Taste of Italy
In the quest for a taste of Italy, one can spend an entire meal exploring the finer points of pizza crust or the true meaning of al dente and fail to scratch the surface of the cuisine. With Italy’s dense forests, salt-spritzed islands, isolated mountaintops, and some of the oldest metropolises known to humans, Italian food defies straightforward definition by virtue of its regional diversity. As it turns out, a local wealth of Italian eateries makes this a terrific area for a culinary tour. Where there’s authentic Italian food, there’s one thing you can count on: its alchemical ability to impart rich, satisfying stories of people and place by harmonizing a handful of potent ingredients.
ANDREA’S
At age 15 Andrea Bozzolo determined he’d become a professional chef. He wasn’t yet in tune with his talent and passion for cooking, but his instincts said the culinary arts could expand his horizons as he followed the beat of his own drum.
He answered his calling first in the kitchens of famous hotels and restaurants across Europe, then on international waters aboard Princess Cruises. Over the course of his travels, Bozzolo fell in love with Siesta Key’s beauty and locals’ appreciation for authentic Italian food. As he put down Sarasota roots, Bozzolo’s north Italian heritage followed him into the kitchen of his 46-seat namesake on Siesta Drive, which turned 10 this year.
“North Italian cuisine is mostly ‘land food,’” Bozzolo says. “I mean a lot of meats, freshwater fish, and things from the wood, like mushroom and white truffle—one of the best things in the world, if you know how to use it.”
Bozzolo’s busy mind shows hallmarks of a born creative in the way it quickly chafes on status quo. Patrons of Andrea’s reap the benefits from menu rotations that showcase the changing seasons’ finest and freshest ingredients.
Andrea’s invites diners to experience of the “art of food and wine”; to execute a rave-worthy dish such as his gnocchi, Bozzolo’s techniques unlock the science as well.
“When you eat gnocchi, 90 percent of the time it’s like putting a bullet in your mouth that drops down into your stomach—boom. Too heavy,” he says. Consulted by Italian culinary scientist Dario Bressanini, Bozzolo refrigerates Yukon Gold potatoes until they begin to sprout and reach peak starch levels. Super- starchy potatoes require less flour to form gnocchi that meet Bozzolo’s melt-in-your-mouth standards.
The “contemporary” Italian cuisine at Andrea’s rejects common perceptions of Italian food that Bozzolo considers outdated and cliché. Italian immigrants may have once consumed mountains of pasta and ragu as they helped to erect American cities’ first skyscrapers, but Bozzolo respects modern diners’ desire for lighter fare. However, his dedication to personal service and making each Andrea’s customer feel like a pampered foodie will never go out of style.
> Andrea’s: 2085 Siesta Dr, Ste 1, Sarasota, 941-951-9200; andreasrestaurantsrq.com
NAPULÈ
Alessandro Di Ferdinando and Giuseppe “Peppe” Del Sole—former co-proprietors of Made in Italy, a successful trattoria in Venice (Florida, that is)—built plenty of seating options when designing their 4,000-square-foot new venture, Napule. Feel free to take your meal al fresco on the patio, perch in the lofty mezzanine, or even belly up to the walnut- plank bar. Arguably the best seats in the house, however, are those four tucked in the corner by Napule’s prodigious oven where pizza is prepared al metro, served family-style by the yard.
Covered in gleaming gold tile and filled with glowing chunks of coal, the wood-fired oven resembles the body of a Tolkien dragon with a chimney that towers up and away to the 24-foot ceiling. A chair at the “pizza bar” offers dinner and a show as you watch pies come together from scratch, starting with pillows of house-made dough. After just 60 seconds in the belly of the beast, Napule’s pizze arrive at the table like 12-inch artworks, scattered with a careful curation of toppings—maybe four, max. As you sink your teeth into the chewy crust, you bite into the essence of pizza.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the modern pizza claims Naples (Italy, that is—or Napule in the Neapolitan language of southern Italy) as its birthplace. Napule’s Napoletana preparation presents a delightful balancing act of flavors: briny olives and anchovies against sweet basil and tomato, all enveloped in the creaminess of mozzarella.
