Ross'
Fresco Trattoria Wows Taste Buds
Michele Anna Jordan Friday, September 3, 99
Yes, there really is a downtown Ross, an idyllic hamlet no more than a stone's throw from Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. Yet people zip by on their way to San Anselmo or Kentfield, seemingly unaware that the town is much more than manicured estates, well-heeled residents and a hospital with a great reputation. One might think such a place would roll up the streets at sunset, but that appears not to be the case.
Marco Franceschini, the owner and chef, designed, painted, and decorated his restaurant and it shows, in a good way. Fresco has a homey feel, without the sterility that can come with a bevy of architects, designers and restaurant consultants. Franceschini often seats customers, occasionally delivers an appetizer or an entree, and when he's cooking, watches over everything from a large opening between the kitchen and the small dining room.
Every aspect of Fresco's food benefits from attention to detail. Pastas reveal the chef's command of technique and concern with quality. My favorite is the tortelli ($9.95), pillows of homemade pasta stuffed with tender potato and topped with a seductive four-cheese cream sauce. Wow.
Michele Anna Jordan lives in Sonoma County and is a free-lance writer, restaurant critic and author of 10 books about food. She can be e-mailed at food@sfgate.com. Dining Out appears twice a month in this section .
Rating:OVERALL: THREE STARS
Food: THREE STARS
Service: THREE STARS
Atmosphere: TWO AND A HALF STARS
PRICES: $$
PLUSES: Intimate atmosphere; great salads; sensational potato Tortelli; top-notch ingredients; good
In the neighborhood
Don't look now, but your favorite local place just might be the Bay Area's next destination restaurant
Regan McMahon, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, June 25, 2008
No matter how strapped for cash and out of gas we are, there's one place many of us turn to lift our spirits and give us comfort and sustenance: our favorite neighborhood restaurant.
But the very concept of a neighborhood restaurant gets turned on its head in the cuisine-savvy, food-obsessed Bay Area. In other parts of the country, it might simply be the place down the street that has the best pastrami sandwich in town and a menu that hasn't changed since the Reagan administration. Here, it's often a place that serves organic, seasonal food cooked by a nationally recognized chef.
Trattoria Fresco
Italian Every neighborhood deserves a one-room trattoria like this one. The service is friendly and the farmers’ market-fresh food is fabulous—especially the gnocchi. 13 Ross Common, 415.464.0915
A culinary treasure in Ross
Fresco is an appropriate name for Marco Franceschini's cozy little restaurant in beautiful downtown Ross. Translating from Italian variously as "cool," "fresh" and with an "al" in front, as "in the open air," Fresco is in fact all of the above.It's a cool-looking place - tiny (only 36 seats), with a faux terra-cotta floor and sunny, golden walls and diminutive counter with a quartet of seats. Chef / owner Franceschini's food - while hardly reinventing the culinary wheel - is hearty and flavorful and very fresh tasting. There's a modest patio out back (actually, there will be, just in time for summer) that should make for quite pleasant open-air dining. Even the weather was appropriate; at our first visit it was so damn fresco I almost froze my mukluks off walking the half-block from my car to the restaurant's front door. Fresco is very much a one-man show. Franceschini, from a family of Florentine restaurateurs who's done stints in both the back and front of the house at Cafe' Delle Stelle, did most of the design and remodeling himself. With one assistant, he does all the cooking, makes his own pastas and a couple of desserts. Occasionally he comes out of his closet-sized kitchen to schmooze his customers, who might include such tony award winning Ross residents as Sean Penn and Barry Levinson (though Franceschini tactfully refuses to discuss any of his celebrity clientele).In San Francisco this kind of quality, intensely personal neighborhood restaurant is as common as fog, to my mind one of The City's chief dining attributes.
PRICE: $-$$
The Examiner's price-rating system follows: $ Inexpensive (less than $15 a person for dinner, exclusive of drinks, tax and tip) $$ Moderate ($15 to $35 a person) $$$ Expensive (more than $35 a person)
BILL CITARA
5 of 5 stars. Go easy on Marco! This is a great restaurant and he does an excellent job with little help. I have yet to find pasta as authentic and fresh as Trattoria Fresco. Marco always has a nice collection…
yelp.com - user review - 08/09/2007
Full Review »
Yelp.com Review - by stacy o.
