If you’re a fan of the classic sitcom “Seinfeld,” I’m sure you remember the episode when Kramer goes back to work at H&H Bagels (below left photo) after being on strike for twelve years.
Well, that episode, and H&H’s appearances on “Sex and the City,” “The Office” “Entourage” and other TV shows and movies, helped keep one of Manhattan’s best-known “real New York” bagel shops in people’s memories for years, after being founded in 1972 on the Upper West Side by Helmer Toro and Hector Hernandez.
Today, H&H Bagels has 13 locations — seven scattered around NYC, plus one in California, one in Washington, DC, one in Knoxville, TN, and three in Florida, including the newest location at 1155 S. Dale Mabry Hwy. in South Tampa (bottom photo). There also are eight more locations coming on-line, including five in the Sunshine State, one in California, one in North Carolina and one in Chicago.
Yes, the H&H name is growing again, thanks to CEO and Florida State University grad Jay Rushin (top right photo), who worked on Wall St. in Manhattan for 20 years before taking over at H&H eleven years ago (he also has family in Tampa).
Having lived just a few blocks from the second H&H location on 2nd Ave. in Manhattan, as soon as I heard it was opening here, I knew I wanted to check it out. The company’s kettle-boiled-then-baked bagels in New York were as good as any I had ever had, so I knew I had to sample the location here as soon as it opened.
“We bake everything fresh here,” Rushin told me during the Tampa location’s soft opening on Sept. 30. “The bagels are made with that famous New York water, boiled, frozen and shipped here. We then bake them every day.”
And yes, the bagels are pretty great. I, of course, had to have a toasted, scooped-out sesame bagel with cream cheese, Nova Scotia salmon and I was surprised and thrilled to be able to add a shmear of real whitefish salad, plus a slice of tomato. Just yum!
Jannah also loved her bacon, egg and cheese on a scooped-out, toasted whole wheat bagel (right) and Charmaine said the avocado on her avocado, egg and cheese on an asiago cheese bagel was just “so fresh and delicious.” Also available are sausage and Jersey-style Taylor ham, egg and cheese sandwiches, plus an egg white and avocado option.
H&H carries 13 varieties of fresh bagels (above photo) — from standards like onion, everything and cinnamon raisin to egg, blueberry and even jalapeño cheddar options.
And, unlike other bagel places that offer a Baker’s Dozen — 13 bagels for the price of 12 — when you buy a dozen at H&H, you pay for ten bagels and get the last two free.
“It’s just another one of our different ways of doing things,” Jay said.
In addition to that perfect house-made whitefish salad, H&H also makes its own tuna, egg and chicken salad, and offers deli sandwiches with roast beef, roasted turkey, Black Forest or Taylor ham and also sells the salads, the deli meats, the Nova and even cheddar, American, pepper Jack and provolone cheese by the pound. Also available are to-go tubs of plain, flavored and even tofu cream cheese, plus lox spread, butter, jelly and peanut butter.
Also baked in-house are chewy brownies, chocolate chip cookies (photo above), croissants, muffins and chocolate and cinnamon streusel cake slices.
And, while H&H doesn’t sell cappuccinos, lattes and other “fancier” coffee drinks, Jay says the hot coffee is a private H&H blend roasted in Wisconsin by Ruby’s Coffee Roasters, which was named for founder Jared Linzmeier’s grandmother, Ruby Szitta. Also served are iced and cold brew coffee, a variety of hot teas, iced sweet tea, green teas, apple and orange juice, chocolate milk, lemonade, sparkling water and even Mexican Coca-Cola.
“We’ve looked for more locations in the Tampa Bay area,” Rushin told me, “including in Wesley Chapel, but the market is tough. We need 1,400 to no more than 2,000 square feet.”
