It's tradition with a twist at Bocelli Modern Italian in South Tampa

TAMPA - It's more than just the Sunday sauce that sets Bocelli Modern Italian apart from other South Tampa restaurants. The owners really want to be a part of the community, bringing the warmth of the local eatery and the familiarity of the kitchen table back home.

The backstory:

"We consider it modern Italian because we like to put an American twist on our dishes," said Michael Mycheck. He is one of the four partners who own the restaurant. "The reason we wanted to do Italian is because we wanted to show the community our background in Italian food from our nonnas, or, I say, my mom-mom."

His mom-mom, and those of his partners inspired one of the building blocks for much of the menu at Bocelli Modern Italian.

"We used to do Sunday sauce every Sunday," he shared. "We wanted to give the community a little taste of how we celebrated our Italian traditions."

Sunday sauce is a slow-cooked tomato ragù that is prepared with spices and other vegetables like onions, celery and garlic. It is often cooked with meats like pork, beef or sausage to a thick and chunky broth.

The name Sunday comes from the preparation of such a sauce for traditional large family gatherings on Sundays.

That family gathering place is what Mycheck hopes for Bocelli Modern Italian to be.

"Ballast Point is a very close, close-knit area," he said, "We have a lot of different groups that come in here to support us, specifically our military and our families. We have a lot of kids that come in here... we've seen kids start out as babies and grow up..."

What's the Food Like:

Using the Sunday sauce as the base. Executive Chef Daniel Rabice creates culinary concoctions that trigger memories of mom-mom's table back home.

"The menu, it's old world Italian mixed with a Tri-State old school 'mom and pop' joint with a modern flare," he said. "One of our bestsellers is a chicken riggi dish... from upstate New York. It's bite-size pieces of chicken with hot and sweet peppers, cherry peppers, light wine marinara sauce, and um pecorino romano and rigatoni pasta."

It's an Italian restaurant, so they create pizzas, and again, using the Sunday sauce as the base, they hand toss the dough and create the toppings to order.

"We have homemade pizzas... We make the dough every day in-house," said Rabice. "The garlic knots (are) also out of the pizza's pizza dough.. stuffed garlic knots. We use a garlic cream, mozzarella. It's not your traditional garlic knot they're they're rolled and sliced and coated with more with a garlic oil and pecorino romano and served with fresh-made marinara that we make daily."

What you can do:

You can visit Bocelli Modern Italian in person at 5427 Bayshore Boulevard in Tampa, 33611. They are open seven days a week with varied hours.