Italian – The Saboscrivner

Il Pescatore

Il Pescatore (https://ilpescatoreonline.com/) is an old-school Italian restaurant in Orlando’s Milk District, nestled between Vietnamese restaurants Pho Vinh and Pho Hoa on Primrose Drive, directly south of East Colonial Drive. Se7en Bites and Smoke & Donuts BBQ are just past it, too. The Milk District is full of treasured restaurants, and Il Pescatore turned out to be one more. It’s not new, and many Orlando locals probably know it already, but it’s still relatively new to me, okay?

I honestly don’t go out for Italian food very often anymore (excluding pizza and my beloved Italian subs), since I make myself multiple salads a week at home and work wonders with pasta. But my first visit to Il Pescatore two years ago was kind of a treat, and also an emotional milestone, because two valued co-workers and great friends took me to lunch there on my last day of a job I had held for 15 years. Even though I worked close to the Milk District for that many years, I had never gone to Il Pescatore before, because I thought it was a fancy, upscale restaurant, and those are usually not my thing. I was wrong! It was cozy, comfortable, and welcoming, and the food was super-solid.

This was my side salad, with fresh, crunchy iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, a bit of shredded red cabbage, and an excellent house-made vinaigrette dressing that really stood out.

One of my colleagues ordered the tri-color salad with romaine lettuce, tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella, topped with the same house dressing.

Another colleague ordered this Greek salad, with mixed greens, feta cheese, kalamata olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, whole pepperoncini peppers, red onions, and that incredible house dressing.

I did not try this funghetti al ‘aglio, mushrooms sautéed in olive oil-based garlic sauce, but my colleagues seemed to really enjoy it.

This was good ol’ bruschetta, a crowd-pleasing classic, with tomatoes, garlic, and herbs tossed in olive oil and served over toasted Italian bread. We all dug into this appetizer and enjoyed it.

This was my colleague’s calzone, which would have been stuffed with ricotta cheese and mozzarella. Like the lasagna, you can’t go wrong with something like this! By the way, Il Pescatore’s red sauce slaps. You can tell they make it fresh in house and aren’t just opening some industrial food service can.

I ordered this baked lasagna from the lunch menu, and while I wish I remembered it better after two years, I’m sure it was great, as anything smothered and baked in red sauce and mozzarella cheese would be. Lasagna is one of my favorite dishes of all time, but I make such an amazing version myself (especially in the winter), I rarely order it at restaurants. Once in a while, I make an exception, and I’m sure I chose wisely here.

This combo sub was definitely mine too: ham, genoa salami, capicola, provolone cheese, shredded iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, and more of that house vinaigrette on a nice, soft roll, served cold. I have a hard time passing up an Italian sub, and while this one wasn’t the biggest or the best of all time, it definitely hit the spot.

I didn’t order the tiramisu, but my colleague/mentor/friend was kind enough to offer me a taste. It’s a wonderful dessert I rarely partake in but always enjoy whenever I do: an architectural marvel of lady finger cookies layered with mascarpone cheese and espresso.

I returned to Il Pescatore this past week with the same two now-former co-workers, along with a third. Of the four of us, only one person is still at the old workplace. I think the world of these people, and I am so glad we have kept in touch. The last time we got together to catch up over a meal, earlier this year, we also ended up at an Italian restaurant, Terralina Crafted Italian at Disney Springs. This time, it was a lot closer to people’s work and home (and for me, they are one in the same).

I ordered an appetizer of fried smelts, hoping to share them with the group, but my one male colleague had one, the two ladies wanted absolutely nothing to do with them, and I enjoyed the rest. I am a huge sardine eater, so finding small fried fish like sardines and smelts at restaurants is a rare treat. Olympia Greek Restaurant used to have good ones, but it closed years ago. These were very good, especially dunked in Il Pescatore’s wonderful red sauce.

My vegetarian colleague ordered this lovely pizza bianco, a white pizza topped with mozzarella and ricotta cheeses, sliced tomatoes, crushed garlic, and fresh basil. I thought she ordered the 12″, but it seemed a lot bigger than that.

Someone got the chicken parmesan with linguini, which looked like a HUGE portion:

And someone else got the similar-looking eggplant parmesan, also with linguini:

Since I studied the menu over the two years since my first visit, I learned about a dish on Il Pescatore’s dinner menu called tortellini di Stefano. It sounded so perfect, but it isn’t on the lunch menu. Luckily, when I mentioned it to our server, she told me they could still make it, but there wasn’t a more moderately priced lunch portion. Hey, that was fine with me! It was really satisfying and different enough from the pasta dishes I make at home that I felt like I made the best possible choice. It arrived with a melty, oven-baked layer of provolone (not mozzarella!) cheese, and I do love provolone.

After folding in the cheese, you can get a better idea of what the dish looks like beneath. The tortellini pasta was in a “creamy meat sauce with a touch of prosciutto,” almost like a cross between a creamier Bolognese meat sauce and a vodka sauce. And prosciutto is one of my favorite foods — not just meats, but foods in general. I shook some red pepper flakes onto the pasta to add a bit of heat. They aren’t just for pizza anymore! This tortellini di Stefano wowed me. I would totally order it again whenever I return to Il Pescatore, and hopefully that won’t take me two more years.

“Red sauce” Italian is pure comfort food for me. My family used to go to Anthony’s Pizzeria in Kendall throughout the ’80s and into the mid-’90s, and when it closed, they switched to getting takeout from The Big Cheese, a South Miami/Coral Gables institution. I love a good bowl of pasta in red sauce, which sometimes I make from scratch and sometimes I leave to the experts (Rao’s). When I’m stressed or depressed (which happens a lot, surprise surprise), pasta and a good salad and some bread help get me through, and when I’m feeling celebratory, relaxed, and relieved, the same meal sounds just as good then.

After trying the humble but excellent food at Il Pescatore twice now, I know they have a lot more interesting options than the same pasta and sauce I can easily make myself at home. The tortellini de Stefano was a dynamic dish, but next time, I might try the linguini scungilli, with conch in a garlic tomato sauce. If I’m feeling flush, I might treat myself to the zuppa di mare Trapanese, a Sicilian seafood platter with shrimp, mussels, calamari, clams, and snapper, all simmered in tomato sauce. Maybe I’ll just get the eggplant parm like my colleague ordered this week, since my attempts at eggplant parm at home never come out well. I know Il Pescatore won’t let me down! They haven’t so far.

Bites and Bubbles

Bites and Bubbles (https://www.bitesbubbles.com/), located in the Mills Park shopping area at 1618 North Mills Avenue in Orlando, serves contemporary American cuisine with European flair. You might detect a slight French accent (hon hon hon). It is located right next door to Yamasan, a Japanese restaurant my wife and I loved when we discovered it this past summer. Now we have two new favorites next door to each other!

Bites and Bubbles is owned and operated by Eddie Nickell and Nicholas Olivieri, two restauranteurs who have had other successes around Orlando over the years. My wife and I had dined at two of their past restaurants, Prickly Pear (a Southwestern concept in downtown Orlando, bringing a much-needed and now much-missed cuisine to town) and Bananas (a diner that was the previous tenant of the current King Cajun Crawfish space in the Mills 50 neighborhood), and I always liked them. We never made it to Funky Monkey or Nick’s Italian Kitchen, but those were their places as well, and some of my readers may share fond memories from all of their spots. But it seems like Bites and Bubbles has been Nick and Eddie’s greatest hit so far, and now I see exactly why. The menu is incredible, and the service was impeccable.

