Serafini’s

I recently visited Serafini’s on my visit to Pennsylvania. I last ate there nearly 20 years ago. Now that I live in Colorado, I can only dream of the good Italian restaurants from back east…
It was outstanding! The salads were crisp, healthy, and delicious… not just lettuce but all sorts of healthy greens. The Italian bread and butter were great and the main course was ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL IN EVERY WAY. I know Italian food and THIS is good Italian food. I was originally going to get pasta with marina but I told the server that I’m a fresh garlic addict. She suggested the linguine with some sort of butter & fresh garlic sauce. I told her to tell the chef to «go crazy» with the garlic and he did. It was soooooooooooooooo good. I got a side of meatballs & marinara and they were right up there with the best meatballs I’ve ever eaten. I will go back next time I’m in Erie, PA. Mmmmmm Mmmmmm Mmmmmmm!

Great meal tonight. Burnt butter was great. Wine was great. Service was great — Beth.
Mom’s birthday was made more special due to this place.

We arrived late on a Sunday and had excellent service and great food. Highly recommend the chicken parm and linguini and clam sauce.

This place sort of looks like a nicer/​slightly upscale restaurant from the outside and inside décor — but the food was very average. The spaghetti was totally overcooked, and the sauce on it tasted like it came straight out of a jar. There were many very expensive entrees on the menu — like high 30s — which I can’t imagine paying for in a place like this. I read a review below that said something to the fact that this place couldn’t survive in New York — absolutely true, but I am not even sure that it would survive in Pittsburgh. Erie does not have a lot of non-​chain offerings, from what I saw during my brief stay there.

A good Italian restaurant with tasty food. I wasn’t much into the atmosphere though.
We tried the Cannelloni and the Chicken dish with peppers. Both dishes were good but the highlight was actually the small pasta that and with the chicken: Spaghetti with Marinara sauce. I’d recommend to just order that — homemade pasta voided perfectly and the sauce is delicious.
The portions are huge bit pricey too. I’d prefer smaller manageable portions and easier on the wallet.

The Appetizers were 1 star, last year when I was home to visit family, I felt the same way, greasy fried appetizers… Ug…
My sister said she had a dinners card, buy 1 meal get 1 and its only good after 9 PM they close or stop serving at 930… Come On… why be a part of the diners club… Pretty bad… We got there at 8PM and they would not accept it… I say HEY wake up and smell the coffee… We were 8 at our table… To use the dinners card for 1 free meal would of impressed the whole table, but instead, we all laughed and joked about how tight and what a sham it was to only offer the dinners club at 9PM…
I had the perch… It was good. But too bad it was fried in dirty grease. It was good, but I know it could of been very good… The spaghetti was over Cooked almost mushy.
BOY I wish Hectors was still around.

Very good, family Italian. Nice atmosphere. Entrees — eggplant parm and meat ravioi with meatballs… both very good. Excellent desserts, fresh and flavorful.
Wish they were located in our town!

A gracious but not stuffy restaurant. The food was very good, maybe not the best ever, but good enough to make us want to come back whenever we are in Erie. The décor is attractive, white table cloths, Frank Sinatra playing in the background. Very pleasant and relaxing. Our server was lovely (Amy)and service was prompt and amiable, no pun intended! Glad we drove the 9 miles from our motel to have real food served so nicely.

Prices are high for quality of food presented. We had a large party and an entire table was still waiting for dinner as we paid our check. Definitely a local place. Staff was attentive and knew the menu well.

The meat ravioli are a definite favorite of ours. The pasta is fresh and delicate surrounding the flavorful seasoned meat filling. The sauce is the best in town with just the right amount of sweetness and comes with two very large meatballs. Their salads are not complicated, but the tangy house dressing makes it a great compliment to the meal that I always look forward to, along with the fresh Italian bread. We added a cup of wedding soup complete with their homemade noodles. Portions are very generous as we ended up with enough leftovers for a second meal — a real bargain.

Homemade pasta, southern Italian cuisine, good service and price. Family, casual but NOT a glorified pizza parlor. Old fashioned and traditional Italo-​American ristorante. I come here every time I visit Erie

Good Old fashion Italian soul food. They make their own sauce and pasta and it’s very good. The veal marsala is amazing. I would describe the service as leisurely but not slow. I have never had a bad meal here. All the Italians in my family love this place and the food.

