Smokin Mango - St. Petersburg

Exciting! Vibrant with authentic Italian market energy! The smells of cheeses, spices, meats cannot be conveyed in words, but must be felt! Incredible finds in every nook, a feast for the explorer. Hundreds of cheeses, hundreds of wines, salamis, fresh pastas to take home and cook. (What? As an example- multiple varieties lobster ravioli! , dried pastas of every imaginable type from Italy. Spices of all packagings, stemmed, ground, whole! Study everything, every shelf, every corner, or you’ll miss a delight. Cool u-shaped coffee bar! Homemade Italian cookies, pastries, cakes, bread! Olives oil, vinegars, tinned cookies, concoctions of all sorts. A deli, fresh butcher shop. You could spend hours exploring, and buying! People coming in on a mission. (This is a serious destination! And all leaving with hands and arms full of bagged happiness.

Interesting experience. Ordered at the deli by taking a number and waiting till I was called I didn’t have to wait very long. The food was delicious but it was difficult to figure out the procedure. You get your food from the deli and then you either find a seat at a table and wait for a server to bring you a drink and utensils or you pick up a drink in the store and pay at the cashier and go to a picnic table outside. Which is what we will do next time we go. Interesting experience altogether but a little different

This place is pretty cool as it is a deli, grocery, bakery, and wine shop all under one roof. I got here about 11:30 AM and it was jampacked and I had to park down the street because the parking lot was full (as were the streets surrounding the deli! .If you're ordering a deli sandwich, make sure that you know what you want before you take an order ticket. The menu is on the wall behind the counter. The order takers don't waste any time and quickly move the orders.I ordered my lunch to go. I got a #1 sandwich with a side of pasta salad (they have an incredible amount of fresh side salads from which to choose . Sandwich was huge, you definitely can split this with someone. I only ate half my sandwich and gave the other half away. Love the flavors of the sandwich, especially the Italian slaw on it, but the bread roll was a bit much for me as it was too thick for my preference.Pasta salad was fresh and tasty, but for me, the piece de resistance was the pistachio cannoli man, was this good!

Amazing MUST DO market, butcher, wine shop, cheese, pasta, olives, oils you name it it 's here. Wildly crowded, one of the employees simply told me "DO NOT come on Saturday. Fun coffee bar with some real characters sipping espressos. If you can 't find something you like her you don 't have your eyes open. We will take visitors !!

What a great find! except even at 1130 in the morning it was basically impossible to even get close to the deli to see what kind of sandwiches they offered, and my eyesight is too poor to see the tiny menu posted way up on the ceiling. I did console myself though by buying some hard salami, cheese, olive oil and hot peppers. I'd like to come here during a time where you arent battling it out with a million other customers but I have a bad feeling there is no time where that is possible.If I am back in the area though you bet I am trying again, and bringing glasses haha