Combine old-world Italian cooking with down-home hospitality and you have Lamantini Trattoria, one of Manatee County’s newest restaurants. “We want to create an environment where you are as comfortable as being in your den at home with with family and friends,” owner Perry E. Muphree Jr., 63, said.

The restaurant — Lamantini is Italian for manatee and Trattoria translates as an informal eatery — opened July 5 at 1830 59th St. W. General manager Daniel Rabice, 45, grew up in an Italian-American household and has been working in the restaurant business since he was 15.