So, go give H&H Bagels a shot. You’ll put a smile on Jay’s face — and on Kramer’s! For more info, visit HHBagels.com or call (813) 214-7010. You also can order pickup from Grubhub, Seamless, DoorDash, Postmates or Uber Eats. — GN
Rendering of the resort-style pool at the under-construction Arcadia at Wiregrass Ranch apartments. (Rendering from ThirdLakeDevelopment.com)
It seems that there’s never a shortage of news coming out of Wiregrass Ranch these days, so we always try to check in with developer JD Porter and his development right hand man, Scott Sheridan, the chief operating officer of Locust Branch, LLC, to get the latest news.
After all, the 5,000-acre Wiregrass Ranch already has The Shops at Wiregrass mall, AdventHealth Wesley Chapel Hospital, the Porter Campus of Pasco Hernando State College, more than 3,000 single-family homes (and townhomes) and 1,400 rental apartment units.
Wiregrass Ranch also is home to the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, The Beach House assisted living community, Florida Cancer Specialists (FCS), Moffitt Cancer Center and North Tampa Behavioral Health, and coming soon are the Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Wiregrass Ranch Hospital, two Orlando Health-owned medical office buildings totalling 150,000 sq. ft., a PAM Health Rehabilitation Hospital and two additional medical office buildings that Wiregrass Ranch will develop in partnership with Flagship Healthcare Properties, and what Porter says will one day be Wesley Chapel’s true downtown — The Legacy at Wiregrass Ranch.
Publix could soon begin building its new location east of Wiregrass Ranch Blvd. earlier this year. Map locations: 1-Chili’s, 2-Chase Bank, 3-Bank of Amer., 4-Advance Auto Parts, 5-Sweet Nail Spa, Mathnasium, Pizza Hut & Starbucks (Map from Publix plans submitted to Pasco County, modified by NN).
One of the big things people keep asking me (and online) is about the new Publix planned for the east side of Wiregrass Ranch Blvd., just north and east of Walmart (see map above left) on a 9.5-acre site appraised at $3.97 million.
Of that 48,848-sq.-ft. Publix (with a 2,100-sq.-ft. liquor store), which is being built in front of the newest apartment community — Arcadia at Wiregrass Ranch — the main thing most people want to know is whether or not the opening of that new Publix will cause the existing store in the Hollybrook Plaza (less than a half-mile away) to close. Neither Sheridan nor Porter would address that question directly, but Sheridan says, “Final permitting [of the new Publix] is under way now, and I expect them to break ground by early next year. We have no direct knowledge of [Publix’s] intent to close the old store when they build the new one.” The site plan for the new Publix shows its main entrance lining up directly opposite the northern entrance to Walmart.
Although most people appear to agree that it seems a little crazy to have two Publixes located so close to each other, we have heard some online chatter that says the Hollybrook Publix will definitely close, while others say that it definitely won’t close. Without confirmation either way from Publix or the Wiregrass Ranch team, it seems ludicrous to me to speculate either way.
But, speaking of Publix, Porter did mention the possibility of another link in the Lakeland-based supermarket chain coming to the area near the new FCS building on S.R. 56, but Sheridan cautioned that although he had seen a post on Facebook that a preapplication meeting had been scheduled, “there has been nothing from us directly on this.”
Also important to note is that if another Publix is coming to S.R. 56 in Wiregrass Ranch, that possible location is not the Publix planned for the front of the Two Rivers development five miles or so further to the east on 56.
In the meantime, the Arcadia at Wiregrass Ranch apartments have not yet gone vertical, but the 15-acre parcel (valued at $7.04 million) has been cleared to build the 320-unit luxury rental community and its resort-style pool, EV charging stations and more, which will be the seventh Arcadia project (and the third in Florida) for Tampa-based Third Lake Development.
As for the planned medical offices near the Orlando Health hospital, Sheridan says that the first 46,000-sq.-ft. Wiregrass Ranch Medical Pavilion (rendering above), in partnership with Flagship Healthcare Properties, is getting ready to break ground before the end of this year.
“The second phase will move forward once the initial building is completed and fully leased,” Sheridan says.