I had been wanting to come here for several years, but because it is not open for lunch or on Sundays, I work late during the week, and my wife and I rarely go out to dinner (believe it or not), it felt like the universe was conspiring to keep us away. But finally, with about a week left in Orlando’s annual Magical Dining promotion, we made it for dinner on a weeknight and were able to snag a reservation for a comfortable table indoors. They also have a covered outdoor patio and rooftop seating that must be lovely in the winter, but it was still too muggy in September, and it also looked like rain.

For those who are unfamiliar, Magical Dining comes around every September, when some of the nicest restaurants in and around Orlando offer a special prix fixe menu where you choose an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert (from a list of three or four of each) for either $40 or $60, and some of the bill goes to support a different charity every year. This year, the charity is the REED Charitable Foundation, which promotes children’s literacy, specifically reading instruction and educator training. As if we weren’t already on board with the concept, I’m a librarian, and my wife, Doctor Professor Ma’am, is a college professor, so the cause is near and dear to our hearts. I’m so glad all these restaurants are helping.

And on top of the charitable donations, Magical Dining is a perfect opportunity to try new restaurants that tend to be more on the upscale side (which we rarely go to), and to sample more dishes than you normally might. Bites and Bubbles offers a $40 menu, which was definitely easier to swallow than the $60 options elsewhere, and it included most of the decadent dishes on their regular menu. That’s an offer we could no longer refuse, so it was the ideal time to finally visit.

The interior is a beautiful space with sexy decor, blending baroque and modern styles. There are plenty of red accents to break up the darker colors, and here in late September, they have put up some tasteful Halloween decorations (note the skull on the bar below). There are no booths, but we were seated at a table with comfortable chairs.

They offer a huge wine list (I believe curated by Nick), lots of beers, and a vast selection of cocktails with clever names. My wife is always happy to see mocktails available, so she ordered this drink called a gingerberry fizz that was spicy ginger beer (non-alcoholic, natch) mixed with cranberry juice and garnished with a slice of lime. She liked it, and it sounded really refreshing. She hates spicy food, but loves really spicy ginger beer. That stuff is nothing like the ginger ale people drink on airplanes!

Our server Julian dropped off the first of many special surprises of the evening: an unexpected appetizer featuring house-made pimento cheese (always a favorite of mine) topped with jammy roasted tomatoes in one bowl, some vegetables in another bowl (fresh carrots, marinated gigante beans, pickled okra, fresh and crunchy carrots, and a slice of grilled eggplant), and some toasted baguette slices and water crackers for spreading and dipping. I didn’t even know this was an option, and it definitely wasn’t part of the Magical Dining menu! Note the whimsical Halloween-inspired three-bowl setup, too.

My wife loves winter root vegetables, so she was very tempted by the butternut squash bisque, even though it wasn’t one of the Magical Dining options. Since we are a fun couple who know how to party, she went for it. The bisque was thick, rich, creamy, savory, and slightly sweet, and that is whipped cream and some toasted pepitas in the center. It was a perfect soup for the fall (by which I mean the season, but it would also be a comforting soup to take the edge off the end of civilization).

For her Magical Dining appetizer, she chose the escargot, which I would have definitely ordered if she didn’t. It was a generous portion of gastropods for this pair of gastronomes, and it was so nice that they were all removed from shells and resting in the thick, savory brandy mustard crème sauce. (The three shells were strictly decorative, but including the shells is de rigueur for serving escargot, whether you have to dig them out of the shells or not.) For those who haven’t tried escargot, yes, they are snails. They are traditionally served in garlic and butter, so they taste like garlic and butter, but these had an interesting flavor, both earthy and ocean-y, plus what they picked up from the sauce. They have the consistency of mushrooms, a little firmer and chewier than tinned oysters or mussels. Did I use that nice toasted bread to soak up all the brandy mustard crème sauce? You better believe it.

My Bites and Bubbles-obsessed friend had told me you could order a second appetizer for Magical Dining instead of a dessert, and our wonderful server Julian confirmed that. I would have loved to try all four of the apps, but we made out like bandits, being able to get three of the four.

This app is their fried goat cheese, which is a large, round patty covered with crispy, golden-brown panko bread crumb and almond breading. The inside was equal parts creamy and funky, like goat cheese should be. It was served on a toasted baguette slice, topped with more of those terrific roasted tomatoes, and served with the most delicious fruit salsa, blackberries, fresh basil leaves, and the first fresh figs I’ve had all year. It was a wonderful combination of sweet, savory, tangy, creamy, crunchy, soft, and sticky, and it was plated like a work of art. The presentation made me think of the gorgeous dishes food stylist Janice Poon created for the Hannibal TV series, so artful and beguiling even when they were macabre (although this app was anything but macabre).

This was my second app, another beautiful tableau: house-made pork liver paté that was savory and salty and not a uniformly smooth texture throughout, so it was a fun experience spreading it on the toasted baguette slices and water crackers and dipping it in the grainy mustard. (I am truly, literally obsessed with mustard, so I really should have gotten the name of that mustard they used or found out if it was made in house.) Like the goat cheese app, this one came with so many accoutrements to make each bite a unique pleasure of tastes and textures: the bread and water crackers, the mustard, house-made cornichons, marinated gigante beans, drops of balsamic glaze, more fresh figs (that paired perfectly with the balsamic glaze), a sprig of fresh dill, and my favorite of all, the balsamic-marinated, grilled cipollini onions at 11 and 3 o’clock. I’ve only ever seen them in the olive bar at Whole Foods, where they are very expensive, but I could eat those like candy. As much as I love the things that go onto a charcuterie board, I never order them when I’m out at a restaurant. I’d rather snack on all that stuff at home, and then I always get the thought “Why should I put this on a board when I can put it on bread, which is an edible board?” And then I recreate THE SANDWICH. But this pristine pork paté plating restored my faith in charcuterie boards.

With four entrees to choose from, my wife went with the duck confit, a classic French recipe for preparing a duck leg quarter (including the thigh) by curing it with salt and herbs, then slow-roasting it in its own rendered fat. I tried duck confit for my first time earlier this year at a legendary Los Angeles restaurant I haven’t reviewed yet, and I think this was my wife’s first time. However, never content to do things the easy or expected way, Bites and Bubbles served their duck confit like an upscale take on a classic Thanksgiving dinner, with country cranberry stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes, cranberry relish, and duck gravy with diced carrots, served with haricots verts on the side (that’s green beans for you non-Francophiles).

She loved it! She typically doesn’t like things covered with gravy or any kind of sauce, but she ended up loving the rich duck gravy they used. She normally doesn’t like Thanksgiving stuffing either, but she said that was her favorite part! She was also pleasantly surprised that the mashed potatoes turned out to be mashed sweet potatoes, which she greatly prefers.

As for me, I was tempted by all the entrees. I might have chosen the classic French dish beef bourguignon, which is canonically Superman’s favorite meal in DC Comics (although he likes his with ketchup because he is still that farm boy from Smallville, Kansas). Unfortunately, that dish includes mushrooms, which, much like Kryptonite is for Superman, are my personal Kryptonite.

So instead I chose one of my favorite meals, a braised lamb shank. This is one of my favorite things to eat in the world, and I love ordering them at Turkish and Greek restaurants. In fact, I love braised lamb shanks so much that I learned how to make my own in a rich, thick sauce of crushed tomatoes, onions, roasted red bell peppers, and hot cherry peppers. My sauce takes on so much rich lamb fat, and it makes a perfect pasta sauce that lasts for days after all the meat is gone. I usually braise mine for five to six hours until the meat is literally melting off the bone, but I could tell this lamb shank wasn’t cooked quite as long, since it held its form better, clinging to the bone. It was tender and unctuous in its own tomato broth, and I tasted cumin as the main flavor in there. it was served on a bed of mashed potatoes (not mashed sweet potatoes this time), with haricots verts and fresh dill on top, and it was lovely. I ate most of this dish at home the following day, since another distraction arrived at the same time.

