Caffé Paradiso — Restaurant in Tampa

EXCEPTIONAL!!!! All around outstanding in every way possible. No wonder this place was voted the best Italian Cuisine in Tampa! I would say, “The BEST Italian Cuisine.” …… of anywhere! Upon entering, we could smell the fresh basil from the sidewalk! We ordered the Calamari Fritti for an appetizer. It was the most tender, best tasting Calamari I’ve had yet. For the main course I had the lump crab meat with pasta and they do NOT skimp on the crab meat!!! It was so tender and moist, so fresh and deliciously sweet. The marinara is PERFECT and you can tell it’s made with fresh tomatoes and basil. It was heaven in my mouth. My boyfriend got the Rosemary Chicken with vegetable medley. The Rosemary is fresh and fragrant and the veggies are FRESH, NOT frozen and steamed!!!! Next, we indulged in the limoncello cake for dessert. Also heaven in my mouth. Perfectly soaked, perfectly balanced and perfectly creamy. After that, we had an espresso and an espresso martini! The espresso was VERY dark and strong, just what is needed after a heavy meal. The espresso Martini was slightly bitter and slightly sweet. Perfection in everything. I don’t think words can express the experience that the food gave me. This place is SUPER affordable for the quality of food! The waiter was outstanding and attentive. He even scraped off the crumbs on our table. Your water is always topped off, and never a dirty dish left on the table! I LOVE how the managers (notice how it’s plural) are always walking around interacting with the guests and helping with the tables. You can tell the employees work as a team here. We will be back with ALL of...

First time going here after wanting to try all the different italian places in Tampa, and to be honest this one fell short of the others. We started with the complimentary bread (not even worth eating), along with the calamari and the buffalo burata, both of which were excellent.

But then came the main courses, we got the lasagna and a pasta with broccoli and chicken. The lasagna sauce was nothing special and there wasn't a lot of beef, and the other pasta dish was just caked in olive oil and butter. Will say the noddles were cooked great but outside of that wouldn't reccomend.

The service itself was nice, but definitely got the vibe that if you weren't a regular you weren't going to get the class A treatment (our waiter acted so much friendlier to guests he knew versus us). This is definitely an older school spot, and the people that come here reflect this.

All in all, food was good enough to eat but won't be coming back given the plethora of other options we have...

The food, wine, etc. was delicious, no complaints there. It was the service that I was bothered by, that kind of ruined our experience. First, the runner brought bread, great, but where was the butter?? We poured our own olive oil to dip it I'm, but there were no herbs, etc. The waiter came, took drink orders and brought them, said he would be back to give us specials. We heard him visit surrounding tables, giving them the specials, but not us. 25 min later, a runner tried to deliver us someone else's food, and I said "no, we haven't gotten the chance to order, but can you please send our waiter over ?" Let's just say he didn't earn a full tip. He didn't apologize, just acted very standoffish, as if we were second class citizens, which we were dresses nice. We decided not to stay for dessert and went to cheesecake...