Wiley’s Trattoria- Ashland

I was surprised at the flavor and taste of quality in my meal. I had the Butternut Squash and Walnut Ravioli with basil sauce. It was so good Pasta was great very fresh tasting and light. Portion was more than large enough. Service was great and the atmosphere very Ashland and relaxing. Waitress was excellent informative and on time. We will be returning soon.

Yesterday, a friend and I decided to try Wiley’s Trattoria for breakfast. We are glad we did. The curry omelet special was delicious. In addition to the good food, our server, Deborah, was fabulous. She was attentive to our needs and was very personable. Going back again on the weekend with a bunch of friends to celebrate a birthday.

Yes, I have been a fan for years — I love the food, and am happy you kept most of the original Wiley’s menu. Tonight, though, I want to throw out a special thumbs up to the Wiley’s crew (June 14), and especially Joe (I believe that was my (and the whole room’s) server. Joe handled the demanding situation with grace and efficiency, all with a warm and sincere smile and manner. And, when the load became overwhelming, the dishwasher (I think) and the chef pitched in, clearing dirty dishes and delivering food.
My food (smoked chicken Rav) was very fresh, hot and tasty and the service was outstanding, especially considering the situation. Thank you!
Julia
p. s. As a fan of outdoor seating, I am still waiting for the side area with the dead bamboo to be spiffed up. Tonight I enjoyed sitting inside though, since it’s a bit chilly

You led me astray, Unilocalers.
I truly believe that this should be marked as a new business judging by some of the new reviews and our experience. When we arrived for breakfast (yay breakfast!!!), only one person out of three was greeted. The person seating us recognized my friend and decided to list off where she had seen her while completely ignoring us. We were able to choose where we sat, but that was basically the one redeeming quality.
We got the rundown on the menu by our hostess/​waitress only to be told that the item my fiancé and I both wanted was actually not going to be served anymore. Ever. Maybe you could take it off the menu or at least draw a line through it. Breakfast burritos are a pretty popular item, so marking it as unavailable will help with the disappointment. My friend ordered a mimosa and black coffee, I had a cappuccino, and my fiancé made the wise move of sticking with water. By the time my cappuccino arrived, my friend was already finished with her coffee and halfway done with her mimosa. The waitress then asked if she was over 21. I think it’s a little late for that… Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by North Beach in San Francisco, but my cappuccino was beyond disappointing. It was less than lukewarm and lacked flavor and depth. No, it was not a good beverage. It wasn’t even an ok beverage. It was poorly done and cold. I still have no idea how.
Our food was just as weird and disappointing. Fun fact: their gluten free waffle is not actually gluten free. Again, please change your menus. After spending about 10 minutes trying to order while the waitress kept running back to the kitchen to explain things to the cook and running to other tables, we finally managed to get our three simple dishes ordered. My friend’s egg dish was overly sauced and sloppy. She joked that she couldn’t even find her eggs. My fiancé chose the egg sandwich with a side of potatoes, and both were pretty disappointing. His potatoes were somehow squishy and soggy instead of crispy and soft on the inside. It’s hard to screw up a peanut butter waffle, but congratulations! Wiley’s managed to do that. None of us could find the peanut butter flavor other than the crushed peanuts on top. Don’t forget that my fiancé was done eating, and my friend was more than 75% through her meal by the time my waffle finally came out. I legitimately had the simplest menu item out of our group, yet they couldn’t get mine out even close to when the other dishes came out.
When we were done, the waitress asked us to try a brownie. No thank you. I honestly won’t be coming back here for a few reasons and definitely think that this place needs to be separated from the old restaurant’s reviews. I wasn’t expecting excellence, but I can’t even call our experience and our food mediocre. The one positive? It’s one of the few restaurants in town that actually accepts Amex.

I needed a break from home & had wanted to see the revamp, so here was my chance– the new colors & decorations really make the front pop, the bar looks amazing with the addition of the stool setup & there’s a couple outdoor seating options.
I didn’t have their wine, but the concept of being charged by what you drink from a bottle of red for $ 4 sounds like quite the steal.
Their salad is, as usual, wonderfully simple with their classic red onion-​poppyseed vinaigrette: little bite, little sweet, refreshing for a nice day like today. And the bread, as always, is wonderfully soft & herbaceous.
I got their garlic caper sauce over scratch made linguine with tomatoes, olive oil, & spicy goat cheese: the pasta was cooked perfectly al dente, the garlic is nicely roasted, so you get its natural sweetness. The salty bite from the capers helps to balance out the tartness of the goat cheese… the only thing that confused me was why have the goat cheese on the side if it was meant to be in the dish? Once I mixed everything together, it was wonderful, but delivery could’ve used a little work. And I had to ask for more bread because there’s a lot of sauce to sop up after.
After that, when I asked about dessert, they gave the option of either ‘handing out their big menu again’ or ‘showing what they have’ on a tray– it was kind of exhilarating to have the tray brought out! And it helped convince me to get their tiramisu… which is so cute & delicious, almost like a tiramisu mousse. So delicate & just sweet enough.
Altogether, including tax & tip, not bad for just under $ 20. I would highly encourage bringing the family in for an intimate party or brunch– which I’ll have to check out at a later date.