One Bites and Bubbles specialty I’ve been hearing about for years is their duck fat-infused burger, and even with all our other delicious food, it was such an ordeal to finally make it there for dinner, we couldn’t leave without sharing it. I’m so glad we did. It consists of two smash-style patties cooked in duck fat, shredded lettuce, a tomato slice, thin-sliced pickles, and house sauce on a soft and fluffy brioche bun. It also comes with Swiss cheese, but my wife doesn’t like cheese on burgers, so Julian brought the two slices of Swiss on the side for me. In fact, she doesn’t like dressed burgers or buns, so I slid the bottom patty out for her, threw the cheese on the other patty, and ate the burger in the form of an actual burger, as intended. It was like a fancy version of a Big Mac, especially with the flavor of the lettuce, pickles, and tangy sauce that was reminiscent of McDonald’s “special sauce.” Of course, long time Saboscrivner subscribers should remember that McDonald’s totally ripped off their Big Mac from the Original Double-Deck burger, the most popular burger from legendary Los Angeles-area diner Bob’s Big Boy, which was once a national chain.Even though I like ketchup on burgers, I didn’t add any, because I wanted to taste the meat and the combination of Chef Eddie’s intended flavors without the strong flavor of ketchup horning in. The fries were a $4.99 upcharge, but so worth it. They were Sidewinder fries, which are among my favorite fries due to their crispy, crunchy outer layer. We were too full to mess with them, but they crisped back up just fine in our toaster oven today.

My wife is much more of a dessert person than I, but I made my choice to go with two apps instead. Nothing would sway her from the chocolate fudge layer cake, drizzled with chocolate sauce and topped with a dollop of whipped cream, a buttery, shortbread-like cookie, and a Pirouline rolled wafer cookie filled with chocolate or hazelnut spread. Like everything else in this glorious epic dinner, the presentation was stunning, and she said the cake itself was superb. She brought about half of it home and said it was even better — even more moist — after a night in the fridge!

And this is when Bites and Bubbles outdid themselves again, bringing out a second dessert that wasn’t even one of the Magical Dining options: their pistachio gelato affogato. We never saw it coming and didn’t ask for it, so it was the most pleasant of surprises: scoops of pistachio gelato, mini bombolini (like little Italian doughnut holes filled with custard), crushed pistachios, more of the buttery shortbread-like cookies and Piroulines, and dollops of whipped cream. It was an affogato because it came with a shot of espresso we were supposed to pour over it, but my wife never drinks coffee after 3 PM, or it will literally keep her up all night, which means we would both be up all night. Instead of pouring the espresso over this lavish, decadent dessert to make it a true affogato, I dunked the bombolini and cookies in the tiny metal cup of espresso to make my own wee, personal affogato.

I can’t get over the incredible food at Bites and Bubbles, the artful presentations, the intimate setting. But I have to rave about the service even more. Julian was one of the kindest, most knowledgeable, most patient servers we’ve ever encountered in Orlando, and Nick and Eddie were the hosts with the most. They came to our table to personally check on us and did everything in their power to give us one of the nicest dinner dates we’ve ever had, anywhere.

Have you ever seen Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese’s 1990 masterpiece when Henry Hill (the late Ray Liotta) takes his girlfriend Karen (Lorraine Bracco) on an extravagant date to the Copacabana nightclub, and a long, uncut tracking shot follows them from the kitchen entrance through the bustling restaurant, where everyone is being so nice to them, moving a table right up in front of the stage, doing everything they can to give them an unforgettable, glamorous experience? Well, that’s how I felt, taking my wife to Bites and Bubbles for the first time. I don’t think I’m a particularly cool guy, and I always say that I’m no influencer, nor do I want to be. But they made us feel so welcome and so special, like a couple of big shots, and I’m pretty sure that anyone who dines at Bites and Bubbles, whether Magical Dining is going on or not, will get that kind of warm reception. I can’t recommend it highly enough or rave enough about this dinner we enjoyed there.

Of course, we returned home with enough leftovers for a few more meals because we went a little wild there, but now that we’ve experienced Bites and Bubbles, I have no doubt we’ll return, and hopefully sooner rather than later. If you have a hot date, friends in from out of town, dinner with parents (who actually like trying new things, unlike our parents), or something to celebrate, this is probably one of the best restaurants in Orlando for a special occasion dinner to commemorate something like that. Ask for Julian, and leave yourself in Eddie and Nick’s capable hands. They will treat you right!

Bari Italian Subs, D’Amato Bakery and Subs, and J.P. Graziano Grocery: An Italian Sub Tour of Chicago

Everyone associates certain foods with Chicago: deep-dish pizza (even though I like thin-crust tavern-style pizza better than those casseroles), Vienna beef hot dogs on poppyseed buns “dragged through the garden,” and Italian beef sandwiches dipped in au jus and topped with spicy giardiniera.

But Chicago has a lot of old-school Italian grocery stores, delis, and bakeries, so when I went there for two separate work trips over the summer of 2022, I researched what sounded like three local favorites and made a plan to sample Italian subs from each of them, in a little feature I like to call “Dare to Compare.”

The first two were easy. Bari Italian Subs (opened in 1973), a great little Italian grocery store where you order subs at a deli counter in the back, and D’Amato’s Bakery and Subs (opened in 1970), were literally next door to each other, so that was convenient. I hit them back to back and ordered my subs to go, since neither had any tables for dining in. When I had some free time the next day, I took a Lyft ride to visit a third location, J.P. Graziano Grocery (opened in 1937) in the foodie-heaven neighborhood known as the West Loop, but it was closed for renovations. Noooooooo! (But relax, constant readers; a happy ending awaits.)

My first stop was D’Amato’s Bakery and Subs (https://damatoschicago.com/), where I ignored the glass cases full of tempting pastries and ordered a 9″ Italian sub ($9) with Genoa salami, mild capicola, mortadella, provolone, lettuce, tomato, oil, Italian seasoning, and hot giardiniera, a relish of chopped onions, celery, carrots, cauliflower, peppers, herbs, and spices, marinated in olive oil and vinegar.

I would have asked them to go harder on the giardiniera, but I had no idea. Being a bakery, D’Amato’s sub roll was soft and fresh, and my sub tasted even better marinating in its butcher paper wrapper for a while before I got to enjoy it back in my hotel room.

The 9″ Italian sub I got at Bari Italian Subs (https://www.bariitaliansubs.com/) next door was also $9. It contained capicola ham, Genoa salami, mortadella, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and Bari’s house-made hot giardiniera, a great twist on the standard pickled banana peppers, jalapeños, or hot cherry peppers that standard sub shops provide. I believe Bari Foods even uses the rolls baked next door at D’Amato Bakery!

Once again, they went lighter on the giardiniera than I would have liked. Was it still a killer sandwich? Absolutely, yes. Due to the ingredients alone, I think it barely edged out D’Amato Bakery’s similar version, although both were very good.

I also got a container of macaroni salad at Bari Foods that I enjoyed back in my hotel room with both subs. In fact, I don’t know if anyone else ever enjoyed two subs in a hotel room as much as I did. Maybe a dom somewhere. Don’t worry — I got two meals out of the two sandwiches and this eight-ounce container.

As I said earlier, when I discovered J.P. Graziano Grocery was closed for some remodeling, I started wandering the West Loop on foot and accidentally discovered Au Cheval, where I ate what still remains the best cheeseburger of my entire life, three years later.

