The freshest herbs. The choicest meats. Marinades and pastes and sauces from nations far-flung and bread so fresh you might be tempted to lay your head upon it for a nap so your noggin might absorb the aged wisdom of its potent mother starter. 

These are the paints with which the Tampa area’s best chefs paint our plates. And though we’re not all David Benstock—who draws from the shelves of his very own specialty market, St. Pete Meat & Provisions,  for the dishes at his restaurant  Il Ritorno—we can still shop exactly where they do.

“About 90% of the meat at St. Pete Meat & Provisions is locally sourced,” says Benstock. “Over time during COVID we’ve developed some really great connections with local farmers and ranchers. We get all our chicken, ducks, and pigs from Olivor Heritage Farms out in Dover.  And we work with Providence Cattle out of Dade City for pasture-raised beef.”

The whole-cow program is just what it sounds like, allowing Benstock and his colleagues to purchase the entire animal and utilize all of it, nose to tail, for everything from meatballs to marinated short ribs that customers can simply take home and cook. 

St. Pete Meat & Provisions has the standard cuts you’d see at any butcher shop, along with what Benstock says is some pretty unique stuff.

“You’d be surprised at the stuff people ask for,” he says with a chuckle. “But especially with the price of beef right now, we really try to highlight some of the other cuts that might not be as tender but have just as much, if not more, flavor.”

Organ meats come from the same healthfully raised animals.

“Our liver and beef hearts are super clean,” he says.

But Benstock’s meat market can’t provide the restaurant with its entire larder. For seafood, he prefers Sammy’s, also in St. Pete, whose fresh fare finds its way into Il Ritorno’s kitchen—and his own.

“I’ve left there spending $150 on seafood because I couldn’t stop buying,” he says. “Their display is beautiful with all different types of clams, scallops, oysters—all different sizes—and 20 or 25 kinds of fish. Always spot-on.”

Over at HEW Parlor & Chophouse, guests at the Fenway Hotel, and lucky locals who can literally walk from their neighboring Dunedin homes, can enjoy that fine beef from Providence Cattle Company, as well. 

The same Providence Cattle beef is also available to the public at The Boozy Pig in Tampa, says HEW’s Executive Chef Eric McHugh. The Boozy Pig butchery/café is a city favorite for everything from Cuban sandwiches to house-made pickles and bone broth. McHugh’s other picks from around the Bay include Mazzaro’s Italian Market in St. Pete. “Mazzaro’s is my favorite place to get great wines, charcuterie and cheeses, grab a sandwich or freshly roasted coffee beans,” McHugh says.

He procures local produce and honeycomb from Clearwater’s Life Farms and, overlapping with some of his culinary brethren, calls Ybor City’s Jamison B. Breadhouse a top pick.

“It’s probably the best bakery in Tampa in terms of the flours and grains they use and source,” says Ferrell Alvarez, chef/owner of Rooster & the Till, Nebraska Mini-Mart, and Gallito Taqueria. “They mill a lot … they are doing it the right way.”

Fill your Jamison B. Breadhouse online cart and pay up front, then grab your mixed bag of goodies at their designated pickup spot in Ybor City on Saturday.

“It’s where I get the milk bread for the katsu sandwich at Rooster & the Till,” says Alvarez, who hits up Tampa’s Sanwa Farmer’s Market for some of that handheld’s ingredients, as well. “For produce and Asian ingredients … especially specialty ingredients,” he says he regularly shops at Sanwa. 

“Oceanic Market, too, which has so many interesting things in terms of chili paste, soy sauce, and everything down that line,” Alvarez says. “Things most people wouldn’t even think of. Bottled things. Flours of all gluten levels. It’s where we get the glutinous flour for our mochi doughnuts.”

Alvarez sources all of them for his home kitchen, as well.

“That’s the fun of these types of places, picking things up for a few dollars, loading up your basket and trying them out. It’s how you discover some really interesting things. Especially now, when you can use things like Google Lens on your phone’s camera to interpret different languages so you can learn more about them.”

In Winter Haven, Steven Rojas—Los Angeles native and chef/owner of Nutwood—says the available options in this small Polk County town would surprise people. He cites Crum Brothers Family Farm in Lakeland and Steed Farms of Plant City as two established places for produce. (See our article “Farm Life and Fresh Starts” about “Farmer Will” Crum in our March 2021 issue.)

“When we moved out here, we wondered where we’d find places to get good ingredients but little by little, we’re seeing more places popping up,” he says.

Case in point, says Rojas, is Honeycomb Bread Bakers.

“It just went brick-and-mortar a few blocks from here,” he says, “and it’s where I get most of my bread when I don’t make my own—for the restaurant and for my house.”

Bagels, croissants, cookies, and more come fresh from the ovens in the shop, housed in a former gas station. Rojas says there’s no need to go to the grocery store for bread any longer. “Honeycomb uses a mother starter they’ve had for years,”  he says appreciatively. “That’s big-city stuff.”