Heartbroken! Loved Wiley’s World — our go-​to restaurant for more than a decade. We hadn’t been since the change and expansion, read the negative reviews, and decided to try it in the hope that things had evened out and our favorite place might have survived. We planned to write a positive review if the food was even close, but… we waited for more than an hour, seated next to people eating, and were never served our meal. We stood, were told (for the second time) that our meal was almost ready (nothing complicated a salad and ravioli), and left. R.I.P. Wiley’s

After hearing the big hype of «Wiley’s» I thought I’d enjoy some fresh handmade pasta that they boast. I’m sad to say the only good part of our meal was the salad that comes with the meal, simple salad with a quite tasty dressing. But the pasta was thrown together. Chicken Alfredo– a gloppy sauce with a strange tangy flavor small bits of chicken that had been fried past any resemblance of chicken. My companion had ravioli with a red sauce, raviolis were okay but the sauce (which they package) was awful and overly sweet. Overall I left feeling a little sick to my stomach and full of a meal that reminded me of a child’s first attempt at cooking dinner.

We came here with high hopes given the great reviews. However, the service was terrible (waiter forgot my San Pelligrino but brought the wine, never came back and when the bussed brought out our entrees we had to ask for our salads, bread), the food was cold and tasted microwaved, and they tried to over-​charge me for the sparkling water. Worst restaurant experience I’ve ever had

Thank you for promptly replying to my concerns. I know running a restaurant can be challenging and I do not want harm your business in anyway especially in this wonderful town. I hope for your continued success!

Let’s be clear here: This is NOT «Wiley’s World»; This is «Wiley’s Trattoria», which is a new restaurant that replaced a formerly fantastic joint that was a legend in the Valley – you need to know that. In fact, since it is a new and transformed restaurant with a different name and new owner, shouldnt this be marked as a new restaurant, retiring the old reviews for Wiley’s World? You eat, you decide. I personally would recommend that you consider this point before embarking on a visit, as if you expect the restaurant of yesteryear, you will be disappointed.
That said, I made the mistake of going here for a special family celebration, with the high expectations of the former haunt’s glory, only to be met by one of the worst dining experiences I’ve had in many years (next only to Harvest in Talent). We also had the not-​so-​wonderful experience of meeting the cocky and arrogant owner and having some really cold and awfully disgusting and mishandled food (read: food safety concerns) all to attempt to celebrate my in-​laws birthday. It was an embarrassing and shameful experience. We won’t be back.
Many folks in the restaurant business make a fatal error that they cannot ever recover from: they will purchase a strong and established restaurant, and then decide that they want to rebrand it under their own vision, when nothing was wrong with the place to begin with. That is the case here. It’s heartbreaking.
To sum up our experience, here it goes:
Arrived with a medium size group of people on a mid-​week night (6 guests). Place was rather empty. Decent enough wait staff… mostly comprised of younger folks (I believe high-​school students). Ordered pasta (note: to cook, you simply dunk in hot water, add said sauce, and voila! plate and done… OR, it might be a quick toss in the frypan with said sauce). There were no complex dishes ordered this night (nor does the menu have any complex dishes on it). Each dish was to come with the signature salad and bread. No problem, right?
After about 35 minutes, we received the salads and bread, which were just ok, but did overall resemble what we had come to expect from this place in the past. We ate them, all good. Then, the longer wait began… and wait we did! Finally, the pastas came out, one by one, and eventually, everyone was served. However, there was one major problem: congealed sauces on top of the pasta seemed to indicate that the pasta had sat for awhile. Additionally, they staggered out the delivery of dishes, a few were clearly prepared long before the others. After we all dug in, it was unanimous: every dish was cold – not warm – COLD. Big time bummer. Wait staff came back, and eventually every single dish of the 6 we had ordered was sent back. My son had a dish that was not even what he ordered… Soon, each dish arrived back at our table… ice cold, AGAIN. Now, panic with the waitstaff. Ouch. Not looking good. So, this went on and on, and eventually we gave up, because we simply could not get a hot pasta dish. Restaurant still empty…
The waitstaff tried and tried, but they just couldn’t make it right. So, they offered us a free desert, but we hadn’t had dinner! We essentially said, «make it right», but everyone in the restaurant was in a panic and could not – the waitstaff were embarrassed and not in any way equipped to address the situation. Then, the bill was dropped at full price. We objected, stating we would happily pay for the salads and bread and drinks and anything else we consumed, but how could we pay for a meal we not only never really got, but also never ate? Yada yada… this was an impossible situation, and we were held captive in this place – we just wanted to leave so badly but in no way would anyone pay for something we never really got. We were hungry too!
So, we sat, and then the owner came down from wherever he was hanging out… and then ensued this long discussion about how we should or should not approach the situation – the owner was confident, but cocky with us, making it clear that he didn’t see the problem. Eventually, we settled on a fair approach to the situation that let us essentially get on with our evening. My father, who is 79 years old, and a 50 year veteran of the restaurant industry, schooled the owner (in a very polite way, mind you) on the situation – which was hilarious – by asking him gently, «Do you know what kind of problem your restaurant has?» to which the owner responded, «No, I don’t believe there is a problem with my restaurant» and my father said «That’s exactly the problem – every restaurant has a problem, and if you don’t know your restaurant’s problem, THAT’s a BIG problem». What a profound point… if you don’t know, you have a problem. The owner suddenly showed up a bit different, realizing there was ownership of this experience on his and his staff’s part. To the credit of the owner, he did take care of us and the situation, but we left hungry, unhappy, and our night was ruined.