But on a subsequent trip to Chicago, later that same summer, I returned to J.P. Graziano Grocery (https://jpgraziano.com/) and was relieved to see it had reopened. I ordered a Spicy Italian sub ($12) and a Mr. G sub ($13), knowing I could get at least two meals out of them back in my hotel room.

The Spicy Italian contained hot capicola, hot soppressata, pepperoni, provolone, lettuce, and tomato, with red wine vinegar and oregano. No giardiniera here, sorry, but it would have fit well. It was a pretty terrific version of an Italian sub, especially on the nice, soft roll.

Here’s a peek inside. Pardon the not-great lighting. I had a different phone back then, too.

The Mr. G is the famous house specialty, with hot soppressata, prosciutto di parma, Volpi genoa salami, sharp imported provolone, J.P. Graziano’s own truffle mustard balsamic vinaigrette (ridiculously good), marinated Roman-style artichokes, fresh basil, and lettuce, with hot oil, red wine vinegar, and oregano. As good as the spicy Italian was (and it was), Mr. G was even better.

Lookit dat!

I can’t believe I visited these three iconic Italian sub destinations three years ago, but much more recently, the website The Infatuation listed and ranked the 15 Best Italian Subs in Chicago, and all three of my choices made their list. Earlier this summer, a website called Mashed published their list of The 15 Absolute Best Italian Subs In The US. Since I am an Italian sub connoisseur, I naturally had to check it out, and I’m thrilled to say I have been to four of their 15 picks (so far): the Italian sub at Bari AND the Mr. G at J.P. Graziano Grocery in Chicago (two out of three right here!), the #1 at Mazzaro’s Italian Market in St. Petersburg, Florida, and a Los Angeles classic that I’ll get around to reviewing at some point. I would have expected Mashed to write about potatoes rather than subs, and I don’t love that some of the subs on their list aren’t actual Italian subs with a variety of cured meats, served cold, but other sandwiches from Italian delis with Italian ingredients (chicken cutlets and pepper steak). But despite the lack of consistency on the Mashed list, I’m glad websites like this are shining a well-deserved spotlight on great sandwich shops, and that others agree with me.

The Butcher’s Nook

I first learned about The Butcher’s Nook (https://butchersnook.com/) the same way I learn about a lot of the best places to eat in and around Orlando: from a write-up by my brilliant friend Amy Drew Thompson, the multimedia food reporter for The Orlando Sentinel, our fine local newspaper. Back in January of this year, she wrote a great article about the Mount Dora butcher shop/deli restaurant and its chef-owner Mario Pennaherrera, and I had been wanting to try it ever since. Unfortunately, Mount Dora is over an hour away from me, but Amy Drew mentioned they would be opening a second location at a new food hall opening in Apopka, which is only half an hour away. I’ve been tracking its progress ever since, and it finally announced a soft opening this past Wednesday.

Me being me, I left early enough to beat rush hour traffic heading west on State Road 436, and I was the very first person in line for the soft opening of the Hall’s on 5th food hall in quaint downtown Apopka. The food hall was constructed in a hundred-year-old building that used to be Hall’s Feed Store… and now it’s a place that feeds humans, so that is fitting. The developers really modernized it, adding a bunch of comfortable outdoor tables, light strings that I associate with hipster parties, and even cornhole boards. It is already sweltering in mid-May, and I joked to some ladies who were also waiting outside that at least it isn’t August. But if we all survive until November and December, it will probably be wonderful to dine al fresco at Hall’s on 5th.

When you enter the building, there is a large indoor seating area with regular tables and smaller high-top tables against the wall, as well as a full bar. If you’re used to East End Market, the venerable food hall in Orlando’s Audubon Park neighborhood, having an actual indoor dining space and a bar is a huge upgrade. But then there are six food stalls down a relatively narrow hallway, and when this place gets busy, that hallway is going to be crowded and chaotic. That’s why I made sure to be first — arrive early, order first, grab a seat, escape easily. This is good advice for life in general, not just hip new food halls.

The Butcher’s Nook is the first food stall on the left side of the hallway. After it come Empanada & Co., Soulicious Vegan Kitchen, and Parlor Waffle Kitchen. On the right side, Thrive has a larger space, followed by Hawaiian restaurant Sweet & Salty Island Grindz, which also has a location I visited once at Henry’s Depot, the food hall in downtown Sanford. The Hall’s on 5th website has a page with links to all the other vendors.

I was the first person in line at The Butcher’s Nook, and after briefly studying the menu on the wall, I ordered three sandwiches to go (and technically got three meals out of them!).

This is the Italian Americano, with prosciutto cotto, mortadella, Genoa salami, pepperoni, provolone cheese, shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes, red onions cut paper-thin (the best way to serve onions on a sub or hoagie), and some kind of beguiling vinaigrette on a soft sub roll. I couldn’t resist unrolling this sub and devouring half before leaving the food hall with the rest of my bounty. It is definitely one of the best Italian subs in Orlando.

Here’s a good shot of the other half back at home:

This is the L’Diablo, with prosciutto cotto, hot capocollo, spicy salame Calabrese, n’duja (an awe-inspiring, orangey-red spicy salami spread, kind of like a pâté), smoked provolone cheese, arugula, and Calabrian chili aioli on a ciabatta roll. I love a spicy Italian sandwich, and I’d give this one a 9 out of 10. The only way it could have been better was to be served on the same kind of sub roll as the Italian Americano, because I will always prefer a soft white sub or hoagie roll to ciabatta bread. But credit where credit is due — this ciabatta was softer than many I’ve tried elsewhere.

And this is the Nooky, with prosciutto di Parma, burrata (fresh mozzarella stuffed with stracciatella, or stretched cheese curds, and clotted cream), Grana Padano cheese (a hard cheese similar to parmesan), arugula, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic glaze, and fig jam on the softest, freshest, fluffiest focaccia bread. This was another damn near perfect sandwich, with the saltiness of the prosciutto, the creaminess of the burrata, the one-two punch of sweetness from the balsamic glaze and fig jam, and that incredible focaccia.

I ordered these three sandwiches on purpose, so I could try all three types of bread offered by The Butcher’s Nook, and these contained the best combinations of my favorite ingredients. I later contacted chef-owner Mario Penaherrera on Facebook to ask him which brands of Italian cured meats he uses, and he told me they serve Veroni, Citterio, Leoncini, and The Spotted Trotter — all high-end charcuterie purveyors; no Boar’s Head here.

Their website advertised a few other awesome-looking sandwiches, like the Downtown (corned beef, pastrami, gruyere cheese, caramelized onions, and Russian dressing on ciabatta) and The OG (mortadella, burrata, pesto, tomatoes, and extra virgin olive oil on focaccia), but those two weren’t on the menu at Hall’s on 5th, so they probably just serve those in their original Mount Dora location. It’s all good — I chose wisely and enjoyed the heck out of all three sandwiches I chose. And that reminds me of the sage advice from the late singer-songwriter Warren Zevon: “Enjoy every sandwich.” I try to live my life that way, and if you go to The Butcher’s Nook, I guarantee you will enjoy every sandwich you order from there.

Terralina Crafted Italian

Another Disney restaurant review, a week after the last one? Is our friendly neighborhood Saboscrivner kidding? Is he out of ideas, or did he come out as a Disney adult? None of the above are true. But after taking my wife to the birthday dinner of her choosing, I returned to the “happiest place on Earth” (depends who you ask and what mood they’re in when you ask them, I guess) to catch up with former co-workers at Disney Springs. Before my current job, which I love, I worked somewhere for 15 years, and it was a constant roller coaster ride. I left in 2023, onward and upward toward a brighter, more promising future, and for this dinner, we were celebrating a former colleague who had recently done the same.

