Tampa’s Cuban sandwich is not Miami’s, and locals are firm about the difference: Tampa’s includes Genoa salami, a legacy of the Italian workers who lived alongside the Cuban and Spanish communities in Ybor City. It is pressed on Cuban bread and the layering is not negotiable.
Ybor City was built by the cigar industry in the late 1800s, and the restaurants that fed those workers established the city’s Spanish and Cuban cooking. Several of the oldest are still operating.
Gulf seafood is the other pillar — grouper especially, which turns up as a sandwich on nearly every waterfront menu. Seminole Heights holds most of the newer restaurants and is where the city’s cooking is currently most interesting.