The Pearl works for a swanky meal before a show at the nearby Amalie Arena or on a weeknight when you just want dinner to feel a little special. As the nautical decor (and mermaid mural) suggests, seafood is the star—raw or baked oysters served with cajun seasoning, Thai curry mussels floating in a coconut and sake broth, and a two-tiered shellfish tower. The egg-topped hanger steak, marinated in pineapple juice for 40 hours until it’s ultra tender and slightly sweet, is also a standout.

Hidden inside Roast, a weekday deli and bakery, is a bookcase that opens (with the right password) to this dimly-lit speakeasy. Go on a Friday night when you can snack on sweet potato cornbread dripping in hot honey, blackened salmon drenched in a guava glaze, and a not-too-sweet plantain cream pie while a two-piece band plays Charlie Parker covers. Reservations can be tough since the space is small, so if you can’t snag one for dinner, try brunch and order their mimosa tree.

Union is the new go-to spot in Westshore for lunch with your boss’s boss or a special occasion dinner—it’s the kind of place where you can eat sushi and steak at a table surrounded by velvet, marble, and leather. The menu is all over the place but it works, with plates like Iberico pork with shrimp fried rice, biscuits topped with ham and pimento cheese, and a really good hearth-roasted platter with lobster, king crab, clams, shrimp, and oysters.

While a restaurant at the intersection of Channelside Drive and Old Water Street could never truly convince somebody they were in Paris, Boulon comes close. They have a menu full of French (and not-so-French) staples, like blue crab beignets, coq au vin, and a smashburger doing its best upscale Big Mac impersonation with thousand island dressing and red onions. There’s also an attached boulangerie where you can grab croissants and madeleines if you need a quick morning pastry (when don’t you?).

The line might extend out the door when you walk up, but this tiny panadería that’s been open since 1915 is worth any wait. Their Cubano is legendary and the fried deviled crabs, rolled in the same bread crumbs, make the perfect side. For something you can’t get anywhere besides Tampa, try a square of the savory, slightly sweet, and wildly good Cuban-Silician hybrid scacciata. The eggy, bready base comes topped with basil, meat sauce, and parmesan, served at room temperature.

This West Tampa spot started as a grocery store in the ‘70s and now includes a small bakery, a busy dining room, and a cafeteria. Grab a spot at one of the three U-shaped counters in the cafeteria next to the regulars who've been coming here for 40 years and order some tender puerco asado or palomilla steak that comes served on top of a paper map of Florida. Entrees are huge and come with two sides plus refillable bread, and whatever you can’t finish makes for a luxe beach picnic the next day.

Ulele is located on the Tampa Riverwalk, with a lawn and an airy two-story dining room where you should watch your dinner get charbroiled on the 10-foot barbacoa grill. The restaurant does some Native American dishes like three sisters salad that combines beans, squash, and corn, and they really excel at anything seafood—order some grilled Gulf oysters and rich risotto with butter-poached lobster, shrimp, scallops, and crawfish.

If your generationally wealthy friend from England opened a steakhouse in their parents’ old manor, it’d probably feel a lot like Bern’s. There are eight different dining rooms lined with wall-to-wall photos from the founder's travels to Bordeaux, Burgundy, and beyond. Every meat on the menu is given its own explanation, which sounds like it was written by someone who's an e-commerce copywriter by day and a steak scholar by night. The Delmonico dry-aged for 100 days is always our go-to.

Donatello has been around since 1984, and nobody in Tampa does old-school Italian food better. Start with the bruschetta and then get a couple of pastas like fettuccine tossed with bolognese or the tortellini stuffed with sausage and ricotta. Beyond the classic dishes, the atmosphere is a time capsule and a reason to come here itself: everybody eating here gets a free rose, and servers in tuxedos whisk around plates of osso bucco and chilled calamari while live jazz echoes in the dining room.