If you can, do explore Neapolitan cuisine outside the realm of pizza: Try the fritto di strada, a savory basket of “street food” that includes potato croquettes and arancini (stuffed rice balls) with mushroom, crumbed and fried to golden, gooey perfection. There’s also that showstopper of a dessert case, packed daily with a vibrant array of homemade dolci. Once you’ve completed an immersion in authentic Neapolitan cuisine at Napule, you may beg them to roll you home in their three-wheeled Piaggio Ape truck, draped over the mobile oven that brings Napule’s beautiful pizzas to parties and events all over town.
> Napulè: 7129 S Tamiami Trl, Sarasota, 941-556-9639; napulesarasota.com
PAZZO
When Michael and Victoria Calore announced plans to shutter their popular Main Street deli, Mozzarella Fella, to go all-in on a new full-service restaurant, some people probably wondered if these parents of four had gone a bit mad. Hence the name of the Calores’ new venture: Pazzo means “crazy” in Italian, and the way it’s flourished in Southside Village proves its creators are just crazy good at what they do.
It’s a full family affair at Pazzo: You’ll find Mikey, the eldest Calore son (age 27), in charge of the pizza oven while the two youngest children, Grace (12) and Vinny (8), organize baseball games out back with customers’ kids. Their middle brother Andrew (age 22) is absorbing the secrets to Michael Senior’s famous homemade mozz.
After boiling raw curd until it reaches just the right consistency, it’s time to “pull.” Mozzarella experts such as Michael and Andrew make it look all too easy, but they have come by second-nature skill levels through countless hours of practice, forming shapeless masses of curd into pillows of incomparably creamy mozzarella purely by feel.
Hearty and unpretentious, Pazzo’s cuisine embraces the full range of a “New York Italian” style, so you may indulge a craving for lasagna one night and repent the next with a beautiful filet of locally sourced fish. The restaurant’s logo takes the farfalle (or bowtie) noodle as an emblem of adaptability and versatility. Farfalle’s wings hold up in soups just as well as pasta salad, and they easily grab every kind of sauce from alfredo to garlic and oil. Speaking of sauce, each week the Calores keep the tradition of “Sunday Sauce,” a labor of love and the specialty of doting nonnas. The Calore family begins their Sunday Sauce with a very early alarm clock. Handmade meatballs, hot and sweet sausage, pork ribs, and stuffed bracciole (rolled steak) are then seared and simmered in an enormous pot of sauce for up to 10 hours.
You could practically eat your own shoe smothered in this heavenly stuff.
> Pazzo Southside: 1830 S Osprey Ave, ste 104, 941-260-8831; pazzosouthside.com
CAFÉ GABBIANO
After nine years in business, Café Gabbiano proprietors Pietro and Susan Migliaccio passed ownership of their Siesta Key restaurant to family friend Marc Grimaud in 2012. Grimaud took a hands-on, ready-to-learn approach to all aspects of running the business. He came in committed to maintaining the Café Gabbiano that nearly a decade of patrons had come to know and adore, which included its reputation for a lengthy and refined list of Italian wines.
Gulp. When inheriting a wine cellar literally thousands of bottles deep, what’s a newly minted restaurateur to do? Keep calm, hop a plane to Denver, and get certified with the International Wine and Spirits Guild, that’s what.
“Wine pairing is a pretty interesting way to enhance a dinner experience and the flavor profiles within a meal,” Grimaud says of finding his way into the role of sommelier. “Sometimes it’s about finding similar profiles that work together, and other times opposites attract.”
Since taking the cellar keys, Grimaud has worked to diversify Café Gabbiano’s wine list, including an expansion into vintages from the Americas. That said, with 20 wine regions and hundreds of native grape varietals, Italy continues to open Grimaud’s eyes to its luscious universe of wine. He personally stewards Café Gabbiano’s private label and makes regular, intense, and eye-opening trips to Italy’s wine country—which is pretty much the whole country. On a recent fall visit, Grimaud estimates he took the equivalent of a road trip from Sarasota to Los Angeles and back in a little over a week. Thanks to his growing interest and education in organic grapes, patrons will see more wines derived from pesticide-free Italian vineyards on Café Gabbiano’s list.
Something about a fresh-cut rose, secreted in a cozy corner among bottles that wink in the light, makes even a table for one feel deeply romantic at Café Gabbiano. By all means, though, take that romance to the beach in one of the restaurant’s signature Sunset Baskets, which includes a bottle of wine and a selection of cheeses and treats to enjoy with your toes in the sand and a special someone beside you.
