Carl Anthony’s Trattoria

Let me start by saying the reason for 3.5 stars is confusing to me. The entire experience was personal, great food and a great atmosphere.
We started off with the bread and roasted garlic which is a table serve for everyone doing dinner. The roasted garlic brought me back to being a kid in my grandmas house on Sunday!
We had Salmon and Penne Alla Vodka sauce and the pasta was cooked perfect and the sauce was perfect over the pasta and not heavy and greasy at all.
The waiter came back and checked in throughout our meal for taste as well as overall happy with service.
The dessert menu was all homemade and presented beautifully!
Thank you for making a Jersey girl feel at home and enjoy an awesome night out!!!

Thoroughly enjoyed my last two visits at Carl Anthony’s. Relatively reasonably price menu for the level of culinary creativity and quality. I ordered the suckling pig– butternut ravioli — caramrlized brussel sporuts & bacon — whipped parsnipsroasted garlic & apple caponata — amarone unique tasty and well prepared. The Sunday Gravy was good too homemade spaghetti in san marzano tomato sauce with kobe meatballs, short rib and sweet sausage. Love the Kobe meatballs and short ribs plated with the spaghetti. The crab cakes appetizer tasty but lacked firmness. New York style seating can be a bit tight on weekend evenings. Overall a quality restaurant for the Monroe area.

Great catering experience: we had a corporate event last Friday and the service was amazing, right on time, the food amazing and everybody was happy with the quality and the taste. David was great organizing everything and even making sure we had containers and lids for the leftovers… Someone told the that the penne alla vodka was the best he has tried so far!

Even though C.A.‘s is a bit of a drive for us my wife will insist on making the trip for the Paparedelli Rusitca a few times a year. I have been a little more adventurous and have tried many other items plus we always like to get an app or small plate or salumi platter which are all great. They usually have a few decent draft beers plus a selection of wines and nice mixed drinks.
The meal starts with a nice toasty basket of bread with roasted garlic and oil, a nice change of pace. The calamari is very good either Balsamic or traditional style. Pastas are fresh and many are rather unique. Steaks are a bit pricey but fantastic in quality and cooked perfectly. Many of the entrees feature interesting takes on veggies and starches along with your protein. I usually get an espresso after dinner and split the peanut butter bomb.
It does get busy and sometimes service can be a little slow but I can’t fault them too much for being popular.
The fact that this is pretty much the furthest we will drive for a dinner on a regular basis tells you how good it is!

Food was absolutely wonderful as well as the service. A bit loud because of the small space and definitely need a reservation on Saturday night, but we will be back!

Went there for a birthday dinner the other night. The food was pretty good, though my steak was a bit burnt on the outside and I’m not a fan of that. It was cooked as asked. The mashed potatoes were awesome though and portion size is great. Unfortunately, the service wasn’t very good. The gentleman we had was nice but seemed incredibly rushed and rarely came to the table. I asked for a water refill and that never happened and the food took a while to come out. It took about 15 minutes just for him to come over and greet us when we arrived and ask for drinks. It was another 10 minutes for bread to come. The first round of drinks order asked to have tonic but it was flat in both. For the next round, the server made them himself and they came out great.
Overall, the food is pretty good (room for improvement) but the service is subpar.

I’ve been going here since I was a little girl ordering pasta with butter and cheese. The food is always delicious and consistent. The seared tuna fish is hands down the best rendition of this dish. The bread and baked garlic is the perfect start to a meal. They have raised their already high prices in the past few years. But good food around Monroe is priceless.

Why doesn’t this restaurant have a five star rating? It’s by far the best restaurant in Monroe (which isn’t necessarily saying much, considering the competition, but hey, it’s still true!). This place never fails to deliver for us. The balsamic calamari tastes like candy and the menu is extremely creative. Whether it’s the BBQ salmon, the loaded baked potato gnocchi, or the duck with cheddar polenta, you will not see dishes like this anywhere else. Such a nice change of pace from seeing the exact same menu items on every restaurants’ menu. Sometimes the service can be hit or miss, but that can easily be overlooked if the food is excellent. On our most recent visit, I ordered the s’mores martini which was a bit of a bust, but an excellent meal made up for the slight misstep. For dessert, we had the quatro crème brûlée which was fun and tastey. We don’t go here often enough, and chances are, you don’t either.

I don’t understand how this place only has 3 stars! The food here is pretty impressive. Tonight I went here with a large group and everything was wonderful.
For food, we got various duck dishes, the seared tuna, the salmon, and I ordered the flank steak. Everyone was very happy with their dishes. My dish was very good. The steak was tasty, the sauce was lovely, and it was serviced with polenta fries and sautéed mushrooms/​peppers.
For drinks, we ordered different cocktails which were all excellent. Their beer list in pretty impressive as well.
Finally, the service was great. Our waiter was friendly and attentive.

Best part of coming here: martinis and balsamic calamari! Try both! I typically get a pasta dish. Consistently delicious and they always have a nice looking presentation for all their dishes. The dessert menu has something for everyone and always the perfect ending to a tasty meal.

Very hit or miss. I’ve been here a couple times when everything was great. But other times, not so good at all. Last time we gave it a shot was last night (Wed. 12−10−14). Hamburger ordered medium rare was overlooked to medium, very dry and completely unseasoned. Balsamic calamari was overlooked and rubbery. I ordered a Caesar salad with grilled shrimp. The shrimp were so over cooked that they had formed into closed circles — tough and chewy. It’s a shame they have no consistency or quality control.

