This little pizza ’n’ subs delivery joint/sort-of sports bar in St. Pete has quietly become a mainstay with lazy Old Southeast munchers. The pizza is great, and there’s beer on tap for those who want to hang out a bit, but The Italian Way’s secret weapon is its Buffalo wings. Forget the plethora of exotic sauces and heat indexes most chicken wing merchants are offering these days. The Italian Way’s straight-up hot wings are the perfect size (not so big as to raise suspicions of genetic enhancement), the perfect color (that neon orange hardcore wing aficionados recognize as the real deal), and the perfect flavor — namely, HOT, much hotter than most restaurants’ regular “hot” wings, but not quite at the choke-on-snot threshold. Get back to basics, and be more than satisfied. 400 45th Ave. S., St. Petersburg, 727-867-4300, www.theitalianway.com.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2006.