamari was, but what I can tell you is that it good the approval of our young prince and Lady Gianna said it was delicious.  You’ll have to ask them for further info on the calamari because I could barely even handle the smell.

Meaghan returned to take our order.  Lady Gianna chose the eggplant rollatini as her main course, but I was in a calzone kind of mood.  So I ordered the calzone with pepperoni and sausage inside.  It was at this time that Meaghan asked me the question of the night:

“Would you like your calzone baked or fried?”

Now, every calzone I have ever had was baked.  It was the only way I knew to enjoy them, but feeling adventurous I decided to try it fried.  As we waited for our order and the calamari quickly disappeared we were given some fresh bread with some olive oil and spices to dip it in.  Oh my gosh was that good!  That’s always one of my favorite things in an Italian place and this night was no exception.  Yummy!  It is also a known fact that Lady Gianna does not like croutons so when her salad arrived she picked them off as usual.  I decided to give them a try as I did not want to see them go to waste.  I don’t know what the chef did to these little puppies but doggone it they were delicious too.  I was seeing a trend here and I anxiously awaited the arrival of my calzone.

The calzone arrived and it was huge.  Would I be able to eat it all?  Silly question.  But would I like it fried?  Only one way to find out so I cut it open.  The cheeses flowed out along with a river of pepperoni and sausage.  This thing was stuffed to the gills.  I took the first bite and although it was quite hot, I could taste every savory flavor.  I had my answer at last.  A fried calzone is indescribably delicious.  The outside of the calzone took on a decidedly noticeably flavor and texture.  It was much like that of a donut, albeit a donut with a lot of cheese and dipped in a delicious marinara sauce.  Meaghan came over and asked me for my opinion and I gave her thumbs up and the “happy, well fed man” sighs.  Oh, Lady Gianna said the eggplant rollatini was delicious, but since I cannot stand eggplant I have no first hand knowledge.

As we dined and Meaghan kept our drinks very full we were also visited by the owner.  He was obviously proud of his restaurant and with good reason as well.  I told him that we would definitely have to come back again and that we would bring friends to enjoy the delightful menu items.  I also need to try on of their pizzas.  They looked delicious as well.

For dessert we tried a couple of items.  First up there was the cannoli and that was followed by the fried balls of dough covered in powdered sugar.  Whichever you pick you cannot go wrong.  I mean what can be bad about fried balls of dough?  And the cannoli, made by Meaghan herself, was creamy and delicious.  One of the finest cannolis I had ever had the pleasure of meeting. 

We left a good two hours from the time we arrived after all the food and conversations with Meaghan and the owner.  We were full and we told them we planned on coming back one day soon.  Give it a try the next time you are in the Oldsmar area.  Fratelli is a hidden gem and worth the effort.

Ciao.