Grassi’s Ristorante

The 3 stars are for the location and service. While we thought the setting is charming and the waitress was nice, I was disappointed by the food. Just because you serve pasta with sauce, doesn’t make it Italian. One of my pet peeves is the perception that Italian food needs to be smothered with cheap parmesan — not true! The flavors lacked freshness, and the salad dressing tasted like one of the bottles you buy at the supermarket. Same goes for the Tiramisu, it lacked the coffee flavor, had no hint of alcohol and just didn’t taste freshly made. For those prices I expected way more quality.

I stopped in for lunch today. Such a great atmosphere. The waitress was awesome and best of all, the food was amazing! I had the lasagna which also came with a salad and warm bread and butter. Sinatra was playing in the background and I didn’t want to leave. Great place! #WCIR

I wanted to try a new place and I am disappointed :(My dinner (Gnocchi) tasted really bad. I was there with 2 guests and we all agreed we will not be back. The atmosphere was nice, but they need some help in the cooking dept :(

Love this restaurant! Great catering too.
Warm and personal setting and staff. The owner is often present to greet and assist patrons himself. Very nice food. Had a few minor issues when they first opened, but have worked them out nicely. Highly recommend.

Very good food! And the waiter Jason is very nice and knows what he’s doing. and glad I came on Thursday. Free desert with entrée night!:)

The place is a nice little spot with a good atmosphere and friendly service. That is what gives this place the two stars. The food is not something I could recommend especially what is charged.
I have been here twice to try and give them a chance to improve from the first time… More disappointment. The first time I tried the Salmon Alfredo and the Braised Lamb… Cooked ok but both were bland, needed salt and pepper and that was the only flavor. The second time I got the Chicken and Mushroom Gnocchi… So disappointed! The sauce was bland, the gnocchi was burnt which confused me and the chicken was dry and so badly burnt it was black! What made it worse was they tried to hide it under a mound bland mushrooms and onions. I had to scrape off the burnt parts and tried to use the sauce to give it some moisture, but no help and lots of salt and pepper later. I could not finish it.
I like the atmosphere and the staff is friendly but the menu is bland and lacked seasoning… which makes it feel like you got taken advantage of after being overcharged.

Reservations for 4, we were seated at a different table despite the other half of our party already seated & both of us had given the reservation name upon entering.
Wine & bruschetta were good.
Carbonara extremely bland & sauce was watery. Had to request fresh ground pepper. My husband ordered lasagna & was given penne instead. When we brought it to the waitresses attention she said ‘oh’. No offer to replace or discount. Friend gnocchi has weirdly overwhelming balsamic flavor.
Bill was delivered without asking how we would like to split the checks so not divided evenly.
Overall bad food & worse service. Would not return under any circumstances. Obvious now why the place was empty.

Really 3.5 stars, but I will round up for the stellar service and amazing dessert!
Came here for a mid week work lunch. Right when I walked in, I was greeted with a smile and told that there is a boutique next door for some shopping.
The restrooms are located in the back of the restaurant on their gorgeous patio area. The restaurant is quaint and nicely decorated, but surprisingly open at the same time.
I had the steak salad. My steak (cooked medium) was perfectly pink on the inside and so tender. I didn’t even need a knife! The croutons were obviously fresh and the total star of the dish.
Even though it was the middle of the week, I couldn’t pass up dessert. As you walk to the front of the restaurant, they have all their deserts and pies on display. They all looked fresh and quite tasty. I had the burnt cream pie. A MUST! This dessert is served in a small ramekin, perfect for individual portions. I couldn’t take a picture because it was a work dinner, but believe me when I say it was delicious. It was a mix between a crime brûlée with a small cake layer on top. Just delicious!
My water glass was refilled at least five times while we were there. The waitress was very attentive and made sure to check on us, while still letting us go about our work lunch.
Nice family restaurant that deserves a visit.

Had a wonderful time here, me and my wife chose to eat outside on the patio and man was it a good choice!!! We were the only ones on the patio so it was really like a romantic dinner:-). The service was excellent, we ordered the steak salad and our main courses at the same time but to our unknowing knowledge we didn’t know our main course came with a salad so instead of having two salads out server told us that they would go ahead and put the steaks on our meals salad:-). With what we ordered we thought the bill was going to be around $ 70 but it turned out that our check was half that8-​O. We will def come back to this establishment in the future!

I could quite possibly be in love with this place.
Italian food is the way to my heart. This small and well dressed restaurant hit close to home. We ordered an appetizer and two entrees and our total was about $ 50.00; a little on the pricier side but well worth it.
After reading some of the reviews, I will agree — the service is not bad, but it was weird. The good thing is that they come around quite frequently to refill your water which is good for a person like me who chugs a gallon a day.
Our food came out in a timely manner and tasted amazing. Our appetizer, the Formaggio plate was amazing. Full of flavor and just enough to keep us going until our meal. My friend has the lasagna and I had the cannelloni. Yum x1000.
It ended up being too much to eat so we had to go boxes prepared for us. This is one of the places where they take your plate and box it up for you. Definitely a fan. I will be back.