I really didn’t see why this restaurant is worthing 4 stars…
They only have 1 waiter at Sunday noon, probably 1 chef in the kitchen too. It took us about 40min to get our brunch before we starve to death.
Our group ordered several omelet and pasta plates, none of them made us a little bit happier. The abaca do already went yellow even black, and smoked salmon was like salted in jar for hundreds of years.
Anyways, they did one thing good. They cancelled our top 1 disgusting plate.

Wiley’s World was one of our favorite places to eat in Ashland. Food and service were always top-​notch and prices were reasonable.
We decided to try the «new» Wiley’s and I am sorry we bothered. We won’t be returning.
If you didn’t go frequently, you might not notice the changes. The food quality has declined. I’m not sure what they did to the signature salad dressing, but they’ve added way too much onion. There is more onion in the dressing than there is in an actual onion.
We also made the mistake of sitting next to the back entrance where employees come in and out at an average of every 1 ½ minutes and you can smell the cigarette smoke. That got annoying quickly.
I guess if you call yourself a «trattoria» then you can tack on an additional 4 bucks to the entrees. 16 bucks for a plate of pasta is ridiculous, especially since mine was supposed to have sausage as a main ingredient, but none was to be found.
We had dessert– a lemon cheesecake – sans lemon.
The new owners have murdered this establishment.

I feel like I was a a different restaurant than all these others in the reviews. Our meal was terrible. The red sauce lacked spices which made it kind of tangy. The pesto was horrible, a huge disappointment. The salad dressings had grated onion in it and was way too much onion. We use to eat here all the time when the prior owners had it. These new owners must not have gotten the recipes from the original owners, a huge difference…:(I will say that the desert was the best part of the meal for sure…
Sorry for the bad review, I’ve never written a bad review until today…

This decent little spot in Ashland serves up organic, fresh made pasta. Everything was good, from the salad dressing (house made raspberry poppy would be a guess???), bread, pasta and sauces.
My only qualm, hence the 3 star not 4, was the size of dishes served up for the price. We had lunch and was surprised at how small and inconsistent the size of dishes were. One of my kids dishes had the same amount as my lunch entrée while another of my kids dish looked like it was maybe 5 bites at most.
Thankfully we weren’t starving and the food was tasty and fresh and came with salads for all… My kids, like many, aren’t real big on salad tho– maybe I shoulda asked for a swap of more bread?
Other than that the experience and service was average, nothing positive or negative to report… I guess this all adds up to the average 3 star.

