Cena – “dinner” or “supper” in Italian.
Support Cena during COVID-19
Safety precautions
- Surfaces sanitized between seatings
- Common areas deep cleaned daily
- Digital, disposable or sanitized menu provided
- Limited number of seated diners
- Extra space between tables
- Waitstaff wear masks
- Sick staff prohibited in the workplace
Popular dishes
Crispy Eggplant
tomato marmalade, truffle cheese fonduta, parmesan, white balsamic glaze
7 reviews
Octopus Salad
Calabrian hot sauce, fried cauliflower, gigante beans, olives, salsa rossa, ricotta salata
5 reviews
Baby Kale Caesar
chickpea croutons, chickpeas, parmesan cheese, garlic lemon anchovy dressing
3 reviews
Always wonderful. Each meal is individually prepared to perfection.
The food here is excellent and the staff are very knowledgeable and attentive! Our server was incredibly kind and answered my many questions and made some stellar recommendations!
Great food, excellent service and nice quiet atmosphere. Great for a night out away from the crazy night life in ybor city unless you want the crazy and sit outside!!!
Great outside seating area, fantastic food, good portions
Food was excellent and our service was perfect! 10/10 recommend the bread service to start!
Fantastic meal!
Good experience, wish it was in a nicer location (as far as environment), but that’s not under the control of the restaurant. It was a very nice dinner celebrating my fiancé Viki’s bday.
We so appreciate the kind words Arturo!
Food was delicious! Excepted service from Donna...we’ll be back!
Thanks so much Hallie!
Wonderful food! Awesome service! Would definitely go back!
Thanks so much Ashley!
Fabulous food as always from Chef Michael! The fried artichoke hearts! Holy cow! And now they have this huge incredible steel and glass outdoor open dining area with retractable roof, full bar, fire pit, tons of seating and heaters. It's a game changer for Covid safe dining.
Lizh, so kind! We are so glad you enjoyed our new space. Thank you so much!
Best food in Tampa
Wow John, thanks so much!
Everything would have been perfect if our bolognese pasta would have been cooked properly. We love our pasta al dente but this was way too undercooked. Very hard to even chew. Sauce was superb.
Wendy, thanks for your feedback. We are so sorry to hear this. We sent you a PM so we may address. Thank you.
Menu is varied interesting and not standard fair. Excellent combination of rich cuisine, presentation and portion size. In short, flavor, art and value. Friendly and knowledgeable service team who asked about our pace and intuitively allowed us to linger without sacrificing attention. The visit by Chef Michael was special, too.
FineDiner: what a thoughtful review. Thank you so much!
The food was good but the service can be improved. The waitress we had didn’t tell us about the daily chef special. A second waitress would come and ask questions and take orders as if there was no coordination between the two waitresses. We waited way too long to get the check.
Paul, thank you for your comments. We apologize for any service hiccups. We hope you return soon. We sent you a PM.
The execution of modernized Italian was flawless. The flavor profiles worked. Cacio e Pepe was as it should be but twisted up a notch with a stronger pepper kick. An eggplant appetizer showed imaginative effort as did our artichoke app. Thin cuts and crisp edges with sauces that were perfectly married. Then, we found out what could happen to a traditional dish when genius meets inspiration , the tiramisu, molded to a sensuous faberge egg shape with a lush mousse casing that when cut into revealed a second mousse and the requisite soaked lady fingers all surrounded by a hazelnut and chocolate crunch that played off the smoothness of the mousse. Bravo
Pdbuster, we can't thank you enough for such a detailed review! Come Back soon!
Food was fantastic, waiter and chef very attentive. The best outdoor setup I've seen. Will be making this a regular, even during COVID.
Wow, what a nice review. Look forward to having you back.
Holiday Wine tasting.
Thank you! Was a fun evening!