Our group met at Terralina Crafted Italian (https://www.terralinacrafteditalian.com/), and it was my first visit to this restaurant. All the food I tried was quite good, but the company is what really made this meal special. I hadn’t seen any of these people in almost two years and had never met my former colleague’s lovely wife or his sweet, quiet visiting mother-in-law. Coming from the same workplace, we had all been through a lot and had a lot to discuss.

Not every restaurant brings bread for the table anymore, but Terralina Crafted dropped off baskets of fresh, warm, fluffy focaccia bread with a hint of rosemary. They suggest you enjoy it with olive oil (in the bottle), salt, and pepper. The bread was wonderful with the olive oil, but I wish there had been some sweet balsamic vinegar or syrupy, sticky balsamic glaze to go with it. I put that stuff on anything and everything!

I was sitting next to my former colleague, who ordered a few apps to share with the table. These were mozzarella-stuffed rice balls, the beautiful love children of mozzarella sticks and arancini (balls of creamy rice or risotto, covered in bread crumbs and deep-fried. This version was the best of both worlds, and I truly enjoyed the bites I shared. The tomato-basil dipping sauce added a nice hit of acid to balance the salt and fat, and the thick flakes of shaved parmesan cheese were a nice touch for the presentation.

I did not try these bruschetta, but the presentation was beautiful. The bread slices were toasted or grilled and topped with diced tomato, basil pesto, arugula, shaved parmesan, and my beloved balsamic glaze (so they have it in the kitchen!).

Two people in my party ordered this salad of spinach, beets, gorgonzola, and fennel, tossed in a honey balsamic vinaigrette. I didn’t try theirs, but one of my friends thought they added a bit too much dressing.

I didn’t get photos of everyone’s food on the far side of the table, but my colleague sitting to my left ordered a wood-fired pizza with bacon, mushrooms, leeks, roasted garlic, and mozzarella. It looked and smelled lovely, and he seemed to like it.

My friend, colleague, and former mentor and supervisor on my right, a vegetarian, ordered this margherita pizza, topped simply with fresh mozzarella, tomato slices, and fresh basil. At the end of our meal, she had two slices left over and offered them to me, since she was staying overnight at one of the Disney hotels and doesn’t dig on leftovers. As for me, most of my meals are comprised of leftovers, so I gladly and gratefully took her pizza and enjoyed the heck out of it the following day. The toaster oven did a brilliant job crisping it back up, and I have become a major proponent of fresh basil on pizza.

I had been thinking about getting one of those pizzas, but then I saw the Italian grinder, a sandwich with spicy capicola ham, pepperoni, fresh mozzarella, tomato, roasted red pepper strips, arugula, basil pesto, and balsamic glaze. Since an Italian sub is always my favorite meal, I no longer felt the need to look any further. But I’m glad I asked our patient server if the grinder is served hot or cold, because I prefer sandwiches with Italian meats served cold, rather than hot, with the cured meats turned crispy and greasy. He said the bread would have to be warm, but the sandwich ingredients could be cold, and that was perfect.
What I didn’t expect was that the grinder would be served on a warm flatbread (pretty much like the pizzas, crispy and soft at the same time), rather than a sub or hoagie roll. It was an interesting surprise that made the grinder a little messier to eat, but look at that gorgeous presentation! Still, I did fine eating like an adult man in front of my colleagues without besmirching myself. A popular local (non-Disney) restaurant, Pizza Bruno, used to make an Italian sandwich similar to this, which they called a piadina. I loved that thing, but they stopped serving it.

The sandwiches at Terralina Crafted come with house-made truffle potato chips and garlic pickles, but I asked to substitute fries for $4, and I’m so glad I did. Since mushrooms are my culinary Kryptonite, I avoid truffles and truffle oil too, in an abundance of caution. The fries were the kind I really love — the lightly battered, crispy kind. I wasn’t expecting that, but I devoured them. The garlic pickles were incredible! I don’t know if they make those in-house or buy them from somewhere, but they were some of the tastiest pickles I’ve ever had, sliced almost paper-thin but still crunchy. I shared some with another friend, who said they tasted like pickles her mother used to make. I love it when food brings on a nostalgic reaction, even if it isn’t mine! I need to find out what their deal is.

So that was my first trip to Terralina Crafted Italian. I might have never tried it, because Orlando has no shortage of Italian restaurants, most seem overpriced, and I have simple pleasures — Italian subs and hoagies, New York-style pizza by the slice, and I make terrific pasta dishes and the best lasagna at home. But even though I admit that I’m usually underwhelmed by Disney restaurants, Terralina Crafted was a terrific choice, especially for a large group with different tastes. I would happily return in the future. And the best treat of all was seeing these great people again, for the first time in far too long. We almost went to House of Blues for dinner, which would have been fine, but I’m so glad the evening worked out the way it did.

By the way, if you’re planning to go to Terralina Crafted Italian yourself, the Lime Garage at Disney Springs is the most convenient place to park.

M’ama Napoli Italian Bakery & Deli

M’ama Napoli Italian Bakery & Deli (https://www.instagram.com/mamanapoliwinterpark/) is a new business that opened this past summer in Winter Park, just south of Fairbanks Avenue on State Road 17-92. It is a cute café with delicious coffee, pastries, snacks, sandwiches, rustic-looking pizzas, and shelves laden with Italian groceries. There are a few booths inside for lingering over a cappuccino and any number of Italian delicacies.

You can see some of their premade panini sandwiches above the deli meats: the Vesuvio, Procida, Ischia, and Capri. If you right-click on the photo below and open it in a new tab, you can probably even make out the ingredients listed for each.

This glass case includes fresh cannoli, tarts, macarons, and cake slices.

Here are gorgeous pistachio, Nutella, apricot, and almond croissants.

Bombolone are like Italian doughnuts, and these all had different fillings: Bavarian cream, apricot, Nutella, and pistachio cream (which seems to be becoming a trendy dessert ingredient).

And here are flaky, shell-shaped sfogliatella pastries, with a light, crispy texture and a smooth cream filling with the slightest hint of lemon.

M’ama Napoli has several shelves of imported Italian groceries, including some nice-looking fruit preserves, pickled peppers, and tomato sauces.

For the first order I ever brought home, I selected some cream-filled conchiglia puff pastries and a croissant filled with almond paste (marzipan) for my wife who loves almond-flavored anything. While I still give the edge to Benjamin French Bakery in Thornton Park for the best croissants in Orlando, my wife and I enjoyed all these pastries.

I also got an incredible sandwich on freshly baked, fluffy focaccia bread, the Toto. I’m sure it wasn’t named for the yacht rock-adjacent band that featured David Paich, Steve Lukather, and the Porcaro brothers, but it was full of paper-thin slices of prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, arugula, tomatoes, and shaved parmigiano cheese. I loved it. It was huge, too!

Here is a better photo of the Toto sandwich from our second visit. My wife doesn’t share my obsession with sandwiches, but she likes good bread, prosciutto, fresh mozz, and arugula — pretty much everything but the tomatoes — so she had most of this one.

That time, I tried the Maradona sandwich, with salami, fresh mozzarella, and arugula. The salami was really high-quality, but since I ate this sandwich at home, I plussed it up with the tomatoes from my wife’s Toto sandwich, some hot cherry peppers, and balsamic glaze.

And this was a special sandwich that was only available that day, with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, shaved parmesan cheese, and some kind of creamy sauce that gave it a bit of a funky flavor, but not unpleasant. It was an umami bomb, though!
I would probably skip this one in the future, just because the Toto is so great, and there are lots of other sandwich options too — not just on focaccia, but pressed paninis as well. Maybe I’ll try a focaccia sandwich with mortadella next time, which is like very posh bologna that sometimes contains pistachios.

