Many Italian restaurants Tampa, Florida and throughout the United States have become Americanized to the point of interpreting classic family recipes into simple, lowest common affairs: spaghetti and meatballs, pizza and incongruous combinations that mask the essence of whatever one into the mix in the first place.  Pasta has become the ‘miracle ingredients’ for those unimaginative chefs who use copious amounts to make a trivial statement about an ethnically joyous occasion such as eating.

Tony May, back in 1982, launched Gruppo Ristoratori Italiani or GRI, which has over 200 chefs, restaurateurs, food writers, manufacturers and educators as its members, all charged with spreading the word about good Italian food and wine.

The GRI is set to fix the misconception that pasta has no taste unless it is smothered in a chunky red sauce or a creamy white sauce.  For every rendition America has come up with for pasta, there is an Italian version that neutralizes that notion and makes one’s taste buds come alive with authentic Italian fare. 

Through seminars, training and educational funding projects, the GRI hopes to persuade Italian-American restaurateurs to practice standards of culinary excellence evident in the big Italian restaurants throughout the world.  And they are not talking about the major ‘chain Italian restaurants’ every town has.  There is nothing wrong with these Italian chain restaurants according to May; however they are Italian “style” restaurants and that is exactly what you are paying for; the ambience – fake grapes, candles and wine bottles -  assortment of wines and the Americanized Italian pastas and pizzas.

A Tampa restaurant that serves Italian foods for instance wants to have a representative from the GRI visit their establishment in order to discover what type of Italian cooking is being performed and delivered to the patrons and if any adjustments should be made in order to authenticate any of the Italian dishes to taste more like they were made in an Italian kitchen.

Authenticating an Italian restaurant may be as simple as revamping the menu items to include some of grandma’s old recipes or as drastic as traveling to Italy and enrolling in a cooking school or visiting the many Italian restaurants and wineries to actually taste what real, true Italian food is like.