As for the two Florida Medical Clinic/ Orlando Health medical office buildings (MOBs), Sheridan says, “The hospital is expected to open by April of 2026. We expect the MOBs would be under construction soon but can’t say for sure. They are just now completing all of the site work for both of those.”
Sheridan also said that Wiregrass Ranch is, “coordinating with Mast Capital on their requirement to build the Bypass Loop road within Wiregrass Ranch from S.R. 54 to Wiregrass Ranch Blvd.” as part of Mast’s redevelopment of Saddlebrook Resort (see pg. 44). “But we are not engaged or aware of their developments within the resort.”
New Restaurants? Although the rumor mill has said that The Tilted Kilt, a Winghouse/ Hooters-style sports pub could be the still-unnamed restaurant planned for next to Cooper’s Hawk, Porter told me that although they have had discussions with The Tilted Kilt, it definitely will not be the restaurant built next to Cooper’s Hawk.
Meanwhile, Sheridan says, “We are working on several upscale restaurants along the S.R. 56 corridor including next to Cooper’s Hawk, which, we are told, is consistently the #1 or #2 restaurant in that chain.”
But of course, perhaps the most anticipated development in Wiregrass Ranch is The Legacy, which Porter keeps saying will be the only “true” downtown development in Wesley Chapel, and which will tie together everything already built and still planned for the Porter family’s sprawling cattle ranch. So, is there any Legacy news?
“We are exploring that now with potential partners but have not committed any timing yet,” Sheridan says.
If you’re looking for fresh ice cream with everything from exotic fruit flavors, — like mango, custard apple and jackfruit — to traditional favorites like Oreo Delight and even vegan options, you should definitely take a ride down to E. Fowler Ave., a few blocks west of Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., to try Kini’s Home Style Icecream.
Owners and Wesley Chapel residents Srinivas and Gauri Kini make all of their tasty ice cream flavors (there’s always about a dozen available at any time) right in their small store. Srinivas, who prefers to be called Kini, says that Gauri’s family back in India (they are both from Mumbai) was in the ice cream business and when she started making ice cream at home, many of their friends and neighbors told them they had to open a store.
They started bringing their uniquely creamy creations to local farmer’s markets, including the twice-a-month Fresh Markets at the Shops at Wiregrass.
“But, even though we make our ice cream in small batches, we realized we needed a commercial kitchen,” Gauri says, adding that they first started renting time at a commercial kitchen before looking for a small space where they could put an ice cream machine — and, about six months ago, Kini’s Home Style Icecream was born.
Even though I’ve never really been a fan of most fruit-flavored ice cream other than banana and maybe peach, Kini and Gauri had photographer Charmaine George and I sample every flavor in the shop, including rose petal pistachio and Kesar Pista (saffron pistachio), Kaju Draksha (cashew raisin) and Shahi Anjeer (“royal fig”), all of which Charmaine loved, plus Sapota/ Chikoo, an evergreen fruit in India which tasted a little like caramel.
I was surprised at how much I liked the custard apple, which wasn’t custard made from apple, as I expected, but an actual type of apple the “meat” of which has a consistency a little like custard. Neither Charmaine nor I could really tell a difference between the regular and vegan mango flavors. There’s also a tasty vegan Nutty Delight, with almonds, cashews, pistachio and fig.
My favorites were the Oreo Delight, the bold espresso-flavored Coffee Walnut and the Chocobite, a creamy chocolate ice cream with chunky bits of chocolate.
Other rotating flavors include Matcha Green Tea, Pink Guava, Blueberry, Honey Lavender, Chai Biscuit, Tender Coconut, Mango Passion Fruit, Vegan Pina Colada and Vegan Strawberry. All of the flavors are available in cups, cones and sundaes and four to-go sizes. There’s also a To-Go case (right) with a variety of pre-packed pints.
Gauri says you also can always call the store to find out what flavors are available when you plan to come in and you can even request flavors you want if they aren’t available when you do visit.
“We make fresh ice cream every day using only top-quality, real ingredients, with no artificial flavors or colors,” Gauri says. “Our customers tell us they can really taste the difference.”
