Fraboni’s Italian Specialties & Delicatessen

I usually shy away from smaller specialty stores unless there is an obvious immigrant population around and Fraboni’s is no exception. I would be surprised to find out they carried more varieties of olive oil for less money than Whole Foods. They do have quite a variety of brass cut pastas but nothing special. A lot of what you will find here can be found at your local supermarket. However if you want prosciutto, parma ham, or other specialty meats this is a good place to get them. If I am making sunday gravy I will go here to buy my sausages, they are dynamite. Avoid the cheapo olive mix, it’s what they dump their old olives into and sometimes they are too far gone and taste mealy

Wow. Incredibly sloppy service, staff appeared completely unfocused and disconnected. Forgot our order on the slicer. Oh yes, and our sandwich used the butt end off the lettuce head. Tasty. Good items but we must have hit them on a bad day.

This place makes a mean sub! And it’s a nice local deli. Lots of Italian goods. What’s not to love?

Great Italian deli with lots of interesting items to choose from.
The sandwiches they make are large, reasonably priced and made with fresh ingredients.
Dessert cannot be passed up — fresh made cannoli… A sweet treat!

I was underwhelmed. Normally when I walk into a shop like this I have to exercise all of my self control to not spend all of my money. At Frabonis, I walked around several times trying to find something that would catch my eye.
They have a good selection of pasta but I expected more interesting sauces, cheeses and meats. Maybe if I were a true Italian chef I would «get it» and the store would be useful.
I was looking for pesto specifically, and they had a couple of options, but then I went to a grocery store which had the same brands plus a few other choices. Wasn’t worth the trip to a specialty store.

Love the food here. Great sandwiches!

I’ve had one sandwich from here, and it was pretty good. Anybody I’ve talked to has said the same; pretty good but not legendary.
You may be confused; why the five-​star rating? In a word: cheese. If you are looking to purchase those dank cheeses required for lasagna (eg. ricotta, feta, mozz, parm) then stop at the Italian market. They have delicious, fresh varieties, sold by weight for an amazing price. Customer service is always spot on when picking out cheeses too.
TL;DR Good sandwiches, exceptional cheese to make lasagna at amazing prices.

I come to Fraboni’s occasionally for Italian goodies and decent sandwiches.
The deli sandwiches aren’t spectacular but they’re reliably passable. They don’t taste very authentically Italian, but they make for a good cheap lunch on days I forget to pack something. I probably wouldn’t eat here if it weren’t for their convenient location. There’s also free parking in the back, so +1 for that.
The variety of pasta they have is amazing. Very authentic and pretty reasonably priced. They have packaged gnocchi that’s awesome and turns out perfect and fluffy every time. Much better than big brand gnocchi you find at other grocery stores like Trader Joe’s. I love that they have a wide selection of arborio rice to make risotto. Usually arborio is hard to find in this town.
To comment on their sauces: I made spaghetti with their house-​made spaghetti sauce and it tasted sort of funny. It kind of tasted like tomato soup, but with the consistency of pasta sauce. Weird. They had some different fancyish brands of pasta sauce that I’ve been wanting to try.
All of their sweet items (chocolates, cookies, cannolis, etc.) seem WAY overpriced. The Ritter bars are like $ 4.50, and I can get those for about $ 2.50 at TJ’s. Similarly, I noticed that the Lindt chocolate bars are double the price you’d pay elsewhere. Try to avoid the sweet items here, unless you’re looking for an italian brand that you absolutely can’t find anywhere else. I’m intrigued by their frozen section. They have lots of frozen pizzas/​pastas that look yummy but I have yet to try any.

bomb.
dot.
com.
Seriously.
Some of the best pickled veg, sliced meat, pasta, sauce… everything Italian in one happy little place.
And free parking in the back!

I’ve tried a few sandwiches from here and its legit. Once you figure out the ordering line scenario its smooth sailing. I will say the proportions of sandwich ingredients to bread may be less than ideal (read: bread overload). But from a convenience factor and flavor-​wise its legit. I hear both the homemade soups and the meatball sub are savory so look forward to trying them soon.

A Great little Madison Deli right on Regent!
Deli items, sandwiches, hot meatballs, porketta, soups, Italian sausage, salads & daily specials! This is a great quick lunch destination that is decently priced.
I’m a fan of their homemade soups and a small salad for around $ 5 or $ 6 bucks.
During lunch time, we are all aware of the fact that campus food joints get crowded, and what I especially like is that there is always 3 or 4 people behind the deli counter, so the wait in never long.
They offer a punch card for large sandwiches, but seem to always still punch my card when I get the smalls as well. The punch card after a whole lotta punches will get you a free large sandwich (I’m half way there).
The drink fridge (which sits in the back of Fraboni’s) has a nice selection… but a little over priced, and there is the ever popular selection of small bags of chips with standard on the bag pricing.
If your in the mood for making a homemade pizza, I would recommend stopping here for authentic meats and cheeses. They have fresh mozzarella all the time along with some premade crust options… which I’ve tried and are not too bad.
Parking is available, just turn from Regent onto Park St and make a quick right behind the Deli.