This actually makes me a little sad to write. Wiley’s World was one of my all time favorite places to eat. Wiley’s Pasta … not so much.
I guess I will start at the very beginning to set the stage. \
After seeing their advertisement for Mother’s Day Brunch multiple times on Facebook I made online reservations for 3 at 11am
I received a text the morning of at about 9 asking me to text back to confirm for a «small fee» I still don’t know how much this fee was but I acquiesced as it wasn’t clear that I would have a reservation if I didn’t.
We arrive and are seated. Table is sticky and needs to be cleaned off but eh… whatever no big deal.
We order coffee and receive that and waters right away as well as the espressotini thing my mom ordered (the best part of the entire meal). Get our orders in (3 eggs benedicts two veggie one meat add mushrooms) the waitress is obviously not trained on the Ipad thing she was using and it seemed that slowed her down a bit. Then begins our wait. I’d like to point out at this point there were many empty tables so the restaurant was busy but not PACKED.
No less than an HOUR goes by when our server finally informed us our food was on it’s way. Never once in that hour did we complain or ask where our food was as it was clear things in general weren’t running smoothly.
When the food arrives I am less than impressed with the portion size for a $ 12 breakfast. The potatoes look like a sad after thought and are dry & luke warm. Hollindaise has a nice flavor but the rest of it is luke warm & oh, look! There is no English muffins!!! I dig in any way because at this point I am hungry. Then I look over to see my Sister FURIOUSLY trying to cut up her food. Not only is her food COLD but the English muffin she received is hard as a rock. Like no amount of sawing was going to get through that thing. We ask my mom how hers is and she said it is at least warm but she had barely any hollindaise & the mushrooms she paid extra for were hardly evident (like 4 slices).
At this point I am feeling sorry for the waitress. It is obvious the kitchen is messing up & really making her job difficult. I see some other ladies hanging around that I am not sure of their job… I assume busser? Host? I don’t know but their was 3 or so girls that didn’t appear to be doing more than filling coffees etc… but mostly just wandering around & when asked by our waitress to help (get a table water etc.) seemed less than interested in doing so. I flag one of these girls over as she is just chatting with another girl. I start to tell her what the issue is & her eyes get big and she informs me the cooks will be MAD if the bring food back, she can’t help me I need to talk to our waitress. Before I can point our how busy our waitress is & that is why I asked HER she takes off to get her. By the time the waitress gets back my Sister has realized after attempting to eat any way that it is just not enjoyable and would really like another plate. I inform her of my missing English muffin but let her know I am okay eating it without it. She takes my Sisters plate to the Kitchen and returns with it saying the cook was angry, it would be another 45 minutes if she wants it remade. We do not have time to wait, we tell her to just take it off the bill.
Noticing how busy she is I decide I will go to hostess to see if I can settle up with her, also because I want to know if I hadn’t texted back to confirm if I wouldn’t have had a reservation or if she new what the fee was etc… (spoiler alert: she didn’t). Now this particular girl spent 90% of the time engaged with the table seated next her (friends obviously) & seemed slightly annoyed that I wanted her attention. She tells me my waitress can ring me up & I inform her that she was busy & could she just do it, she can’t. She also can’t answer my question so I ask if there was a manager present. There is, he is behind the bar and I head over. On my way I see a girl come in with shopping bags full of food. REALLY? you advertised, took reservations and STILL couldn’t plan ahead well enough?
Manger is behind the bar making drinks I let him know our waitress was great & tell him about our other issues. He tells the waitress to take my eggs Benedict off as well but isn’t really capable of hearing and addressing the whole of what I wanted to say as he was in the middle of making drinks. I realize to stop him & REALLY explain all I have said above would likely make everyone in the restaurant worse off then they already are so I decide I will get it all our here instead.
You can spend money redecorating, enlarging etc… but service and food matter more. This more than a bad day. You need cooks who support your wait staff instead of yelling at them when THEY mess up (and serve hot food) and a manager who knows what they are doing. This was the worst resturaunt experience I have had in a LONG time. maybe ever. I could right more but Unilocal is cutting me off!

I am stoked for the new ownership at Wiley’s. I personally really did not like the weird, tiny, hippie joint it used to be, so the classic feel of it now is so nice! It’s also bigger now, they took over the space where 4 and 20 blackbirds was and its now a kind of café entrance. My meal was tasty, I got the basic breakfast and an order of the half waffle. And a peach mimosa and a glass of OJ. Everything was super good! Waffle was light and fluffy. Service was great as well, but I came on a Monday morning and was the only guest there. Still, good service should be noted any time, any day.