5 of 5 stars. People don't continue to go back to Trattoria Fresco because the owner is an overly friendly guy who's happy to see you and welcomes you into his dining room. Quite the opposite. But who cares? The…
yelp.com - user review - 06/13/2007
Full Review »
Yelp.com Review - by Michael T.
4 of 5 stars. Started with olives in olive oil with what appeared to be homemade bread - so light. A couple of glasses of verdiccio made it possible to read the menu that an incredible number of pasta dishes I…
yelp.com - user review - 01/19/2007
Full Review »
Yelp.com Review - by Jon S.
5 of 5 stars. Forget the complainers: Marco is cool. He's just obsessive about everything being perfect--and it's close to being so. He not-so-subtlely hinted that the pasta special was superior to the pasta I…
yelp.com - user review - 12/29/2006
Full Review »
Yelp.com Review - by m s.
5 of 5 stars. One of marin's many hidden gems for food, at this place less is more (not to be mistaken with price however; you get what you pay for here). The owner and his family specialize in food, that's all…
yelp.com - user review - 12/29/2006
Full Review »
Yelp.com Review - by Kathy J.
5 of 5 stars. Reading the reviews below makes me think that Marco (the proprietor) was probably in the midst of World Cup fever and was stressed over Italy's standing. I can honestly say he is very attentive and…
yelp.com - user review - 10/05/2006
Full Review »
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/reviews/restaurants/4154640915.DTL&type=food
http://sanfrancisco.citysearch.com/profile/1057877/
http://sanfrancisco.chowbaby.com/restaurants/ROSS/Trattoria%20Fresco
http://chefmoz.dmoz.aol.com/cgi-bin/detail.pl?ID=United_States%2FCA%2FRoss%2FFresco_Trattoria954539298&num_results=20
http://www.restaurantratingz.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tcvid=19650
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/6/92686/Ross/San-Rafael-restaurants/Trattoria-Fresco.html
http://dine.com/restaurants/rid/171621/index.html
http://www.epictrip.com/Trattoria-Fresco-restaurant-reviews-t190074-v,Ross,California.html
Michele Anna Jordan Friday, September 3, 99
Yes, there really is a downtown Ross, an idyllic hamlet no more than a stone's throw from Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. Yet people zip by on their way to San Anselmo or Kentfield, seemingly unaware that the town is much more than manicured estates, well-heeled residents and a hospital with a great reputation. One might think such a place would roll up the streets at sunset, but that appears not to be the case.
Marco Franceschini, the owner and chef, designed, painted, and decorated his restaurant and it shows, in a good way. Fresco has a homey feel, without the sterility that can come with a bevy of architects, designers and restaurant consultants. Franceschini often seats customers, occasionally delivers an appetizer or an entree, and when he's cooking, watches over everything from a large opening between the kitchen and the small dining room.
Every aspect of Fresco's food benefits from attention to detail. Pastas reveal the chef's command of technique and concern with quality. My favorite is the tortelli ($9.95), pillows of homemade pasta stuffed with tender potato and topped with a seductive four-cheese cream sauce. Wow.
Michele Anna Jordan lives in Sonoma County and is a free-lance writer, restaurant critic and author of 10 books about food. She can be e-mailed at food@sfgate.com. Dining Out appears twice a month in this section .
Rating:OVERALL: THREE STARS
Food: THREE STARS
Service: THREE STARS
Atmosphere: TWO AND A HALF STARS
PRICES: $$
PLUSES: Intimate atmosphere; great salads; sensational potato Tortelli; top-notch ingredients; good
In the neighborhood
Don't look now, but your favorite local place just might be the Bay Area's next destination restaurant
Regan McMahon, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, June 25, 2008
No matter how strapped for cash and out of gas we are, there's one place many of us turn to lift our spirits and give us comfort and sustenance: our favorite neighborhood restaurant.
But the very concept of a neighborhood restaurant gets turned on its head in the cuisine-savvy, food-obsessed Bay Area. In other parts of the country, it might simply be the place down the street that has the best pastrami sandwich in town and a menu that hasn't changed since the Reagan administration. Here, it's often a place that serves organic, seasonal food cooked by a nationally recognized chef.