The balsalmic calamari is by far. the best calamari I have ever had. We also had the Louisiana pizza which was supposed to be. buffalo chicken style pizza, but didn’t have much spice to it or taste like buffalo chicken… though the pizza was still delicious! It tasted so fresh and cheesy and the dough was so yummy!
The service was excellent and our waiter actually threw in a couple tiramisu cake type pops as a bonus after we had said we were too full to order a dessert. How nice was that! And I don’t like tiramisu, but thought these were so good!
There was live music that was nice to hear in the background.

Let’s start with the bad… Because it was really bad. We waited forty, yes, forty minutes before putting in our drink order! As a former server this is absolutely unacceptable. To be fair, the busboy brought us water immediately. We asked him a couple times when the waiter would be over… He told us that he mentioned to the waiter three times but wasn’t sure why he wasn’t coming. One member of our party actually got up TWICE to ask when our server would be over. And then he finally came. It would not have been so bad if the reason our party of 10 went to Carl Anthony’s on this particular night was to: a) see the band b) engage in the pizza, brew and wine $ 20 special which takes place from 8:30 — 10:30. We were sat just around 8:30 but as previously mentioned, just waited until about 9:20pm to get our first drink. Major service FAIL. If you are going to advertise a special, you should be prepared for it. We were told once our drinks did arrive that the reason it took so long for he waiter to come initially was they were «low on glasses». Hmmmm. Try again. Not once did a manager come over and apologize for the delay or another server offer to get an order started… Moving on… Once we ordered, the food and drinks came promptly, I think due to the fact that they knew if they didn’t, there would be «issues». When the first drinks were dropped, I asked for the second round immediately as we assumed the 10:30 mark would hit if we waited. Luckily, things turned around, the food was good and the drinks flowed. At the end, as a show of good faith, we were presented with cannoli and cake pops. This was a nice touch to make up for the very rocky start. I’m not sure I would go back, but I certainly think the management should pay better attention to the flow on a Friday night and make an attempt to stop over at the largest party on the patio’s table, just to check on things, even if there was not an issue, rather than ignore the problem.

Excellent food. We ordered the balsamic calamari. It was excellent. I had a pasta dish with shrimp, asparagus, and some pesto. It was out of this world. I absolutely enjoyed my meal. The pasta was a huge portion, I had more than half left over. My husband raved over the pig roast as well as the mojito. We had not been to this restaurant in years. I had read the Unilocal reviews and I was apprehensive about going, but I am so glad that we decided to give it another shot. I say try it. You will love it.

Excellent food! Very innovative cusine here that sounds, looks, and tastes great.
Ambiance isnt anything special and staff is typically pretty unfriendly/​slow (only reason they don’t get 5 stars)
Pork belly and spaghetti squash apps are great. Balsamic calamari is probably the absolute best thing I have ever had.
Pasta dishes are famtastic and so are the paninis… you cant go wrong

We got take out recently, and the woman on the phone was quite rude, and impatient when I had some menu questions. Then we got the food and the meat was all fatty and disgusting. When I called to complain, it was met with indifference and annoyance. Basically no one cared. Too bad, but never again!
CM,
Monroe

I have raved about this place in the past, but something changed.
First, I still cannot get past the fact that apparently the door was open near the bar and there were a bunch of houseflies pestering us during our entire dinner, landing on our table, inside the restaurant, around our heads and into the lights. Seriously annoying and rather disgusting. No attempt to remedy the situation by the management, although we brought it to the waiter’s attention. Yes, somebody was having issues with the music, which flip-​flopped from smooth jazz to some techno pop and then Nick Lowe, and a few other genres in between. Loud, then soft… you get the idea. Now, the presentation of the food was spectacular, but the quality was seriously lacking: It’s almost impossible to ruin chicken pasta, but there was «something wrong» with the Chicken Parmesan, according to one of my guests, who ate a bit and then gave up. The problem is that chicken filet was too thin and too tough. In all seriousness, the Big D fast food joint down the street has a much better Chicken Parmesan. The Red Snapper was a menu special that evening and was absolutely devoid of any discernible taste. The Grilled Bistro Steak was excellent, tender and flavorful without being overpowering. No complaints there. Unfortunately, I’m still disgusted by the flies and will not be returning any time soon.

I’m local and this is my go to place on Friday nights. Good food and drinks with friendly staff. I also do take out when we just don’t feel like cooking.
They also catered a party for mon sons graduation and did an excellent job.

I want to start off by addressing the balsamic calamari that everyone raves about saying things like best calamari on the east coast and they even claim to have won an award for this dish. The dish did not taste bad but it most definitely did not taste like calamari.
This calamari taste more like over fried sweet batter than a good calamari dish. They are also missing the tentacles which is the better part of calamar in my opinion
. For those who actually like a real calamari tasting dish I suggest the Sicilian calamari at Ralph and riches n Bridgeport.
The rest of the items I have had here were ok but overpriced. With so many good Italian restaurants in Fairfield county, there is really no good reason to choose Carl Anthony’s.

Surprised to read so many negative reviews of this place! My mom likes to come here for her birthday, in part because I think they send her a coupon for a free entrée on your birthday.
We always get the balsamic calamari, which is fantastic. It’s sweet and spicy, sort of like eating an upscale version of Sesame calamari. We also usually get the Harvest salad, your run of the mill grapes/​blue cheese/​apple salad, that my mom loves. I think it’s fine, but it’s not special.
As for main dishes, we usually get two to share. Over a couple of visits I’ve had the linguine with clams, the red seafood stew that I don’t currently see on their menu, the NY strip and a really great lamb dish I also don’t see on the menu on their website (probably specials). The menu descriptions are enticing, and the items are pretty good, but probably not as good as my mom thinks they are.
Carl Anthony’s is probably worth more than a 3, but I’m not persuaded they’re worth a four. I’ll round up.