All I can add to that is that you definitely should sample flavors you wouldn’t normally order. You just might end up being surprised!
Kini’s Home Style Icecream (2017 E. Fowler Ave.) is open Mon.-Fri., 4 p.m.-9 p.m., and noon-9 p.m. on Sat. & Sun. For info, call (813) 728-8430 or visit KinisIceCream.store.
Donna Ray of The Middle Place (photo provided by Donna Ray)
The Middle Place Accounting
Donna Ray, the owner of The Middle Place Accounting & Consulting Services, and I have a friend in common — Paula Nuñez, the owner of the Tampa City Dance Center and the founder of the Tampa City Ballet.
“I used to be the executive director of Tampa City Ballet,” Donna says, “and they are currently still one of my clients. I still handle their bookkeeping and accounting.”
Donna says she first launched The Middle Place during the pandemic, “while I was still the executive director of the ballet, because I have two children and their school was closed, so I needed to home school them and work from home. I also was taking care of my father, who has since passed away, so it just made sense to be as independent as I could be based on the needs of my family.”
She adds, “I sent out a big email blast at that time to people I’ve known around the Tampa Bay area for a very long time that my services were available and that seemed to be all that it took.”
The idea for her company didn’t just come out of nowhere, however. Donna has a total of 30 years of experience working in accounting.
After a decade of working in the Cayman Islands as an IT director with Cox Lumber Co. and Senior Accounting and later as project manager with Fidelity Group of Companies, she returned to the U.S., which was still recovering from the financial crash of 2008. She enrolled at the University of South Florida and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in Women’s and Gender Studies.
After that, Donna says, “I found myself working for nonprofits for the first time. I accepted a job at the Helen Gordon Davis Center for Women as director of the Women’s Business Center in Hyde Park, where I worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs at all levels of experience and with a variety of needs — from writing business plans and building financial projections to accessing capital. That’s where the Tampa City Ballet found me.” Both nonprofits also extended Donna’s skills with grant writing, reporting and building relationships with community stakeholders and corporate partners, as well as with city, county, state and federal funding authorities.
She adds that since then, she has served, “a lot of female entrepreneurs, helping them either launch or with their business. But, my focus was on finance and accounting, and that was sort of my specialty, helping people build business plans, financial statements and projections.”
A Diverse Range Of Experience
She brings all of that experience with her to The Middle Place, “and I’ve been really lucky because I have a wide variety of clients. Some are in for-profit industries, some are nonprofit. I also work with a law firm and some retail companies.”
Donna says she provides a professional level of service that goes beyond just bookkeeping.
“I focus a lot on software implementation,” she says. “One nonprofit contract [I have] right now was implementing seven different unique technology stacks for them, and implementing Quickbooks Online and payroll and basically automating their entire organization.”
Originally from Chicago, Donna moved to the Tampa Bay area in the 1980s. She grew up as an aspiring young dancer, “but I had a very practical father who said, ‘If you break your leg, you need to have a backup.’ So as a teenager, she started out in business administration and, at age 19, as a legal secretary at a law firm in Clearwater.
While her extensive professional career was focused on accounting, IT, project and nonprofit management, Donna continued to study and dance with a local Tampa dance company and also performed with the Cayman Islands National Dance Company, where she also taught ballet and Gyrokinesis, a movement therapy specifically designed for dancers. After returning to Florida, she taught at the Patel Conservatory for Next Generation Ballet summer program.
Donna was thrilled when Paula Nuñez approached her needing help for the Tampa City Ballet. “I thought, ‘This is a perfect opportunity to work in an industry I love and provide my business expertise to help TCB grow and to help professional dancers in Tampa,’” she says.
She also works with Diaz Shafer, P.A. an immigration law firm in Tampa that was on Quickbooks Desktop but wanted to switch to Quickbooks Online, “so I did that for them.”