TL: DR, a poor customer service experience where everything that could go wrong did, followed by awkward passive aggressive messages from the business representative received before even reaching our car. A fascinating irony.
10:10am. We had to seat ourselves because the waitress was so busy. It took her 10 minutes or more to even get to our table. It is Sunday morning April 3^rd, just after 10 am and they only have one waitress working and no bus person or host. This really makes no sense.
Of course she is flustered and stressed. I have not seen this poor girl smile once. I am not really sure who is to blame for this, the management or her. I estimate ⁶⁵⁄₃₅ management. Why? Because there are actually only 7 tables and she should, as a waitress, be more professional. Many large high energy restaurants have servers tending to this many tables, or more. But most of the blame definitely falls to the management here. She clearly does not have enough time to do everything.
10:40 and we have been here for 30 minutes and we still do not even have coffee! My poor boyfriend is developing an extreme headache. If we had known, we would have made some coffee and eaten a snack before leaving. Another thing we are noticing is that all of the chairs and tables wobble. This is really annoying with our 9 year old, who is of course exploiting the crap out of this.
10:45 I decide to go ask about the coffee. She says its broken. She asks if we want some shots of espresso. Hmm.
Two mins later she brings the shots.
10:50 waitress puts one cup of coffee down in front of me and says quietly, «its all I could get out.»
No cream, no utensils yet on the table.
10:53 a chef brings food out. The kids meal strangely comes on three small plates. We ask him to please put it on one plate. We also have to ask for utensils. The waitress is cluelessly bussing the table next to us. I see the chef give her a look.
10:56 eating our food finally. My gluten free waffle is really light and crispy. Its tasty but very unfilling for 8 bucks. Its worth mentioning that I had to grab my own syrup off of another table. Lol…
10:59 my son is wondering why his toast is dry and why we have no butter. I have no answers. This is such a disaster. I have never had such a disastrous meal experience in my life.
11:07 we get the bill. We now understand why my sons kids meal came piecemeal. Apparently it was also priced piecemeal, despite clearly being on the menu. What the F??? At least she fixed it when I went up and asked. I also told her I did not want to pay for that bad cup of coffee.
So we barely get to the car and «jessica» messages me with a passive aggressive «so sorry» but also questioning my one star review. «Really?» She writes. Yes, really. Worst breakfast experience We have ever had.
Here is a clue: spend less energy policing Unilocal from your house and invest more into your actual customer service! I think Jessica H would be more useful actually IN the restaurant helping out than messaging people 2 seconds after they leave a bad review. Seriously, why wasn’t she in there helping out if two (or one according to the waitress) people called in sick? THAT is what being a true team player is all about.
11:18 boyfriend points out that our Unilocal review got faster service than we did.
Lol.
All we are left wondering is, what would have happened if we never went up to request necessary items like utensils, butter, syrup, coffee, cream? It would be an interesting experiment to do at a clueless restaurant sometime. But honestly, this does not even happen at this level very often.

Oh So Good!!!
After a few days of road food, I cannot express how divine organic, home made, authentic pasta tastes!
I will make Wiley’s a regular stop when passing through Ashland for sure!!!

The food here is mediocre. They leave a bottle of wine on your table that they say you can drink out of and then they will charge you by how much you drink. The problem with this is that they don’t actually measure how much you drank. They size you up and charge what they want.
I ordered some spaghetti to go. When I got home and tasted it it was sooooo bad! It reminded me of school spaghetti that was soggy and way over cooked!
How can an Italian restaurant serve soggy over cooked spaghetti?
I don’t recommend this place!

The WORST. I can not believe what we received from this restaurant. We waited over two hours for our to go order to receive less than a half of cup of Mac and cheese for our kid! (No exaggeration. I could see the bottom of the tiny box.) In addition, the food was all cold and every meal was as small as the appetizer we ordered! This all was a $ 47 bill that they refused to refund and gave me the run around on the phone. The waitstaff was sweet but the owner I guess does not care about his customers. Too bad… Was really excited about organic pasta.

This place is great!
Service: A+ Our server was sweet and friendly; she checked in on us at the perfect times without being overbearing.
Food: A We had the spinach lasagna and it was delicious.
We had the lemon cheesecake for dessert and it was BOMB.
Awesome, intimate restaurant experience. You feel like you are eating with friends at Wiley’s. Highly recommend!

I hadn’t been to Wiley’s for a few months, and had some out of town guests. Imagine my shock to see it had been turned into an ultra-​tacky «Italian» restaurant, complete with red and white checkered table cloths and photos of gangsters on the walls. They also have some weird system of leaving a wide squat glass on the table with a bottle of their «house» wine. More tackiness.
The funky 70s vibe is completely gone as is the friendly staff. Our meal was unremarkable except that I kept having to ask for water and the kitchen forgot to give us salad dressing. Our waitress claimed the kitchen staff was the same but, who knows? One of my companions barely touched her meal, and I ate mine primarily out of hunger. I doubt I’ll be going back. It was totally depressing to lose this once great and fun place. Also, it was totally empty in the restaurant which added to the sadness.