A $50,000 city grant and 30-plus years of culinary training stand behind the handmade pasta at Zephyrhills’ newest sit-down Italian spot, open on 7th Street since late August.
Trattoria Napoli is owner Matthew Zappoli’s full-service trattoria at 5740 7th St., built around roughly 120 seats split across a main dining room, a semi-private “pizza room,” a bar, and outdoor seating. Zappoli trained at the Culinary Institute of America and worked under chef Charlie Palmer at Aureole in New York before bringing that experience to a 7th Street storefront — the kind of resume that doesn’t usually land in a small downtown trattoria. The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency Commercial Improvement Grant program put $50,000 toward the buildout, part of the same push that’s been filling in Zephyrhills’ downtown storefronts.
Pasta is made in-house daily, and pizzas come out of a Wood Stone gas oven rather than the coal or wood-fired setup some trattorias lean on for marketing — a practical choice for a restaurant running both a full pasta menu and a dedicated pizza room off the same kitchen. The grand opening ran Thursday, Aug. 27, at 3 p.m., which puts the restaurant about seven weeks into service now.
Hours run Wednesday through Saturday evenings, with Sunday as the only other open day — closed Monday and Tuesday, which is worth knowing before you plan a weekday trip into downtown Zephyrhills around it.
If Zephyrhills’ downtown is new territory for you, the town guide covers what else is worth knowing about the area, and Zephyrhills Brewing Company is close enough to make a night of both.
Good to know: 5740 7th St., Zephyrhills, FL 33542. Wed-Thu 4-9 p.m., Fri-Sat 4-10 p.m., Sun 3 p.m. onward. Closed Mon-Tue. (813) 788-0592.
Photo: a plate of pasta, representative image (not an actual dish from this restaurant), by Roland Tanglao, licensed CC0, via Flickr.