Trattoria Fresco
Italian Every neighborhood deserves a one-room trattoria like this one. The service is friendly and the farmers’ market-fresh food is fabulous—especially the gnocchi. 13 Ross Common, 415.464.0915
A culinary treasure in Ross
Fresco is an appropriate name for Marco Franceschini's cozy little restaurant in beautiful downtown Ross. Translating from Italian variously as "cool," "fresh" and with an "al" in front, as "in the open air," Fresco is in fact all of the above.It's a cool-looking place - tiny (only 36 seats), with a faux terra-cotta floor and sunny, golden walls and diminutive counter with a quartet of seats. Chef / owner Franceschini's food - while hardly reinventing the culinary wheel - is hearty and flavorful and very fresh tasting. There's a modest patio out back (actually, there will be, just in time for summer) that should make for quite pleasant open-air dining. Even the weather was appropriate; at our first visit it was so damn fresco I almost froze my mukluks off walking the half-block from my car to the restaurant's front door. Fresco is very much a one-man show. Franceschini, from a family of Florentine restaurateurs who's done stints in both the back and front of the house at Cafe' Delle Stelle, did most of the design and remodeling himself. With one assistant, he does all the cooking, makes his own pastas and a couple of desserts. Occasionally he comes out of his closet-sized kitchen to schmooze his customers, who might include such tony award winning Ross residents as Sean Penn and Barry Levinson (though Franceschini tactfully refuses to discuss any of his celebrity clientele).In San Francisco this kind of quality, intensely personal neighborhood restaurant is as common as fog, to my mind one of The City's chief dining attributes.
PRICE: $-$$
The Examiner's price-rating system follows: $ Inexpensive (less than $15 a person for dinner, exclusive of drinks, tax and tip) $$ Moderate ($15 to $35 a person) $$$ Expensive (more than $35 a person)
BILL CITARA
5 of 5 stars. Go easy on Marco! This is a great restaurant and he does an excellent job with little help. I have yet to find pasta as authentic and fresh as Trattoria Fresco. Marco always has a nice collection…
yelp.com - user review - 08/09/2007
Full Review »
Yelp.com Review - by stacy o.
5 of 5 stars. People don't continue to go back to Trattoria Fresco because the owner is an overly friendly guy who's happy to see you and welcomes you into his dining room. Quite the opposite. But who cares? The…
yelp.com - user review - 06/13/2007
Full Review »
Yelp.com Review - by Michael T.
4 of 5 stars. Started with olives in olive oil with what appeared to be homemade bread - so light. A couple of glasses of verdiccio made it possible to read the menu that an incredible number of pasta dishes I…
yelp.com - user review - 01/19/2007
Full Review »
Yelp.com Review - by Jon S.
5 of 5 stars. Forget the complainers: Marco is cool. He's just obsessive about everything being perfect--and it's close to being so. He not-so-subtlely hinted that the pasta special was superior to the pasta I…
yelp.com - user review - 12/29/2006
Full Review »
Yelp.com Review - by m s.
5 of 5 stars. One of marin's many hidden gems for food, at this place less is more (not to be mistaken with price however; you get what you pay for here). The owner and his family specialize in food, that's all…
yelp.com - user review - 12/29/2006
Full Review »
Yelp.com Review - by Kathy J.
5 of 5 stars. Reading the reviews below makes me think that Marco (the proprietor) was probably in the midst of World Cup fever and was stressed over Italy's standing. I can honestly say he is very attentive and…
yelp.com - user review - 10/05/2006
Full Review »
Links
http://www.yelp.com/biz/trattoria-fresco-rosshttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/reviews/restaurants/4154640915.DTL&type=food
http://sanfrancisco.citysearch.com/profile/1057877/
http://sanfrancisco.chowbaby.com/restaurants/ROSS/Trattoria%20Fresco
http://chefmoz.dmoz.aol.com/cgi-bin/detail.pl?ID=United_States%2FCA%2FRoss%2FFresco_Trattoria954539298&num_results=20
http://www.restaurantratingz.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tcvid=19650
http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/6/92686/Ross/San-Rafael-restaurants/Trattoria-Fresco.html
http://dine.com/restaurants/rid/171621/index.html
http://www.epictrip.com/Trattoria-Fresco-restaurant-reviews-t190074-v,Ross,California.html