Lovely place. Ordered the braised short rib risotto, and the black truffle Carbonara. The only negative thing about this entire experience was both of our dishes being slightly under warm. Cold, but the flavor was there and we finished with the deconstructed Tiramisu.. Only disappointment was the entre temps.. which was a bummer but overall a good experience for a date.
We are somewhat regulars and for the most part always have very good experiences. We always choose the high top for dining and service has historically been personal and of the highest quality. Food always consistently great. This time was a little different. Instead of a dedicated server we were greeted and waited on by the bartender. He was nice enough however his primary duties behind the bar prevented him from providing the kind of service we are used to at Cena, and for that matter expect. We were having to flag down other servers for things throughout our experience. Next time we’ll be sure to request a server other than a bartender.
Service was great and that fried artichoke makes me want to come back. Thank you all for a great night
Great food and service!
Small and intimate restaurant with excellent customer service. Everything from the bread to desert was flavourful and delicious. Risotto was nice and creamy.
Dinner was delicious I had the grilled fish with mussels and shrimp over risotto. We had the ganache and omg it was awesome. I feel that you can’t go wrong with anything you order here at Cena! Awesome food
As usual food was exceptional. Service was great....thanks for another wonderful evening.
Bread platter exquisite, margarita was delightful, oxtail platter to die for and tiramisu was icing on the cake.
Overall the food was good. My wife and I disagreed on taste on a few dishes where I thought it was great and she thought it was OK. Some food we felt were under seasoned for our taste. I would definitely go back and try out some other items on menu.
We might have tried Cena on a bad night. The service was great but the food wasn’t really impressive. We did the whole appetizer, salad, entree and desert. Nothing was horrible but nothing except for the twice baked potato tasted really great.
The staff are attentive and the food is definitely worth the visit!
Nice place. Perfect for a casual night out.
Started with the Carpaccio which was not inspiring at all. Would not order this again.
As our main entrée we had the Wagyu Braised Short Rib with Gorgonzola Red Wine Risotto. Absolutely wonderful. Amazing favors. We also had the $10 bread service. We were irritated at having pay anything for bread, much less $10, but it turned out to be the best bread service we have ever had . . . worth paying for. They should call it something else besides "bread service."
We will be back!
By happy accident we tried this restaurant and could not have been more pleased. Service was very good, great wine suggestions to pair with our entrees. The eggplant appetizer is a must try along with the tiramisu!
Awesome as always
This is a nice date night restaurant but don’t go hungry. The portions are very small. The food was good but just needs more especially for the price.
What a delightful find! So happy my gf and o decided to grab dinner here. The food and the service was outstanding!
Since it started to rain, the restaurant was able to seat us inside, even though we reserved an outside table, without hesitation. The food was outstanding. A perfect date spot or celebration destination.
A little disappointed with the food last night, some of the ingredients on the food I received tasted or smelt old. Overall it was good though, service was perfect and my drinks were nice. We ordered the artichoke, veal, burrata salad, and the octopus. Very little portions of octopus as well but combination of the ingredients were unique. I would give my experience a 3.4 out of 5.
Very disappointed with the food! The pasta dishes were actually very poor, and the sauces almost inedible.
We looked forward to this outing and were thoroughly disappointed. I wrote a message with comments since the waitress never asked how the meal was, perhaps afraid since most of mine was left.
Forget this place, not worth the money.
Always great Italian and great service
Beef carpaccio was divine! Kale Caesar salad was on point. Everyone love their dish.
Best meal that I’ve had in a long time! Quality ingredients prepared and presented with thought and intention. Depth of flavor and textures in each dish was outstanding. One of the few places that will be added to the regular rotation.
FAQs
Cena offers takeout which you can order by calling the restaurant at (813) 374-8840.
Cena is rated 4.8 stars by 775 OpenTable diners.
Cena does offer gift cards which you can purchase here https://cenatampa.cardfoundry.com/giftcards.php.
Yes, you can generally book this restaurant by choosing the date, time and party size on OpenTable. Due to local restrictions, this restaurant may not be accepting reservations at the moment.