Palma Ceia Restaurants and New Openings to Know This Summer

Two years ago, the corner of Howard and Marjory was dark. A January 2024 fire had gutted 717 South, and for most of 2024 and 2025 the building sat behind construction fencing while the rest of the corridor kept moving. If you live in Palma Ceia and take evening walks toward SoHo, you know the gap that opened when it closed. You also know it never really felt filled.

That gap closed on a Monday in March. What replaced it changes the shape of a summer evening on this side of Bay to Bay more than any single opening in years, and it's worth walking through what the neighborhood now actually looks like from Palma Ceia Village east to Howard Avenue.

The corner that came back

A South Tampa restaurant closed by fire will reopen March 23 as The Landon, as Michael Stewart rebuilds at 717 S. Howard Ave. Stewart is not new to the block. The opening extends Stewart's presence on the corridor, where he and his wife, Lindsay, already operate AVA Inspired Italian across the street. The Landon is named for their son, while AVA carries their daughter's name, placing both concepts on opposite sides of the same block. That geography matters. Two rooms under one ownership, thirty seconds apart on foot, running different menus and different hours, is the kind of density Palma Ceia's eastern edge has not had before.

The kitchen has a name attached to it, too. Chef Robert Hesse will lead the kitchen. Hesse, who appeared on Hell's Kitchen with Gordon Ramsay, will serve an elevated American menu with global influence. The menu leans hard on protein. Main courses feature Florida red snapper, southern-style grouper paired with corn spoon bread and scampi shrimp, duroc pork tenderloin, vegan short rib, and cacio e pepe verde. Steak lovers can choose wagyu filets, New York strip, or a 22-ounce prime bone-in ribeye. An A5 wagyu "experience" stands out. It arrives with foie gras mousse, milk bread French toast, shimeji mushrooms, and Suntory green pepper au poivre. Reservations fill quickly; the room seats early. The Landon will operate from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday.

The MacDill spine still does the everyday work

Walk west from Howard, cross the Selmon, and you're back in the MacDill core, where the everyday rooms sit within a fifteen-minute stroll of each other. This is the stretch that answers the "we didn't plan anything" Tuesday, the birthday that needs a quiet booth, the Saturday that starts with pastries and ends with a bottle. It reads less like a restaurant row and more like a rotation.

The trattoria is the one to know if you haven't been. The Brother features fresh pasta and gnocchi made in-house daily, scratch made sauces, wood fired pizza, and entrees steeped in tradition with a personal touch that only comes from a family owned and operated establishment. The Brother also features a full-service bar featuring signature cocktails, an exceptional wine list, local craft beer. It closes Tuesdays, which is the single most useful thing to remember about it, and it sits close enough to Palma Ceia Village that you can grab coffee at Toffee to Go before or an after-dinner walk down MacDill without moving the car.

Wine that doubles as a bottle shop

Cru Cellars is the room to know when the plan is "one glass, maybe two, and something small." It runs as a hybrid: a dinner room in front, retail wine in the back, and a bar that operates on its own logic. Cru Cellars Palma Ceia offers a relaxed atmosphere, "great wine selection," and "exceptional food," making it perfect for casual dinners, dates, or group outings. Notable dishes include the "Blue Jay Burger" and "scallops appetizer."

The value of a room like this in a residential neighborhood is not the burger, though the burger is good. It's the fact that on a Wednesday you can walk in, drink one thing, buy a bottle for Friday, and walk home. That is a specific kind of evening the corridor didn't consistently have five years ago.

The most useful mental map of Palma Ceia dining right now is not a list. It's a line from MacDill and Bay to Bay east across the Selmon to Howard, with a room every few blocks and one anchor at each end.

A summer evening, mapped

If the goal is to route an evening that uses the corridor rather than picks one point on it, a workable sequence looks like this:

1. Start at Palma Ceia Village. Coffee at Toffee to Go, or produce and a juice at Palma Ceia Village Health Market if you're heading to the beach the next morning. Palma Ceia Village Health Market operates at 3225 S. Macdill Ave, Ste. 123, with hours running 9:30 to 6:00 Monday through Saturday and 10:00 to 4:00 on Sunday.
2. Walk south on MacDill to Bay to Bay. The sculpture at the intersection is the marker; the Design District officially begins there. A sculpture by local artist Marc DeWaele was erected at the Macdill and Bay to Bay intersection to officially designate the district. Its ribbon cutting was March 17, 2010.
3. If it's not a Tuesday, dinner at The Brother Trattoria. If it is a Tuesday, Cru Cellars or Bella's.
4. If the plan is fine dining, skip the Design District entirely and start on Howard. AVA for Italian, The Landon for the tasting-experience version of the evening. They are literally across from each other, so a nightcap swap is a crosswalk.
5. End the walk on Bayshore. The neighborhood commercial activity is focused around the intersection of Bay to Bay and MacDill. This business district is home to specialty services, boutiques and cafes. It is approximately a half-mile walk from Bayshore Boulevard.

That half-mile is the piece most guides skip. From the DeWaele sculpture to the seawall is roughly ten minutes on foot, which means every dinner on the MacDill spine sits within a comfortable after-dinner walk of the water. It is the reason the corridor works in summer at all: you can eat inside from four o'clock, then be on Bayshore by nine when the heat has finally moved off the pavement.

What the return of 717's corner actually changes

The easy read on The Landon is that Palma Ceia now has another fine-dining option. The more accurate read is that the corridor is finally symmetrical again. For two years the eastern anchor was missing, and the MacDill core was carrying the whole neighborhood's evening business. AVA held the SoHo side alone. Now the Howard end has two rooms under one ownership within thirty feet of each other, and the walking distance between the DeWaele sculpture and the 717 corner reads as a single dining district instead of two disconnected clusters.

That has practical consequences for anyone who lives here. Reservations at The Landon are already tight; Saturday tables at The Brother Trattoria have been tight for a year; Cru Cellars fills its front room by 7. The neighborhood's dining capacity did not double in March, but the number of usable evenings in a week did. The Tuesday when The Brother is closed used to be a driving night. Now it's a Landon night, or an AVA night, or a Cru night. The rotation is deeper than it was.

If you have out-of-town guests this summer and one dinner to spend, the honest recommendation is the walk itself. Park once near Palma Ceia Village, move east on foot, and let the corridor do the work. The neighborhood tells its own story better than any single room on it does.

For a longer conversation about what this corridor means for the streets that feed into it, or for anything else related to living well in Palma Ceia, Heidi Odio and the team are always glad to talk. Contact us anytime.