Rocca

Rocca is a Michelin-starred Italian restaurant at 323 West Palm Avenue in Tampa Heights. Gilk designed and built it twice: the original restaurant in 2019, and the second phase in 2021–22 that added a new dining room and the Cenetta, a private dining room for up to sixteen guests.

The rooms share one language: hand-finished plaster walls, framed oil paintings on floating shelves, oak tables, navy chairs and banquettes, patterned tile at the wainscot, and a laser-cut metal screen that lets the two phases open into each other. The bar carries a herringbone tile front and a back-lit wine wall for the restaurant’s Italian list.

Rocca received one Michelin star in the 2023 MICHELIN Guide Florida, the first for a Tampa restaurant, after a Bib Gourmand the year before, and it holds the star in the 2026 MICHELIN Guide. Gilk’s Founder is a partner in the restaurant through its ownership group, which is the reason this project gets built the way an owner would build it.