I really enjoyed my meal and the place as a whole. I had short ribs in a mushroom risotto. The food was very fresh. The restaurant is like a little taste of Italy. I really enjoyed the food, drinks, and atmosphere. The kids menu has spaghetti, grilled cheese, and a pasta with a butter cream sauce. If I could change anything it might be to add maybe a small pizza or another sandwich to the kids menu, and this is only because my smallest child doesn’t like a lot of pasta and she hates grilled cheese. But that’s just personal preference. I will be going back, and trying other dishes.

As soon as we walked in, the owner was super polite and seated us quickly for dinner. We sat down, requested just water to drink from our waitress and that’s when it all went downhill. Since we didn’t order wine like the rest of the customers at the establishment we weren’t given half the attention as the wine drinkers. This extra waiting time allowed us to people watch– allowing us to notice that every person, minus two men, we’re all middle aged women looking unhappy sipping on wine. Being a late 20s couple, we quickly realized this was not our scene.
The food finally came out but was mediocre at best. I got the salmon Alfredo which had no flavor until I added salt, which was then palatable and my fiancée ordered the carbonara with chicken. The chicken was the best thing that was on that plate. The dishes were over priced for the quality that was served to us. We will not be coming back.

Went for 1pm lunch, weekday. Very noisy inside, one large group near us, but acoustics make it very hard to have a conversation. Greeted and seated promptly. I had the GRANDPA GRASSI’S GRILLED CHEESE with a salad. I selected their ‘creamy gorgonzola dressing on the side for my salad. It was really more like a foamy thin dressing with no cheese chunks to be found and not very tasty — horrible dressing. The sandwich was described as: Provolone, prosciutto, tomato, roasted red peppers, basil oil, and more provolone. Layered between country bread and grilled
The prosciutto actually had some bites I found to be quite tough. The bread was over buttered for the grill, greasy to the touch. Just was not pleased at all with this sandwich and would never order it again.
The waitress was attentive so no problem there. Décor nice, dessert case looked nice, didn’t try any though.
Based on the food choice I made and received, I have no desire to try this restaurant again.

This place is great. The food was absolutely delicious. I think about the wonderful salmon alfredo that I ate there often. It is a little pricey, however, this was the first time I have ever eaten handmade noodles and it was a revelation.
I’m taking one star off for awkward service. It was good service, just kind of weird.

Great restaurant. Owner/​staff were extremely friendly and accommodating to our little infant.
Food was tasty and came out quickly. Jason our server was super nice. Nice place will be back. :)

Huge portions of mediocre, overly seasoned with garlic, «Italian» food. Come hungry, be sure to have a lot of patience since service is pretty slow, and don’t expect anything other than mediocre.
Otherwise, the atmosphere was as quaint as the seating, and the owner was friendly. We came during lunch and even though we had a reservation, we still waited 20 plus minutes for our table. It was really busy. Perhaps that explains the service and the food? I don’t know, but I may not come here again.

The Italian Short Ribs (only on Friday and Saturday)
are unbelievably good!:)
A must stop in University Place!

Always looking for a new place to eat close by and University Place sadly lacks restaurants of quality, but that’s another story. Had eaten at the owners place down town so off we went. First impression, very noisy. While it’s open there are no curtains, high ceilings and lots of tables close together. When you get lots of folks chatting and nothing to muffle the sound it makes conversation difficult, minus a star for noise level.
They have a sandwich called the Waldorf which of course is a chicken. Salad that has cranberries, celery and some other good stuff. It’s served on thick slabs of raisin bread. You have to eat it by cutting the bread in halves and spreading on the chicken but yummy is a really good description. All the sandwiches come with soup or salad so I had soup, of the day which was potato. I have never had potato soup with slices of potato but tasted pretty good although way too much pepper for me. My husband had the meatball sandwich which he said was good although the meatballs were spicy. It too was a knife and fork deal.
We asked to see a dinner me u which alas. Ever appeared. It we will probably go back and try it anyway. Not lots of parking in the front but they do have more in the back

We were looking for a place to eat in the University Place (where is the university?) area, so stopped at Grassi’s. Sat at one of the small tables outside since it was a nice day.
The service was a little slow, but it was a nice day and we weren’t in a hurry.
So the food –
I had an «Italian burger». Was a $ 14 hamburger with a scoop of potato salad. Burger was OK, but underdone (should I be worried about that?). Potato salad was made with fingerling potatoes and had a mayonnaise dressing and far too many red onions (for my taste, but I don’t like onions). Did have some sprigs of dill on it to add flavor. There was also a couple of spears of a sweet pickle. Overall the whole thing was passable, but I’m not sure $ 14 worth of passable.
My partner had a sage chicken dish. A bland breaded chicken breast with a hint of a sagey taste. This was accompanied by asparagus spears (in the northwest about the only vegetable you get in the spring is asparagus). There was also some spaghetti sans sauce as a bed.
Overall? Food was OK, but not OK enough for a $ 40 dinner.
Probably won’t be a repeat. Too bad, they seem like nice people.

I’m honored to be able to add this entry for Ken’s new restaurant. There was quite the buildup of community hype in having Grassi’s finally come to U.P. and I’m pleased to say that Grassi’s Ristorante delivers on that.
My wife has a number of food allergies and the staff was quick and skilled in coming up with alternatives that gave her an excellent dining experience.
Others more eloquent than I are going to be able to follow this up with much better reviews, so I will close by inviting you to go and check out this new restaurant in University Place!