Al Fresca Ristorante

There aren't a lot of restaurants where you can get chicken parm and pickle sandwiches, lobster scampi and lobster tail pastries. But this is not your typical dining destination. We are on Main Street in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, at a place called Al Fresca. And this is more than just an Italian restaurant. It's a restaurant, a market, a deli and a pastry shop all rolled into one gigantic Italian megaplex. Al Fresca originally opened up back in 2012 it's owned and operated by Mark and Erica Angluin, along with their three children, and over the years, this quaint, little Italian restaurant has grown and grown and grown into a 15,000 square foot, multi dimensional Italian one stop shop.

On the restaurant side of things, every dish on this menu is very big and very affordable. This is scratch made home style Italian food with a lot of modern and over the top twists. I think the most eye popping dish on this whole menu is the shrimp and lobster scampi. This is a fresh pound and three quarter lobster that's sauteed in the pan with the shrimp. Then they take that lobster body pile of angel hair pasta goes inside of it, packed with the shrimp and the lobster meat, and then right over the top, a nice drizzle of that beautiful, garlicky, buttery sauce. So you end up with a dish that is huge. You can see how perfectly cooked those shrimp are. Lots of lobster meat. The challenge is to try and swirl a little bit of everything on the fork in one glorious bite. Bellissimo. So buttery, the sweetness from the lobster. This is one of the best Italian dishes I have had in a very long time, and I want more.

Now here's something you don't see at your typical Italian restaurant, a serious surf and turf. You can have your choice of a ribeye, a strip steak, or the filet I went with a filet mignon, tender, savory, Beefy, juicy, and for the surf, I went with a lobster pie. We're talking fresh, shucked lobster meat, plenty of butter, lots of bread crumbs, baked nice and bubbly. So you got your steak, your lobster, your veggies, your starch, all on one big, beautifully delicious place.

Nine out of 10 times, if I'm going to an Italian restaurant, I'm getting chicken parm at Al Fresca, I go for the Veal Chop Parmesan. This is a huge premium cut veal chop served on the bone. I mean, this thing is massive. It's pounded out thin, breaded and pan fried. They cover it in their sweet, homemade tomato sauce, layer it with that melted mozzarella cheese. And as if that isn't enough food, it also comes with a big old side of pasta. I mean, just look at the size of this. And this was only half of it. I already ate the other half.

Here's the best thing about this place, pretty much every dish and every sauce here at the restaurant is available next door at the Al Fresca Market. So they opened up this Italian marketplace a couple years ago, and it is packed and stacked with everything you need, whether you want to cook an Italian dinner or grab something to go. The Al Fresca Market deli serves some outstanding sandwiches, and they're all named after different towns in Massachusetts. The number one seller is the Medford. This is basically a classic Italian sub. It has prosciutto, sopressata, salami, mortadella, capicola, provolone, veggies and hots. It's all packed into a beautiful, seated and braided Italian roll. It's just a perfectly executed Italian sub. But if you don't want to go the traditional route, you should go for this. It's called the Green Monster. It's basically a pickle sandwich. I love pickles and I love a good sandwich, but how do they go together? I need another bite. It's crazy juicy. You get that real sharp Tang from the pickle, but it really doesn't overpower the turkey or the provolone and the hots bring the heat pickle sandwiches, officially endorsed by me, not that you care, but it's awesome.

You can have your meal, you can do your shopping, and for dessert, you just go right next door to the Sweet Shop. So this has all the Italian pastries you know and love. They have a beautiful case of real Italian gelato. The pastries are made right here in house every day. My number one favorite Italian pastry of all time is definitely the lobster tail. It's ridiculously crispy and light and golden on the outside, packed and stacked and overstuffed with sweet pastry cream on the inside. And when you break this thing open, you hear the crunch, you see the cream, and you taste paradigm. There are a million reasons to love this place, but most importantly, when a small family run business works hard and over the years, becomes a juggernaut, you know it's a Phantom Gourmet kind of place. And everything is delicious at Al Fresca in Tewksbury.