Donna also has done contract work for Davis College in Rwanda, Africa, as well as for Drong Ngur Jangchubling, a Tibetan Buddhist Center in Wesley Chapel, and Skate Park of Tampa: She’s also the Board treasurer of Dance Tampa Bay, led by Shana Corrada, E.D.
Donna provides full-service monthly accounting services for businesses of all sizes and industries, including payroll, sales tax filing and software integrations. “A lot of clients first come to me to handle their bookkeeping,” Donna says, “But I also do software implementation, financial projections and can help you grow your business by offering financial advice from a unique perspective. For more info, call (813) 391-6890 or visit TheMiddlePlace.com.—GN
Celly De Freitas Of Clean-It!
Photos by Charmaine George
Clean-it owner Celly de Freitas has been cleaning homes and businesses in the New Tampa, Wesley Chapel and surrounding areas for the last 26 years.
But, she says, that wasn’t always the plan. She was a teacher in her native country of Brazil and planned to continue that career when Celly and her husband, Rogério Buchner de Freitas, moved to the Tampa Bay area, “but it was very hard for me to go to college (USF) here, because I didn’t speak English as well then as I do now,” she says. “I ended up leaving USF to go to school for the skin care business.”
In order to help pay for that schooling, she started cleaning houses and, even though she did end up opening a skincare spa, “I was making a lot more money cleaning houses, so I let the spa go after about two years,” Celly (above left) says.
Today, not only does this Wesley Chapel resident speak and understand English (as well as Spanish, Italian and her native Portuguese) fluently — despite still having a fairly thick accent — she has a team of twelve Brazilian women working with her, all of whom also speak and understand English, Spanish and Portuguese.
“I tell everyone who works for me that they have to be able to communicate with clients in English,” Celly says. “You have to be able to understand what the clients want and do whatever they ask when it comes to cleaning their homes.”
She says she usually uses a “team” approach, sending at least two and sometimes three members of her team to each job. “It’s much more efficient this way,” she says. “We can clean a lot more places when we work together.”
Celly, who has been an American citizen for about 20 years, isn’t usually actually working with the teams — she’s the one coordinating the schedules and checking up on all of her employees to make sure they are getting to each location on time (and calling or texting the clients when one of “my girls” is running late). “But, when I have someone out sick or they’re stuck someplace, I will still go and help out,” she says. “And, I try to be as flexible as possible when a client needs to change their schedule, too.”
The Covid-19 pandemic definitely took a toll on Celly’s business, but says she was able to survive because she received a PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loan from the government, “and continued to pay all of my employees who didn’t go back to Brazil, even though they weren’t able to work for several months. Without that money, I might have lost all of my clients.”
Clean-it offers (and is licensed to provide) residential and commercial (“We are licensed to do medical and dental clinics, but not hospitals,” Celly says) cleaning services, including monthly, bi-weekly and weekly services, one-time cleans and move-in and move-out cleans. “We have amazing references, too.,” she says.
Most of Clean-it’s clients are in Wesley Chapel, New Tampa, Lutz and Land O’Lakes, she says, “but we do travel a little further for some clients, especially those one-time cleaning clients.”
She adds, “We really specialize in those move-in cleans. We usually end up getting the [new homeowners] as clients because we do such a great job.”
For more information about Clean-it and/or a free job quote, call (813) 505-0431. — GN
“I began this journey, to create a new brand for Hilton, a year-and-a-half ago,” says James King, the Executive Chef at Che Vita, the new Italian restaurant in the Hilton Tampa Downtown. “Che (pronounced “Kay”) Vita means ‘What a Life!’ in Italian and we want everyone who eats here to say ‘Che Vita!’ when they finish their meal!”
King, who spent the last four years at the Hilton by Logan Airport in Boston, running Connolly’s Publik House, an Irish pub, also earned certifications in French cuisine, at Le Cordon Bleu, and multiple Master certifications in Italian cooking — including pizzas and pastas — during his training in Naples, Florence and Rome.
