Take a Trip to Italy in Lakewood Ranch
Every part of the Italian eatery Osteria 500 percolates authenticity.
Rightly so.
The Waterside restaurant manifests a dream Italian friends Carmine Ussano (Sorrento) and Guiseppe Del Sole (Bay of Naples) cooked up long ago.
“Me and Pepe come from 20 years of friendship,” says Ussano. “The restaurant should have come many years before, but sometimes things happen at the right time,” says Ussano.
He and Del Sole are joined in the venture by two more Italian owners, Andrea DeDominicis (Abruzzo) and Head Chef Salvatore Scaccino (Bay of Naples).
Although the foursome is not blood-related, if you ask any of them, they’ll tell you Osteria 500 is absolutely “a family-run business.” Each member of the Italian dream team successfully brings a piece of their home country to the area.
Ussano, among other things, is the wine expert. Del Sol and Scaccino manage the menu and run the kitchen. DeDominicis is responsible for the robust bar and craft cocktail program. You’ll see at least one of them overseeing the floor regularly, and they all seem to take part in the behind-the-scenes work and staff management.
“It’s a big team; we try to be a big family,” says Ussano.
Osteria 500 can seat more than 200, and yet a meal there still feels intimate, with several atmospheric touches designed to offer scenes from Italy. The main dining room, where Italian scenery is projected on the wall, offers a prime-time view of the bustling kitchen, pizza making, and a display of homemade desserts and freshly baked bread. The ceiling of the cozy upper mezzanine is adorned with silk leaves and dangling lemons—a tribute to Sorrento. Liquor bottles behind the large indoor bar sit among real Italian wine barrels. Outdoor bar drinks are served from a vintage Citroën truck (OK, that’s French). It’s all part of the experience that takes you further from the reality that you are—in fact—still in Florida.
“We spent a lot of time trying to make the appearance of the restaurant as close as it could be to make customer and guests feel like they jumped into Italy,” says Ussano.
The restaurant’s visual shining star also gives some context to its name. It’s a one-of-a-kind pizza oven built on top of a Fiat 500 Cinquentro that lives inside. “You look at that car, and you think of Italy and how vibrant and fun the atmosphere and culture can be,” says Ussano.
The Fiat 500 pizza oven was one of the first items the team imported from Italy because it needed to be in place before the restaurant could be built out around it. To get to the U.S., however, the Fiat 500 shared a ride in a 40-foot shipping container among various items collected by Ussano, who was in Italy for much of the build-out. We’re talking hand-painted plates, silverware, staff aprons, tile, tables, chairs, and a Vespa scooter. But while the decor transports you to another country, the fresh, delectable Southern Italian menu absolutely immerses you in it.
“A lot of these recipes come from our grandmothers or aunts,” says Ussano.
He grew up roaming his family’s Italian hotel, enjoying meals cooked by his aunts in the hotel kitchen. As an adult, Ussano started and still owns a private Italian tour company. Throughout the years of curating tours, he found that often his clientele would request trips centered around regional food and wine. So, for example, he’d introduce them to local restaurants with no menu—the chef would just serve his specialty, and the diner would have the most authentic meal.
“When we started to think about Osteria 500, we wanted to reproduce the authenticity of some of these places,” says Ussano.
The Osteria 500 house-made sausage recipe comes from Del Sole’s father-in-law, a butcher in the Abruzzo region. The San Marzano tomatoes, the flour, and a few other ingredients are imported from Italy.
“The flour is 00, an Italian flour known to be without pesticides and light and easy for digestion,” says Ussano, “which makes the pizza dough so light and good.”
Still, he notes, many ingredients are sourced as locally as possible, like the seafood, which comes in fresh to the osteria each day. Osteria 500 also makes all its sauces and most desserts. The gelato, which is served from a vintage gelato cart in the main dining area, is made by a local Italian gelato master.
Osteria 500 offers a unique wine menu with regular and rotating wines.
“Even when it comes to desserts we like to differentiate ourselves from others and bring what is really authentic and the norm for us.”
Osteria 500 takes its connection to Italy even further with a team sprinkled with staff that adds to your immersion.
“We try to have some employees from Italy because they understand what we are trying to offer to the customer and are more accustomed to the recipes,” says Ussano. “The make good examples of what it means to be Italian and appreciate food, wine, and hospitality.”
Osteria 500 only takes reservations for parties of eight or more, which may dissuade some during the season. Don’t let it! Ussano calls this intentional—suggesting patrons put in their phone numbers at the front, encouraging them to stroll through Waterside or, better yet, do it the Italian way by enjoying aperitivos first.
“Come in and have a few drinks or a nice glass of wine paired with one or two appetizers, and then get ready for good meal,” says Ussano.
