Pazzo Southside - Sarasota

My opinion the best Italian food in Sarasota. It’s the third place their in each one bigger and better. Why because great food. Just an Italiano from Chicago say. God bless they work so hard.

I have ordered fried calamari a 1,000 times at all different types of restaurant’s and these were truly the best I have ever had ? The blackened red fish was excellent! At our table there was Italian wedding soup and a pasta Fagiol like I have never seen and both were amazing, lasagna,, rigatoni “yes I tasted everything” Service was excellent and we can’t wait to go back very soon ?

Pazzos has great short rib pizza. Actually everything I have had there was delicious! Good service too! I’ll be back!!

Delicious coal fired pizzas! So many good pizza options that you can’t go wrong! Calamari was delicious as well, can’t wait to come back again!!

Wanted to try this place pre improv show at FST last Saturday. They do take reservations and we were seated promptly at 5:45 eating early since we had the show to make at 7:30). Restaurant was only about 1/3 full. Took about 15 min for our waiter to realize that no one was serving us, but he was very apologetic and was attentive after that. The calamari was a great appetizer- very lightly breaded, tasty and crispy. Marinara for dipping was just spicy enough and yummy. Sliced Italian bread was on the house and was good. I got the eggplant parm with spaghetti. Eggplant was very tasty and made the way I like it- you could tell it was sliced from a casserole of eggplant parm and not just a few slices of eggplant thrown on a plate with some cheese and marinara on it- which passes for the dish at many places around here. It could have been warmer but it was so warm outside that I didn 't get it reheated. Husband got the veal our way which had prosciutto and cheese and brown gravy topping it. He really like it but I thought it was very salty. He had a potato fritter subbed for the mashed potato- that was kinda disappointing since it wasn 't very crispy and seemed like just mashed potatoes that were formed into a patty and fried for a bit. Meh. Waiter brought out 2 mini cannolis to make up for our initial lack of attention, which was a nice touch. They were good. Prices are more reasonable than the Italian places on Main Street. Overall, a pretty solid traditional Italian place.