Restaurant Review: Cristino’s

The Husband was telling his Italian patient (he’s a physical therapist) about our trip to Italy that we’re planning for May and they said we had to go to Cristino’s in Ybor for fabulous, authentic Italian food. So on a rare weekday off together, we headed to Ybor for a lunch date.

The outside looks like it would be perfect for a romantic dinner date, but it was lunch time and raining, so we headed inside.

Some lovely Florida mizzle (verb: to rain in fine drops, drizzle).

Much warmer and inviting inside.

They have a lunch buffet during the week and it looked like a fabulous choice, especially for $11. But I was there for the pizza. We ordered a coal oven margherita pizza to share and decided that the chicken parm on a baguette sounded too good not to try, so we ordered that too.

The baguette was so fresh and soft and delicious and had the perfect amount of sauce. The chicken was thin, fried chicken cutlets and was just the right amount of chicken. I don’t care for large chicken breasts on sandwiches; it makes it seem more like eating flesh which grosses me out. So weird.

Drooling just looking at these photos.

 We managed to show restraint and box up most of the pizza so we would have room to try the homemade gelato. Ryan let me try pretty much every kind they had and it was so difficult deciding what kind to order.

Look at those heavenly choices.

I’m not one for sweets generally but holy moly was this good. Best gelato I’ve ever had. I finally ended up deciding on the stracciatella and cappuccino.

Amazing gelato.

I’m so made at myself for not going to Cristino’s sooner. How did I not know about it until now? Granted, it’s only been open for about a year, but that’s a year of not having their fabulous pizza and gelato that I can’t get back. I dare say it will become one of my favorite restaurants in Tampa.