There are only a few parking spaces behind the building, off busy State Road 17-92, but I’ve had decent parking karma on my two visits to M’ama Napoli so far (which is more than I can say for many of Orlando’s most popular dining districts). Check it out, and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed, especially if you get the Toto or one of the other focaccia sandwiches!

Prato

The upscale Italian restaurant Prato (https://www.prato-wp.com/) is a mainstay of Winter Park’s tony Park Avenue for good reason. Chef and co-owner Brandon McGlamery (also of the excellent Luke’s Kitchen and Bar in Maitland) has always served top-notch food in gorgeous surroundings. This is not a typical “red sauce” Italian-American restaurant, so don’t expect spaghetti and meatballs or red and white checkered tablecloths. But even though Prato is a cut above, it isn’t snooty or snobby, and the comfort food truly comforts.

I had not been back to Prato in years, due in part to the difficulty of parking on Park Avenue (ironic, eh?) and a lot of bad timing. Sometimes I’d find myself there in the off time between lunch and dinner service, where Prato only offered a limited menu, and one of the most famous pasta dishes in Orlando was unavailable. This review was from a recent visit with my wife for lunch, which I timed just so I could try the legendary pasta for the first time, after years of reading hype about it online.

We started out with pretzel-crusted calamari, fried to golden-brown perfection. I always note that too many restaurants overcook their squid tubes and tentacles until they are chewy and rubbery, but these were really tender, as they should be. We had tried these before, too many years ago, and these were just as good as they had always been. I always appreciate dipping sauces (salsa rosa and grain mustard aioli), but this calamari didn’t even need them. That didn’t stop me from dipping, though!

After how much we enjoyed the beef tartare on a recent trip to Luke’s, we decided to trust Chef McGlamery and ordered the carne cruda at Prato as well, to compare and contrast them. It is raw beef (which tastes great and must be the highest quality to avoid safety concerns), topped with a farm-fresh egg, grated horseradish, and romanesco conserva. I realize romanesco is a relative of the cauliflower that grows in stunning fractal patterns, but I didn’t see any of that vegetable, so I wondered if the menu might have meant romesco, which is a sauce made from cooking down tomatoes, roasted red peppers, garlic, and almonds. It was also served with crunchy toasted focaccia bread slices for scooping up the meat or spreading it onto the toast. We loved it, just as we loved the beef tartare at Luke’s.

Here’s a close-up of that amazing carne cruda. The meat was so tender and flavorful in a way we rarely get to experience, since everyone cooks their meat (and should continue to do so, don’t get me wrong).

I forgot to mention that we came to Prato during weekend brunch hours, being sure to be there as it opened to avoid a long wait. After the savory appetizers, my wife went with a sweet dish: perfect little pancakes topped with freshly made ricotta cheese and blueberry compote (which strikes me as more of a dessert than a breakfast dish, but millions of brunchers will disagree). She adored it.

And I finally got to try the legendary pasta dish, mustard spaghettini “cacio e pepe.” I fully admit to being a red sauce guy, since that’s the Italian food I was raised eating. I am always drawn to rich bolognese and spicy arrabbiata sauces, so I rarely order cacio e pepe on menus, even though it can be so luxurious and decadent despite its relative simplicity (just Pecorino Romano cheese — the cacio — and black pepper — the pepe). This version was anything but simple, though. It included mustard in there somewhere, but it’s subtle, and you definitely won’t detect the brightness of yellow mustard or anything horseradishy, so don’t worry about that. I love mustard (and even review mustards on this blog), so that was the main thing that had me intrigued for so many years.
This house-made pasta also includes balsamic vinegar (another favorite ingredient of mine), radicchio, a spicy and bitter vegetable that looks like red and white cabbage and is sometimes called Italian chicory, and speck, a cured and lightly smoked pork leg (think of ham or bacon) from the cold and mountainous South Tyrol province in northeastern Italy. If you are familiar with geography, you might guess that there is some German or Austrian influence to this particular cured meat, and you’d be right. Also, the mountains are called the Dolomites, but Rudy Ray Moore had nothing to do with it.

This was a gorgeous and delicious pasta dish that surpassed all the hype. I make pretty great pasta dishes at home, but I had never had anything quite like this, and I was so happy to finally try it, after all these years. It was one of my favorite things I ate in 2024, that’s for sure.

I don’t know when we will return to Prato, but as tempting as it always is to try new things on every visit, I am obsessed enough with the mustard spaghettini “cacio e pepe” that I will probably order it again and again in the future. It’s like nothing I’ve ever tried before. Leave it to me to be late to the party and then never want to leave! But I’m sure Prato being great is no big surprise or secret to anyone else in Winter Park or Orlando. It has a swanky vibe that would be perfect for a date night or just a nice dinner out. The hardest parts will be parking nearby and figuring out what to order, but hopefully I have already helped you with the second challenge.

Mazzaro’s Italian Market (St. Petersburg)

Mazzaro’s Italian Market (https://www.mazzarosmarket.com/), located in mainland St. Petersburg, Florida (not on St. Pete Beach) is to me what Walt Disney World is to most people — a land of magic and wonders, an expensive way to have a grand time, and if not the happiest place on Earth, then one of the happiest places in Florida for sure.

The market is huge — not quite as large as a Publix-style supermarket, or even as big as the two-story Eataly in Chicago, but much larger than Orlando’s beloved Stasio’s Italian Deli and Market or even the new D’Amico & Sons Italian Market and Bakery. (Honestly, I enjoy it so much more than the very corporate and bougie Eataly.) It seems to sprawl on forever, with a wine room, a cheese room, a cafe, a gelato area, counters for freshly made sandwiches, deli meats and cheese sliced to order, hot prepared foods, fresh pasta, and this scenic bakery to your left when you enter, where everything is made from scratch, like almost everything else in Mazzaro’s. It is always crowded, so you’ll have to jostle your way through the narrow, mazelike aisles. Midwesterners, prepare to say “Ope!” a lot, while New Yawkers might prefer “Eyyy, I’m walkin’ here!”

Back in 2022, my wife chose this simple cannoli from the bakery, with the crispy-crunchy pastry shell piped full of rich, sweet cream and dipped into crushed pistachios.

This was a gorgeous sfogliatelle, a delicate shell-shaped pastry made of dozens of crispy layers of dough, with cream in the middle (usually a bit lemony), dusted with powdered sugar so it looks more like it came from Miami than St. Petersburg. Luckily, one can get sfogliatelle in Orlando now, at Stasio’s or D’Amico & Sons, but on a rare pilgrimage to Mazzaro’s, you have to try everything you can. One of my favorite food-related activities is “Dare… To Compare!”, and this pastry shell will make you yell “Shell yeah!”

Hilariously, my wife calls sfogliatelle “schmuckatelli.” I could listen to her say that all day.

I don’t even remember what this thing was! Some sort of fruity center, for sure.

Heck, we brought these two sugar-topped beauties home with us last month, and I don’t remember what they were either!

My wife is a sucker for a good New York style black and white cookie, which are more like cake when done right, with the slightest hint of lemon underneath the rich, shiny icing. This one, from our most recent visit last month, was as good as any we’ve gotten from New York bagel shops, bakeries, and delis.