Great sandwiches. Cool place.

Man is this place overrated (although apparently not on Unilocal). My friends think the sandwiches are really great for some reason. They’re not. They’re perfectly average sandwiches you could make at home with a little effort. They’re not bad any means, but none of the ingredients really stand out. And the bread to interior ratio is ridiculous; I literally cut the amount of bread on the sandwich in half and thought it was still a bit much.
This place is also an Italian grocery store of sorts, which is cool. I can only speak to the sandwiches, though.
Prices are fine, but overall this place is just «meh.»

This location featured a super nice old man who gave me free flavored biscotti which was nice. They had a decent deli cabinet but I came for the muffaletta because I had been cravin since leaving NOLA. It was acceptable, price good, but quality just not the same. TINY in size but the price was much cheaper, the topanade was too coarsely chopped and it was a bit oily/​greasy. Not a terrible sandwich if you are used to eating Wis. muffs, but compared to the real deal from General Groc. its not on par.

This is a great authentic Italian deli. If you aren’t familiar with an Italian deli then you may not get this place. It’s the kind of place where old Italian men come in the door and ask for the owner of the establishment to come slice there prosciutto personally, because the owner is the only one in the house that can slice the prosciutto thin enough for a true Italians liking. It’s the kind of place where you can buy large quantities of dried Italian herbs to make huge pots of Sunday gravy. The deli meat section is great if you like Italian meats but like I said earlier, have Mr. Fraboni slice it for you, otherwise your going to have some college kid slice your meat too thick. I supopose you could get on Mr. Fraboni for not training his employee’s as well as he should.
They have great Italian sausage. I still to this day have never had a better cannoli then I’ve had from Fraboni’s.
Have any of the other reviewers ever been to an actual Italian deli before in Italy? Fraboni’s reminds me of the Italian deli’s in small villages in Italy. It’s not exactly up scale or anything, but it is what it is. For Madison, this place is a gem.

Delicious subs: the kind of bread your teeth want to tear; fresh, crunchy lettuce; juicy tomatoes; and an amazing sub sauce (olive oil and herbs?). Wonderful selection of chocolate, cookies, and gelato. Lots of pasta! Lots of olives! Even more cheese! Staff is what it needs to be: respectful and efficient.

I haven’t been to this store, but I’ve had their product — a pasta salad purchased from the Jenifer St. Market. It was the most flavorless, disappointing pasta salad I’ve ever had. I thought maybe it was just their spiral pasta salad, so the next time I got the shrimp pasta salad. This salad was just as bland, and what I found particularly insulting in that there are little orange pieces of carrot in here that, if you weren’t paying close attention, look a whole hell of a lot like the shrimp they put in this flavorless concoction. I thought Italian food was supposed to be flavorful. I’ve had pasta salads from supermarkets, italian markets on Taylor St. in Chicago, and made my own. I can honestly say that their pasta salads are easily the worst I’ve had.

Not an authentic Italian deli at all. I agree with Veeder V.‘s review entirely.
I’d only add two points
1. They have good feta cheese for good prices. 5 or 6 dollars a pound. Copps and Woodman’s don’t really have good feta, so we go here for it.
2. You can get a much more impressive butcher case at Jenifer Market.

I had the ‘Otto’ sandwich. It weighed about 3 lbs and was full of deli meat. The portion was great but the quality of the meats are not. At an Italian deli I expect better brands of Italian meat than a supermarket. In fact, I’d argue most supermarkets in Madison carry just about every meat they carry.
The interior was dirty (and not in a good ‘hole in the wall Italian deli’ kind of way… just plain dirty).
They did have a huge selection of olives so I guess that’s something.
Overall this is more of rundown deli with some Italian items than an ‘Italian deli’…if you know what I mean.

Madison offers a lot, but cannot offer everything…
This small deli looked promising in a Milwaukee Glorioso’s type way; it was smallish, but had a full deli and plenty of Italian groceries. The staff seemed friendly and courteous, but lacked knowledge to answer questions about the cuisine and appropriate ingredients to apply.
Anyway, I picked up a number of mid-​higher range priced meats including prosciutto, capicola and Genoa salami. The prosciutto and capicola were riddled with so much pink fat (like black ice for meat) that it was difficult to chew and harder to swallow. My nine-​year-​old nearly choked.
Stop over for the more basic Italian necessities in the grocery section (pasta, coffee, candy and etc.), but avoid the meat section … it just is not worth the hassle.