BellaBrava - Raising The Bar

BellaBrava is a Beach Drive staple. Recently BellaBrava won Best Italian Restaurant and Best Downtown St. Pete Restaurant from Creative Loafing's Best of the Bay awards. BellaBrava is a "New World Trattoria" featuring modern Italian dishes and old classics kicked up a few gourmet notches. Simply stated, BellaBrava is an authentic taste of Italy in our own backyard.

I was honored to be invited to try some of the new dishes coming soon to BellaBrava - courtesy of Executive Chef Jeffrey Jew and Chef Antonio Garcia. These dishes will make their official debut in mid-October, and focus on using locally sourced ingredients. Joined by some local food bloggers and foodie friends, we took a short jaunt to Italy courtesy of some truly delicious dishes.

These guys make some pretty good food

The star of the night was the Housemade Ricotta. The light ricotta on a slightly crisped crostini was a crowd favorite amongst our group of local foodies. My personal favorite was the Wood-Fired Traditional Margherita Flatbread. This is a perfect lunch dish if you're in the Beach Drive area!

Other dishes that will be coming soon to BellaBrava include:

Ahi Tuna Carpaccio - fried capers, pickled fennel, calabrian chili, lemon oil, and micro basil

Trattoria Nachos - house potato chips, gorgonzola & asiago fonduta, housemade sausage, basil

Calamari Fritti - rhode island calimari, peppadew peppers, pomodoro sauce

As if all of that wasn't delicious enough, then came dessert. We were treated to a sampling of Marsala Cake with Sea Salt Gelato. Heavenly! I've never had Marsala Cake but after trying this sweet dish, I would definitely order it over some of my traditional dessert choices. I ate mine up before I could snap a picture - I'm sure you can understand!

Thanks to the BellaBrava and RKC teams for a great event!