Clearwater, Florida
Our Story
An Italian restaurant on Gulf to Bay, with a new menu and a new look.
Benvenuti
An evening in Italy, without leaving the Gulf Coast
Valentino Ristorante Italiano was created to give Clearwater a proper Italian dinner: pasta made by hand, good ingredients handled simply, and service that treats every table as the most important one in the house.
This season the restaurant turned a page. A new menu, a redesigned room, and the same reason to come.
The Room
Charcoal, gold and candlelight
Charcoal walls set off gold-framed panels. Grey velvet chairs pull up to dark tables, each with a candle and a single red rose. Ring chandeliers hang over the dining room, wrought-iron scrollwork divides it, and a stone fireplace anchors the lounge.
It is a room for proposals, anniversaries, deal dinners and Tuesday nights that deserve better than Tuesday.
See the room
The Ingredients
Named for where they come from
Pugliese olive oil. Prosciutto di Parma. Parmigiano Reggiano aged twenty-four months. Castelvetrano olives. The names on our menu are places, because that is where the ingredients come from.
The pasta is made by hand in our kitchen. Nothing on the plate is there by accident.
Executive Chef
Christos Tsokos
Tampa-born, of Greek heritage, and classically trained, Chef Christos leads the Valentino kitchen.
He came up through fine-dining kitchens where the discipline is simple and unforgiving: buy the best, handle it as little as possible, and cook to the season. At Valentino that means pasta extruded fresh every day, Italian recipes kept honest, and a menu that changes as the market does.
His promise to the room is not reinvention. It is Italian, done properly, a little fresher and a little closer to the season than you remember.
Recognition
Gambero Rosso, 2025
Valentino is recognized in the 2025 Top Italian Restaurants Guide by Gambero Rosso, Italy's most authoritative voice in food, wine and travel.
Hospitality First
Service as a craft
A good dinner is not only what is on the plate. It is the pace of the evening, the pour of the wine and the feeling that someone thought about your table before you sat down.
Our team works to one rule above all: the guest leaves happier than they arrived.