It’s tough to find good lasagna at a restaurant, particularly in Erie, PA. Since Hector’s is no longer around (which had the best lasagna in the region), I’ve been looking for a place to fill that lasagna void. Serafini’s did just that. The noodles were perfectly al dente, the sauce sweet, and there was plenty of fresh, creamy, flavorful ricotta, romano, and mozzarella cheese throughout.
I can’t speak for the rest of the menu, but I will definitely be back.

First off, I have to say that the service was great… The food, not so: iceberg lettuce, home made pasta mushy, Alfredo sauce had less taste than that from a jar. And the price? A total WTF eye opener! This was my first and last visit. No wonder they were almost empty at 8:00 pm on a Friday!

I was very disappointed with this place. We went here because if a recommendation from a friend, but I’m guessing he must have had different wait staff and a different cook.
Service: Awful. We were only one of two tables our waitress had and she was still slow and inattentive. I asked for a water and didn’t get it for at least another 10 – 15 minutes (this is when we were her only table).
Food: Nothing special. The white sauce was very bland. The pasta itself was okay, but not the best I’ve had. The worst part, it was cold. I warmed up the pasta at home and added a few things and it was much better.

My inlaws took us here for a family dinner on 12/​26/​2011. Since we live in Pittsburgh now and grew up in Erie… we LOVE coming home to Serafinis! Our waiter seemed new… but he wasn’t terrible.
I ordered the spaghetti and meatballs… which i hate doing when I go out to eat. But there is something different about the spaghetti and meatballs here… hahha because IT’S HOMEMADE! You can certainly tell the difference and even in the sauce. Everyone seemed to enjoy their dinners. I will also say, that when we go down to the Outerbanks for our family vacation, my mother in law always picks up sauce and meatballs to take down with her and it’s like a treat when we are at the beach. :)
I love it here, and will definately be back! :)

Love love LOVE Serafini’s Restaurant! I’m an Erie native and EVERY time I’m home to visit, we make it to Serafini’s for lunch or dinner. The homemade pasta is to die for and the amazing sauce recipe hasn’t changed in over 20 years. I highly recommend a simple spaghetti and meatball order to see what I mean. The bread from the International Bakery is quite tasty– use it to sop up your sauce at the end of your meal so you don’t waste a drip! Dowdy décor is permissible, as food this great.

We were in town for the Presque Isle Marathon recently and wanted a good pasta dinner the night before. This place came with some good recomendations. We didn’t have a reservation when we were asked, but they did have room for our party of 4. The dining room is very spacious so they can seat a lot of people. The good service we got indicates they can handle the crowd. It was crowded at our 6:30 arrival, but that was down quite a bit by 8 oclock when we left. Apparently Erie isn’t big on later dining :)
The wedding soup was very good. They used a homemade noodle that you might normally find in chicken and noodle soup, but that aside, it tasted very good. All for us had the spaghetti and meatballs and we were very pleased. Big portions at a reasonable price and good service.

I was traveling around Erie with a group of friends on a tasting tour of the wineries in Northwestern PA and Southwestern NY (an awesome way to spend a weekend afternoon, by the way). Our plan was to visit a bunch of the smaller wineries, pick up a few bottles apiece and then each couple would offer one for dinner that night at a family owned BYOB place that is a favorite of our hosts.
Unfortunately, that restaurant was closed on Sundays so we had to scramble to find another place for our party. Because we had several people in two cars and I was in the lead car, I jumped on my Unilocal app and starting searching places and reading them to the driver and calling the ones that he thought would be a good fit. A couple of lessons learned from this experience:
1. The Unilocal app was pretty much built for this exact situation and performed wonderfully, which lead me to find out that:
2. There are zero BYOB Italian Restaurants in Erie that are open on Sunday. I probably should have expected that.
3. Serafini’s is pretty standard. It’s priced moderately but furnished and staffed in a way that would make you think that budget was their selling point. Nothing too special at all.
4. There was a wine on their list priced at $ 34 that we bought at the winery earlier that day for $ 12. That noise you hear in the distance is the sad trombone calling out for a corkage fee.

I’m torn on this one. If it existed in NYC or Jersey — it wouldn’t survive.
The positives:
1. Homemade Pasta
2. Great Service
3. Awesome prices. You can’t beat $ 11 for bread, salad, pasta, and meatballs.
The negatives:
1. The décor is suffering. There have been numerous leaks in the ceiling that are puckering the tiles. The walls and other surroundings are very dated.
2. The pasta and sauce lacked flavor. It was a very basic read sauce and could have used some herbs and spices. Then again for $ 11, I shouldn’t complain.
It was good for what it was, a cheap pre-​marathon pasta meal. However, I would never have a craving to return.