Fratini La Trattoria

This an absolute gem of a restaurant. There is no menu and the owner goes round to each table to see what your likes/​dislikes are and if you have any allergies. He also recommends wine and they certainly have an amazing selection.
The food was excellent. It has been a while since I’ve had such a good meal and it really was like being in Italy. First and second courses are a selection of fish and meat dishes. Each is just a mouthful or two but fantastically prepared. The last main dish is an individually prepared pasta, we could see from the other tables that none of the dishes were exactly the same. Dessert was a small selection of tasty treats, again no more than a mouthful or two. Despite each dish being quite small we were perfectly full by the end of dinner.
All of the staff were fantastic and the atmosphere is nice and cosy, I actually forgot I was in Singapore as it was so much like being in Europe!
Not a cheap evening but well worth it for a special occasion; I will definitely be back!

This place is a gem, since I don’t particularly go to Greenwood Ave much as it is rather ‘ulu’. I didn’t expect that within the same stretch of shophouses, there are at least 3 different Italian restaurants. However, Fratini caught my attention as she has a no menu restriction. Everything will be chosen by chef Gabriel and all you need to do is totell him what you don’t or can’t eat.
Lunch started off with very tasty appetisers.
The prawn is sauteed with pumpkin purée and avocado mash. I could eat more than a portion of this. The scallop with cheese was satiating. Presentation was good.
The main pasta was al dente. I would say that all the food was from the range of good to very good. The set lunch is at $ 45++ which is reasonable.
I will definitely be back again.
I would like to have some crayfish the next time I am here. :)

This place was rated #2 on trip advisor and we’d eaten a lot of asian food over our short stay do decided to venture out. Is in a lovely neighborhood and run by a husband and wife team who put their heart and soul into their food and establishment. It’s tiny which we love and we so appreciated the fact that you enjoy the fare for the evening and the chef puts out what is fresh and local and what calls. No menu, no choices, just sit down and relax and have a quiet evening with lots of amazing food brought to you over four or five courses and a pace that flows however you’d like.
We had several plates of various appetizers and ended on an amazing pasta dish that had the right mix of seafood, sauce and pasta. You share plates throughout but it’s not like tapas style — it’s that you get a couple will get two sets of whatever is served and you each have your own. I would call the cuisine italian-​fusion but much more on the italian side of things.. There were amazing italian flavors mixed in with asian flavors here and there with a great mix of seafoods. The chef comes by your table, serves, pairs wines and otherwise opens up his restaurant like it’s his personal kitchen at home and invites you in to sit down, enjoy and relax. It was expensive but everything in Singapore is. We would recommend it for sure.

A small restaurant helmed by a husband and wife team, who are both warm and friendly without being intrusive. There is no menu, but they will ask for, and accommodate, requests if you have allergies or medical conditions once you are seated. Many types of seafood were featured during the meal, all very fresh and well-​executed. The panna cotta is probably one of the best I have had locally. We had an excellent time and will definitely be back.

Husband and wife makes a great team. I like the relieve from having to decide what to eat. Food is good. Every dish is correctly portioned. Wine is also reasonably price. Enjoyable place. Overall a wonderful dining experience.

Fratini is a lovely place. Everyone is so incredibly friendly and helpful, they make you feel at home before you even sit down. And of course, the food is excellent. We had the tasting set, I lose count of how many dishes there were. They just kept coming. We had an incredible prawn in passion fruit, fried baby squid, veal, mackerel, roast pork, chicken and mozzarella, seafood tagliatelle… And I’m not kidding, that’s just to name a few.
We also had a really nice bottle of organic chianti, highly recommended. Will definitely be back!

It seems like sharing plates was the theme for all my birthday meals this weekend. I had dinner at Bar-​roque Grill the night before with 6 family members while tonight’s dinner at Fratini was with 5 of my childhood friends. Though the French and Italians will probably snuff at anyone comparing their «pride of my mama’s table» cooking, I will.
I thought Fratini offered a way more enjoyable, bang for your buck, well paced and homely meal. Before you say well hey, isn’t Bar-​roque going for more of a fine dining angle? I’d say if the chef «plumbs his roots», serves «large familial portions» and his mum’s apple pie is a star dessert, we’re talking bout the same concept here and modern Alsace vs. Pescara cooking becomes a discussion on semantics and style for the chefs.
First on the food, I liked that Fratini offered almost 10 dishes (I lost count) that had different textures (roasted, fried, grilled) and flavor combinations. My favorites were the roast pork, which was like an Italian siew yoke, braised beef cheek with black lentils — common cheap cut at a lot of restaurants these days but Fratini’s was braised well enough that it *melted* in my mouth. The fried squid was a winner too but then again welding a fryer isn’t a standout skill at this level. All our dishes came just as we were finishing the last and the waiter introduced each one, which was great pacing.
In contrast, while the grilled octopus at Bar –roque was unique, the seafood and meat platters we ordered kinda ran into each other texture and flavor wise. The seafood pan for example comes with a delicious broth for you to spoon over the fish et al, but its essentially one flavor and a stew. The meat board had a very well grilled ribeye but again, all the meats were from the oven so it wasn’t interesting. Our plates were also served with long wait times in between which was cited by all my family members as a killjoy. I mention these things because if you’re gunning for a sharing plates concept, people either need to be worshiping your grill skillz (for a roast/​grill platter) or be wowed by the different flavors/​textures to warrant sharing their plate with 5 others in a fork battle. Otherwise I would just order my own dish to my liking.
I felt Fratini was a lot less pretentious though he maintained a how do you put it… semi-​fine dining level of service and presentation like Bar-​roque. We saw chef Fratini and his wife almost 4x during our meal, which really made us feel taken care of and this goes for other tables too. At Bar-​roque we had an Aussie waiter who explained our menu well (though with a bit of sass «oh you need to order the duck 4 days in advance. Not to rub it in but the table next to yours has done that»), service was just proficient and unobtrusive; then the pace dropped significantly after the starters.
Lastly in terms of value, you get very well fed at Fratini for $ 70/​head. I don’t like to count change at restaurants but at Bar-​roque I paid almost $ 100/​head ex wine and we were «full» from alot less food because we had to wait so long between dishes. So I will definitely be returning to Fratini many times more and maybe next time, score seats inside the restaurant.

Interesting dishes. My fav is the spaghetti that kind of look like mee-​poh. Al dente and soaked up the yummy seafood broth! Dessert was really good too. Apparently they change their menu everyday so that customers can go back often, but spaghetti is always on their menu. Yay!