Dining Review: Circe Prime in Cranston

The third child of the Circe family merges Federal Hill Italian and modern steakhouse with over-the-top indulgence in Cranston's Chapel View.

January 30, 2026

Karen Deutsch,

Crock O’ Shrimp served with a
baguette. Photo by Angel Tucker

Over a hundred and thirty years ago, the Sockanosset School for Boys — more an arm of the nearby penitentiary than an academic hotbed — stood on a hill in Cranston with its imposing chapel in the center of the property. Built with stern stone and a sprawling footprint, the chapel has operated as a restaurant for the past thirteen years, first Chapel Grille and now Circe Prime. Still down the road from the state prison, the granite fortress now overlooks a Starbucks and an outdoor mall. Certainly a whole new view of history for the modern age.

The building is massive, and at 14,000 square feet, perhaps second only to Wright’s Farm Restaurant in its ability to seat huge swaths of the state in a single night. The difference, of course, is in the merry-making mood, which — radiating from two bars, an expansive dining room and several private event spaces — falls somewhere between a casual birthday meal and a wedding party that never ends.

Circe Prime, located in Cranston’s Chapel View. Photo by Angel Tucker

Some people are dressed in jeans and baseball caps and others are walking the length of the restaurant in Palm Beach glam, but they’re uniformly content to spend the evening in a place that’s married a Federal Hill menu with a steakhouse grill and one that will outlast the energy of a diner drinking espresso martinis deep into the night.

Italian dumplings. Photo by Angel Tucker

It’s not really a surprise. Restaurants that hold forty people can go super niche, but a space that holds hundreds (and hundreds) needs broadscale appeal. In this case, that translates into steak and a lot of pasta, all served in an ’80s, Alfred Portale style. In other words, everything is piled high in dramatic form, the equivalent of shoulder pads, headbands, rubber bracelets and some tulle for good measure.

Over-the-top is a genre the kitchen does well and, ironically, the busier the restaurant gets, the faster and more efficiently it moves. On a packed Saturday night, food moved fast and arrived hot; on a quiet weeknight, dinner was slower and just warm. Perhaps it feeds off the energy in the room, which — on a weekend — feels like a small city generating its own industrial power.

There’s an analogous pattern when it comes to the dishes, which actually grow more appealing with more ornamentation. It’s not that extravagance is inherently valuable but it’s de rigueur here, and the kitchen can pull it off. Dumplings served in a bamboo steamer are stuffed with Italian sausage, roasted peppers and fennel and paired with a spicy romesco ($18). It might be dressed in costume but, like much of the menu, it’s Italian to the core. A crock of garlic oil brimming with shrimp, lobster and scallops ($24) may read as Spanish but the effect is the same: It’s an amalgam of familiar flavors served in celebratory form.

Day boat scallops with risotto. Photo by Angel Tucker

Perhaps the best example of the restaurant’s highly decorated template is the butternut carpaccio ($18), which could be readily overlooked in a restaurant focused on all forms of meat. It’s a vegetarian version of the classic but, again, grand in its presentation. Shaved squash is dotted with candied pecans, pickled Fresno chile, agrodolce onions and mounded with arugula and ricotta salata. It’s a mountain of a salad that changes with each bite and manages extravagance with aplomb.

It’s these plates — often appetizers — that demarcate the change in ownership and perspective. The space itself is so rambling that much of the interior remains the same as when it was Chapel Grille. Seating is still white and beige and, while a packed restaurant feels like a whole city celebrating, slower nights have the air of an abandoned hotel.

Butternut carpaccio. Photo by Angel Tucker

Candelabras and golden urns still take up a lot of countertops and the interior bar — filled with white leather stools and a massive relief of a Roman woman with a goblet — can take on a sports bar vibe as easily as “The Real Housewives of Rhode Island,” depending on who’s filling the seats.

What grounds the restaurant, however, is the veteran staff. It’s not uncommon to see diners greeting servers like old friends, but even if it’s a first meeting, it’s standard to have a server who’s been in the industry for decades and knows both the business and the state like a native language. (Sit at the back bar and you’ll likely hear decades-old chronicles of the state play out in personal histories, shared between people who never knew each other until the night they became fast friends.)

Steak served with four different sauces including bearnaise, chimichurri, steak sauce and truffle gorgonzola butter. Photo by Angel Tucker

This fluency is one of the reasons people fill those bar seats — for conversation and a menu that relies on comfort food. Most dishes are tomato-based — Bolognese, eggplant Parmesan, meatballs — and feel like a familiar Sunday dinner. Steaks run twice as much — most are $50–$70 with the exception of a $135 six-ounce wagyu — but the principle of eating what you know remains the same. Even pork osso bucco served with gnocchi is much like a stew steeped in rich sauce.

There are, however, dishes that represent Circe Prime at its height. A halibut Wellington special costs $67 and is a full-on pageant dish. A wedge of snow-white halibut is covered in duxelles, wrapped in a blanket of crisped puff pastry and served with a spoonful (cue the jazz hands) of caviar. It also comes with a biting horseradish sauce and a mountain of mashed potatoes with caramelized fennel because it’s the equivalent of a glitter parade — exactly what the space strives for on the plate and in its mood.

Desserts follow a more traditional path — olive oil rosemary cake and a strong coffee tiramisu — but this is a zone that would readily allow for a more dramatic presentation. Circe Prime is somewhat akin to Providence’s Cafe Nuovo: a restaurant that gives itself wholly to a decadence that doesn’t evolve as much as remaining in a state of endless revelry. A sky-high tower of meringue or a fully formed chocolate sculpture wouldn’t be out of place in a series of dining rooms that operate like a cruise ship, each corner narrating its own story.

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