“But I’m a New York kid,” he says. “I grew up in Brooklyn on New York-style pizza and Italian cooking, but I went to a wedding in Puerto Rico and got bit by the palm tree ‘bug,’ because I was tired of snow. So, when this opportunity came up in Tampa, I said, ‘I never heard of Tampa, I’ve only heard of Miami.’ But, I came down here and this restaurant was an American fusion place with a big buffet. But, after the pandemic, buffets weren’t as popular anymore. So, I came up with a small, seasonal menu that we will change maybe six times per year.”
That menu, designed by Chef King (at left in top photo) and his equally amazing sous chef Fabio Zaniboni (at right in same picture) has a mix of Italian favorites and local seafood, with Antipasti (appetizers) like arancini (risotto balls with a cacio e pepe sauce fried inside and served with a lemon pesto aioli; photo right), zucchini & artichoke fritti, calamari and polpette (beef, pork & veal meatballs), as well as my favorite starter of the evening, the ahi tuna crudo (below photo), which is thick slices of raw sushi-grade tuna with a chili aioli, saba (or sweet grape must) and soy glaze, caperberries, bottarga (a Mediterranean roe) and microgarden herbs. It was slightly spicy and amazing.
“I love combining all of my influences and the crudo will give you an experience like a great Japanese restaurant,” Chef King says.
The polpettes (left) and arancini were no slouches, either, especially the meatballs, which were tender, delicately spiced and had just the right amount of tomato sugo (similar to marinara) on creamy burrata.
“I needed a sous chef like Fabio, who is from Italy, but came here from St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands after one of the hurricanes last year closed the yacht club where he was working,” Chef King says. “He told me, ‘I’m your Italian chef, but I don’t want to cook Italian. I love sushi, I love fish. I love Latin.’ I said, ‘You’re hired,’ without even tasting his food, because we shared the same vision for Che Vita. He’s like my brother from another mother when it comes to Italian cuisine.”
Jannah and I didn’t sample any of the “Zuppe & Insalata,” but they include a baby kale Caesar, a tomato & mozzarella salad and a cannellini bean and Tuscan kale soup with garlic fennel sausage, ditalini pasta, sofrito and herb brodo (broth), as well as a chilled tomato freddo soup.
It was super-hard to decide on our “Primi” or pasta dish, but we wanted something different, so we tried the agnolotti blue crab (right), which is a delicious stuffed pasta (different from ravioli) from the Piedmont region of Italy. It was fully stuffed with blue crab, lemon-basil artisan ricotta and served with crispy parmesan in a Tampa citrus gremolata (a green sauce made with chopped parsley, lemon zest and garlic). The pasta was al dente and the crab and ricotta combined with the lemon and garlic perfectly.
Other pastas on the menu include rigatoni salsiccia (with spicy sausage and broccoli rabe), which I will definitely try on my next visit, shrimp scampi, a tagliatelle tre pomodori, which is served with three different kinds of tomato sauce, a primavera and, of course, spaghetti & meatballs.
Chef King insisted that we try one of his Neapolitan-style pizzas, because he says he uses the same Italian wheat that you can’t get at most places serving Neapolitan (wood-fired) pizzas here. “If you love a Margherita pizza (left), we use that beautiful dough, San Marzano tomatoes, authentic mozzarella di Buffala and basil…Italians don’t eat pizza by folding it. They eat it with a knife and fork. The crust blisters and is crisp on the outside, but is fluffy soft on the inside.”
The Margherita pizza was excellent and there are plenty of other pizza options to try, including the Rossa Moderna, with San Marzano tomatoes, Calabrian chili oil, oregano and beekeeper’s honey that Chef King says he produces in his own bee hives. There’s also Romana style (with ricotta, mozzarella, cracked peppercorns, lemon and arugula); Capricciosa (with pomodoro, artichoke hearts, olives, exotic mushrooms and Parma ham); and Diavola (house-made spicy Italian sausage, Calabrese salami, crushed tomato sauce, Fior di Latte cheese, chili oil and oregano) pizzas on the menu.