As I said, Mazzaro’s is almost always crowded, but never moreso on Fridays or Saturdays, where everyone feels packed in like a certain tinned fish I love. That may be a reason the store seems so large, because it takes so long to traverse and even longer to take it all in. When you finally make it past the bakery, weaving through equally overwhelmed shoppers experiencing sensory overload in that maze of shelves for non-perishable groceries, you will find yourself faced with a plethora of options for fresh pasta, prepared foods, and deli sandwiches.

Here are just a few of the fresh filled pastas to choose from, which you can order by the pound.

There is a large refrigerated case with more handmade pasta already rationed and weighed in convenient containers.

I’ve never ordered any of the prepared foods because I’m always just passing through, but if you lived locally, you could easily take care of dinner for a single person, a couple, a small family, or even a big party. Yes, for those in the St. Pete area, Mazzaro’s caters as well, and I have to imagine you would be the host with the most or the hostess with the mostest if you brought in their fine fare.

My wife doesn’t share my obsession with Italian subs or sandwiches in general, so on our 2022 trip, she ordered this pair of lobster and seafood rolls from the deli counter. She prefers lobster rolls served warm with butter (Connecticut style), whereas I prefer them served cold with mayo and a little bit of diced celery for crunch (Maine style), and that’s what these were. I ended up eating the vast majority of these, which was fine with me. On our return in 2024, she remembered this was not the way (at least not for her), so she ordered a grilled caprese sandwich, with tomato, fresh basil, fresh mozzarella, and pesto spread on grilled Italian bread, and devoured it with gusto on Mazzaro’s covered patio, despite not liking fresh tomatoes or sandwiches that much. I didn’t even get a photo of it!

This is Mazzaro’s tried-and-true #1 from our 2022 visit: ham, Genoa salami, capicola, mortadella, provolone cheese, Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, onion, roasted peppers, Italian slaw, and oil and vinegar on fresh-baked Italian bread from a wood-fired oven. It’s a magnificent Italian sub, and I say that with pride and authority, since an Italian sub may just be my favorite meal (and is definitely my favorite sandwich).The Italian slaw is no joke, adding a tangy, vinegary crunch to the sub. More places should experiment with different kinds of cabbage slaw on sandwiches.

I had to get another #1 when we returned in 2024, and I asked for this one on a softer hoagie roll to try it a little different. I actually preferred it this way, because my one minor complaint about Mazzaro’s sandwiches is that sometimes the bread is a little burnt on the outside (see above).

If you recognize our familiar plates from dozens of takeout reviews, it’s because I always order these sandwiches and bring them home with me, rather than do the two and a half hour drive on a full stomach. I will enjoy them more in the comfort of my own home, and it gives the intense flavors time to marry and marinate. Usually I bring a cooler when I know I’ll be stopping by Mazzaro’s.

And I can’t go to Mazzaro’s without also ordering a #7 for later. This sandwich is both beauty and beast, with prosciutto di Parma, sweet soppressata, hot capicola, marinated sun-dried tomatoes (one of my favorite ingredients in sandwiches, salads, and sauces), and fresh mozzarella on a ciabatta roll. Both the #1 and #7 sandwiches taste even better after a drive back to Orlando and a night in the fridge.

Here’s my latest #7 from our most recent visit in July 2024. The outside of the ciabatta roll was overdone, but the interior ingredients are so good, the sandwich couldn’t possibly be ruined.

I also brought home three different, interesting salumi, so we could have a little salami as a treat: a bison salami from Angel’s Salumi & Truffles (no truffles for us, though!), a venison, pork, and pinot noir salami from Driftless Provisions, and a “bonfire cider” salami from Short Creek Farms (which I don’t see on their website, so here are all the salami).

The one disappointment for me, even though it sounded like a can’t-miss delicacy, were these prosciutto “chips,” made in house by Mazzaro’s. Prosciutto might be my favorite meat ever, and it is definitely one of the finest things you can make out of pork. However, a major part of its appeal is getting it sliced paper-thin so it almost melts in your mouth, with a pleasant chewiness. These crispy, crunchy strips lost that experience, although fans of crunchy bacon might like them more than I did.

I could have run amok a lot more on this most recent visit, but the relentlessly hangry crowds seriously stress out my poor wife. I resolved to go without her next time, whether I’m coming or going from St. Pete, so I can linger longer without guilt and she can be spared the entire hectic experience.

As much as I appreciate the Italian markets in and around Orlando, there is nothing like a trip to Mazzaro’s, which is why I’ve been recommending it to St. Petersburg locals and tourists alike for years (and even recommending Orlando denizens consider it for a day trip, because it is that rad). Heck, I wish I could pop over there right now, but I’m writing this on a Sunday evening, and it wouldn’t be open anyway. For such a popular place, they have pretty limited hours, so review them in advance so you don’t schlep over there and end up disappointed:

Mon-Fri: 9am-5pm
Saturday: 9am-2:30pm
Sunday: Closed

And if you’re already a “Mazzaro’s Adult” (not quite the same as a Disney Adult, am I right?), let me know what your can’t-miss favorites are for my next visit, whenever that might be.

Dough Boyz Pizzeria

Dough Boyz Pizzeria (https://doughboyzpizzaoviedo.com/) is located in a small, nondescript strip plaza in Oviedo, near the intersection of Aloma Avenue and Tuskawilla Road, just west of State Road 417. It is a few doors down from Ramen Takagi, a Saboscrivner favorite and home of the best tonkotsu ramen in the Orlando area. It is also a few moments from another newer discovery I enjoyed earlier this year, Alma Argentina.

Like any good New York-style pizzeria, Dough Boyz offers pizza by the slice, which is my preferred way to try any new pizzeria. While I was bringing home a whole pie, I had to try a plain cheese slice, crispy and warm from the oven, while I was still on the premises. To me, that’s the best way to get an idea of any pizzeria at its best. I ate this huge slice in the car, and it did not disappoint. It was the perfect blend of crispy and chewy, with nice robust sauce (not too acidic nor too sweet), melty mozzarella, and a thin crust that wasn’t burnt to a crisp. It was a little floppy, but that doesn’t bother me at all.

But this was the main event that I brought home, the grandma Sicilian, a thin-crust square pizza that is already pretty unique, because most Sicilian pizzas in my experience are thick and on the chewy side, with crispy bottoms and edges from cooking in a pan. Dough Boyz does that thicker Sicilian style too, but this was one hot grandma! It was topped with their house-made plum tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella (it’s fun to call it “MOOT-sa-DELL”), and homemade pesto sauce — a perfect combination. The only things I could have possibly added to edge this pizza pie further into pie-fection would have been some fresh basil leaves and a swirl of balsamic glaze. But I can’t complain, because it was a little slice of heaven — or more like twelve huge, rectangular slices of heaven.

A major reason I wanted to try Dough Boyz, out of all the friendly neighborhood pizzerias in every single strip plaza around here, was because they sell cheesecake from a local baker based in DeBary, Florida, Cheesecake Chino’s. I haven’t met Chino himself, but I have interacted with him online, and I wanted to try his New York-style cheesecake to compare it to familiar ones like Publix, the Factory, and my personal favorite cheesecake, from the New York-based Junior’s. The slice I got reminded me more of Junior’s than any other cheesecake I’ve had, and I mean that in the best possible way. It was a plain, dense slice with no toppings or additional flavors (fine with me), with the slight tangy tartness I crave from cheesecake, and an interesting chocolate crust, rather than a more typical graham cracker crust (or the weird cakey crust Junior’s uses, which is maybe the only thing I don’t love about their cheesecakes). It was very good, and I would be really interested in trying some other varieties from Cheesecake Chino’s in the future. I’m always thrilled to support local bakers, just as I love supporting local restaurants.