> Café Gabbiano: 5104 Ocean Blvd, Siesta Key, 941-349-1423; cafegabbiano.com
CAFE BARBOSSO
“We probably sell more art than four galleries put together” seems an off-the-wall thing for a chef to divulge about a restaurant, unless it’s Chef Joe DiMaggio, Jr. speaking of Cafe BarBosso. A lifelong painter whose bohemian parents called Salvador Dalí, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol friends, DiMaggio displays his own large-scale canvases alongside those of other local artists in the BarBosso dining room. Meanwhile, the next pieces destined for the wall emerge, stroke by stroke, in mesmerizing live painting demonstrations throughout dinner.
At Cafe BarBosso, DiMaggio delights in offering visual art both a platform and captive audience, and the painting-as-entertainment concept has proven magnetic. People are equally drawn to the restaurant’s attitude, equal parts punk rock and heart of gold. Some customers seem to come back just for more busted chops playfully served by DiMaggio himself, a distant relative of the baseball legend whose name he shares.
An elegantly-curving chef’s table forms the dining room’s centerpiece, and this is where DiMaggio gives performances of the culinary kind. Reserving a seat books your ticket to a course-by-course journey, not just across Italy but around the world. DiMaggio has helped conceive, open, and run successful restaurants on multiple continents, and thus can masterfully represent flavors from 40 different cultures at his tasting table. He calls it “global peasant food” for his insistence on keeping dishes pure and simple as he strives to present on each new plate something you’ve encountered nowhere else but BarBosso. Think foie gras bratwurst dressed with cherry sauce and good ol’ Gulden’s yellow, or Sicilian pizza with a historically informed Moroccan “invasion” of eggplant and mint.
As for ordering from the regular menu, DiMaggio promises you’ll dine “the way wise guys eat before they go to jail,” and the “ultimate” 10-layer eggplant casserole could make for a pretty righteous last meal. DiMaggio bases recipes for mind-boggling meatballs, a tiramisu that’ll transport you to the edge of Lake Como, and more on cooking he enjoyed from both of his grandmothers. Rooted in a loving family ethos, Cafe BarBosso’s heart beats for Italy while it works to embody a whole new world of the Italian restaurant.
> Cafe BarBosso: 5501 Palmer Crossing Cir, Sarasota, 941-922-7999; ccafebarbosso.com
ANGELO’S ITALIAN MARKET & RESTAURANT
Another close-knit family operation has served the south end of Sarasota County since 1991. Emilio Rossitto, patriarch of Angelo’s Italian Market and Restaurant, immigrated to the United States when he was 11 years old; at age 13, a retired opera singer named Angelo Marchionni took Rossitto under his wing at his Connecticut deli and import shop.
“My dad learned so much from Angelo,” says Rossitto’s daughter, Cristina Vacca. “Product quality, the importance of customer service, how to cut different meats, make sausage, and of course his knowledge of canned goods, wines, and cheeses.”
After Marchionni sold his business, Rossitto and his wife, Loredana, moved to Florida to discover their new home lacked the Italian markets that were so abundant up north. With Marchionni’s help, they filled that void themselves, naming their market for the man who was like a grandfather to their newborn son, Pierpaolo.
“While my parents worked, my older brother spent his days with them at the store,” Vacca says. “We always joke that instead of playing with rattles, he played with links of dried salami.”
When Pierpaolo got a little older, he helped his mother make the stuffed breads sold at their store’s first iteration, which was tiny by comparison to Angelo’s today. As the Rossitto family grew, so did the business—with plenty of help from its human relatives! Today Vacca and her husband manage Angelo’s sit-down restaurant while Vacca’s younger brother Ivano works in the deli and bakery. You can enjoy lunch and dinner surrounded by an eye-catching array of Italian imports: premium olive oils and balsamic vinegar; slim bottles of soda; crinkly packages of cookies; tins of tomatoes, sardines, and clams; and, naturally, shelves upon shelves of pasta (including gluten-free).
“A lot of our customers say our atmosphere reminds them of places they’ve been to in Italy, and of course, that’s a huge compliment,” Vacca says. If you walk away with a single thing from Angelo’s profusion of offerings, better make it one of their perfect cannoli, of which they sell hundreds each day.
> Angelo’s Italian Market & Restaurant: 850 Pinebrook Rd, 941-484-6864; Venice; angelositalianmarket.com
