Forbici Modern Italian restaurant opens in Hyde Park Village

HYDE PARK — Last week, Jeff Gigante and managing partner Jay Brunetti opened a new restaurant in Hyde Park Village called Forbici Modern Italian.

The restaurant serves a variety of Italian dishes, but the emphasis is on their Roman-style pizza.

It's what inspired the name of the restaurant, Forbici, meaning scissors in Italian. It represents the Roman tradition of cutting the pizza with scissors.

Forbici's uses these scissors to cut its pizza, said Gigante, one of the co-founders of Ciccio Restaurant Group.

"After you make the dough, you take it out and let the yeast work on the rising of the flour, and then you put it in a cooler," he said.

"The result is something that's thick, crispy on the top and bottom, and airy and fluffy in the dough in between."

Gigante said the biggest difference in Roman-style pizza lies in the hydration.

"It's more water used than in New York-style pizza," he said, "and the fermentation is different. Normal fermentation is five to 10 hours but ours is 72 hours."

Guests can choose between either a 24-inch Teglia (square) or 12-inch Tonda (round) pizza with a variety of toppings.

Prizes range from $6 for appetizers and sides up to $40 for shareable pizzas.

Forbici Modern Italian is open from 4 to 10 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, 4 to 11 p.m. Thursday, 4 p.m. to midnight on Friday, 3 p.m. to midnight on Saturday and 3 to 9 p.m. on Sunday.

They're open for brunch from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

For more information visit www.eatforbici.com/

Contact Monique Welch at mwelch@tampabay.com or Follow Mo_UNIQUE_ .