Despite already being full, Chef King said we also had to try at least one of the “Secondi” (or main course) dishes on the menu. We had steak the night before, so we stayed away from both the Steak Tagliata (grilled & shaved Ocala Ranch tenderloin with crispy rosemary potato spears, arugula, parmigiana, lemon and aged balsamic) and the NYC-Style Strip Steak. If we weren’t so stuffed, we probably would have ordered the chicken parmesan, but instead, we opted for the one fish entrée — the Acqua Pazza, although Chef King modified it for use because it is supposed to be a spicy “fumetto di pesce” served with gulf shrimp, mussels and clams, as well as the local catch of the day, with Calabrian chili oil, crisp fingerling potatoes, blistered tomatoes, Tuscan kale and house-made biga focaccia bread. But, because (as you readers know) I’m allergic to the to the shrimp and mussels, Chef King had Fabio prepare the dish with just the fresh catch — a huge filet of grouper — sitting atop just those yummy side dishes in that delectable broth (above right). The Acqua Pazza was a perfectly grilled piece of fish and a spectacular dish. The biga focaccia was crispy, with an authentically airy interior, and was perfect for mopping up the broth. Now, we thought for sure we were done.
“But of course, you must also have dessert,” Fabio said as he poured Jannah an Aperol spritz, and it’s really hard to say no to him or Chef King, so we each ordered a dessert — just to sample, of course. Yeah, right.
Jannah got a scoop of raspberry sorbet (one of her favorites) and I got the house-made tiramisu semifreddo (below). It fills a huge cup with espresso martini-soaked ladyfingers with rich marscarpone cream and is topped with powdered chocolate and chocolate-covered coffee beans. I love a good tiramisu and this was a great one.
Of course, it was hard to not also sample the triple (dark, white & milk) chocolate mousse layered over Genoise sponge cake with chocolate fudge and biscotti crostini, or the cannolo with Nutella & ricotta mousse, luxardo cherries, pistachio crumbs and Chantilly cream. There’s also an olive oil cake, lemon thyme sorbetto (house-crafted lemon-thyme sorbet served in a frosted lemon cup with a shot of Limoncello liqueur), multiple other sorbets and four different gelato flavors (chocolate, vanilla bean, pistachio and salted caramel). Decadence.
Che Vita also features a full premium liquor cocktail list, with two Negroni cocktails, a Limoncello martini and three kinds of spritzes, including the Naples spritz Jannah started her meal with (which is Riondo prosecco, with Limoncello and St. Germain liqueurs, plus club soda).
There also is a nice selection of red, white, rosé and sparkling wines by the glass and bottle, including the Maggiolo Lamole di Lamole Chianti Classico Sangiovese I started my meal with a glass of, as well as Italian and other imported, domestic and craft beers, hard seltzers and more.
And, although Che Vita is open for breakfast (there’s even a breakfast buffet), Chef King says the breakfast crew is separate from his dinner line cooks, because, “Che Vita isn’t a hotel restaurant,” he says, “it’s its own thing. It’s Che Vita!”
The lunch menu has many of the same Antipasti, Zuppe & Insalata and Pizzas as the dinner menu, but also offers a nice variety of panini sandwiches, including a grilled chicken pesto, a parma panino (with prosciutto, sopressata, mozzarella, provolone, arugula, sundried tomato pesto and a pepperoncini remoulade), “The Local” (fried or blackened grouper), a caprese panini and two different burgers — all served with parmesan herb fries (or enhance with truffle fries for $6 additional or a side salad for $2 more).
“For me, it’s about the three Fs — family, food & futbol (soccer),” Chef King says.
All I can say is: What a meal! What a chef! What a place! What a life!
Che Vita is located inside the downtown Tampa Hilton (211 N. Tampa St.) and is open every day for breakfast, lunch & dinner. For reservations and more info, call (813) 222-4975 or visit CheVitaTampa.com — and please tell them I sent you!