Two weeks had not passed before I returned to Dough Boyz for another takeout mission. I had not seen arancini on the menu, but when I arrived at the restaurant and saw them, I had to order one for my wife. She loves these things: a ball of creamy rice stuffed with seasoned ground beef and peas, rolled in seasoned bread crumbs and fried to perfection: crispy on the outside and soft and yielding on the inside. If you’ve ever had a Cuban papa rellena, it’s surprisingly similar, just with risotto instead of mashed potatoes.
It came with a dipping cup of marinara, but she wanted nothing to do with that, so I had something to dip my pizza crusts in. Score!

I ordered an eggplant rollatini pizza for us to share over the next few days — a classic New York-style pie with plum tomato sauce, “special blend” ricotta cheese, and thin slices of breaded and fried eggplant, but no mozzarella cheese. My wife likes eggplant and especially eggplant rollatini more than I do, but I ended up liking this pizza more than she did. I know she doesn’t share my red sauce obsession, but I think Dough Boyz has a particularly good, fresh-tasting tomato sauce, and I’m not at all surprised that they make it in-house.

And after trying the thin crust Grandma Sicilian last time, I had to go back for the thicc Brooklyn Sicilian this time. I would have settled for a slice, but they didn’t have any Sicilian slices left, so I sprang for a whole pie, knowing I’d make it last over several days. It started out with twelve slices, but I HOUSED three of them before remembering to take this photo. I loooove Sicilian pizza, you guys. I used to get slices at Cozzoli’s Pizza in the Dadeland Mall food court in suburban Kendall as a kid, and that’s how my love affair with rectangular, pillowy-soft, crispy-edged Sicilian pizza started, in the early ’80s in Miami.
This Brooklyn is slightly different from other Sicilian pizzas I’ve had elsewhere (including from Orlando-area mainstays Valdiano, Del Dio, Paradiso, and Antonella’s) because the chunky, robust tomato sauce is applied on top of the mozzarella and provolone cheeses, and then the whole thing is topped with oregano, grated parmesan cheese, and olive oil. It makes it messier to eat, but really, really good. I have always said that the sauce is usually the most ignored ingredient on pizza, but Dough Boyz takes their sauce as seriously as their dough and cheese.

Finally, for dessert on this epic second takeout trip, I brought home Dough Boyz — not the staff of the actual pizzeria, but fried dough balls topped with so much powdered sugar that they looked like they were partying in the aforementioned Miami, perhaps in the 1980s. You may know them better as zeppoli. My wife absolutely loved these, even more than the cheesecake, but I stand by the cheesecake.

Dough Boyz Pizzeria does have a few tables for dining in, but it is a no-frills place, and I’m guessing the vast majority of their business comes from takeout. I’m sold. It is twelve minutes from my home, and I pass a few other pizzerias to get there, but they have earned a loyal and enthusiastic regular customer moving forward. Give them a try, especially if you’ve heard the tiresome bleats of ex-New Yorkers saying there is no good pizza in Orlando. There is plenty, and you can just click on the “Pizza” category link in this review to read my other reviews on the subject (or just click on all the other links I’ve made sure to sprinkle into this review, like so much parmesan cheese). My personal favorite pizzeria is too much of a schlep across town to just get there anytime I crave it (sorry, John & John’s – A Pizza Shop), but Dough Boyz is my new friendly neighborhood destination, and I’ll be back again before long.

Corelli’s Pantry (Clermont)

Whenever I travel out of my normal radius, I always check online to see if there are any interesting restaurants or grocery stores near where I’m going. In that lackadaisical week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, when most people don’t get anything done, I took a long-overdue drive to Clermont, a town south and west of Orlando that I never have any reason to visit, to check out a restaurant I had been meaning to try for years. And on my way to eat a solo lunch at that restaurant (more on that some other time), I took the scenic route through quaint, picturesque downtown Clermont and discovered another restaurant, an Italian restaurant with a small deli and market attached. Of course, I had to stop in and get some stuff to bring home with me!

This Italian restaurant/deli/market I stumbled across was Corelli’s Pantry (https://corellispantry.com/). It is a teeny-tiny space, although the dining room in the back might be more spacious. When you enter, you order at the counter, whether you are planning to dine in or take things to go. I wasn’t sticking around, but I should have stuck my head into the dining room to scope it out. Sorry.

Up front, they had your typical glass deli cases full of cured meats and cheeses to slice and sell by the pound, some ready-made sandwiches and other prepared foods, and lots of Italian bread, cookies, and other baked goods.

I wasn’t in the market (no pun intended) for anything sweet, especially with the recent addition of D’Amico & Sons Italian Market & Bakery so close to home, but things definitely looked good here. There were also some arancini (rice balls) in this particular refrigerated case.

Corelli’s Pantry serves pizza by the slice, which is my favorite way to order and eat pizza. I had to get a slice to eat on the premises, which is the ideal way to gauge a pizzeria. Don’t bring up that other Jewish guy who rants, raves, and rates slices of pizza — I’m aware, and I am not a fan. But from my first taste, I definitely became fan of Corelli’s New York-style pizza. This was a damn near perfect slice that I enjoyed back in the car: HUGE (the odd angle of this photo definitely doesn’t do its size justice), thin and crispy, not floppy, robust sauce, nice melty cheese, not dripping with orange oil, crust was neither too doughy nor too dry. If I don’t mind eating the plain crust at the end, I consider it a very good slice, and this one was.

They also had half of a muffuletta sandwich in the display case, already assembled, with the ingredients all mingling and marinating. I had not had a muffuletta anywhere in years, so I brought that home with me, planning to cut it in half and get two sandwiches out of it. The wide, round, flat loaf of bread wasn’t as good as the legendary, flawless muffuletta served at Central Grocery in New Orleans, but I haven’t been there since 2001, and beggars can’t be choosers. The bread was drier and more crumbly, but it held up well against the multiple layers of Genoa salami, ham, provolone cheese, and olive salad (made from some combination of green and black olives, carrots, celery, onions, roasted red peppers, herbs, spices, red wine vinegar, and olive oil). I am not always the biggest fan of olives, but this Sicilian-inspired relish is what makes the muffuletta special and sets it apart from other Italian sandwiches. You can also buy jars of it, including from Central Grocery itself, but it isn’t that hard to make at home.

Here’s a dynamic view of a quarter of that marvelous, mouthwatering muff. It really hit the spot.

I also ordered an Italian combination sub with ham, salami, capicola and provolone, topped “David’s way,” with house dressing, shredded lettuce, tomato and thin-sliced red onion, plus I asked for balsamic vinegar and hot cherry peppers. I stuck it in a cooler I brought with me and enjoyed it hours later, after it had a chance to chill out in the fridge back at home.

The roll was great quality — most likely baked in-house at Corelli’s Pantry, but I did not confirm that. They stuffed the sub generously with high-quality ingredients, just like that muffuletta. It was a tremendously good (and just plain tremendous) Italian sub — one of the better ones I’ve enjoyed anywhere in Florida. It was up there with the namesake Stasio sub from Stasio’s and the Capone from Bad As’s Sandwich, two all-time favorites.

With Stasio’s in Orlando’s Milk District, D’Amico & Sons in Oviedo, and Tornatore’s Italian market next door to its College Park restaurant (where you can also get a very nice Italian sub), I don’t know when I’ll ever make it back to Clermont to visit Corelli’s Pantry again, since it was over an hour away from home. But I’m so glad I discovered it, almost accidentally, and even happier that I stopped there and tried so many things. Nothing disappointed. Everything exceeded my expectations. If you are anywhere near downtown Clermont, or even if you aren’t, please stop there for a slice, a sandwich, or maybe even take a load off and enjoy some Italian food in the dining room, and then let me know how that was.