Edison: food+drink lab

June 25, 2014July 19, 2016

Tampa is just two hours from Orlando, and while I have to go occasionally for work, like the beach, visiting Tampa for fun has been on my to-do list for quite a while. When I finally got time and made plans to visit, it was really a pilgrimage to Bern’s Steakhouse for their amazing wine list (who’d have thought a Tampa restaurant would house the largest wine cellar in North America?)

A vacation is more than one meal though, so as I started to research the Tampa restaurant scene, a few restaurants kept coming up, piquing my interest to see what the hubbub was about. Top of my list? Edison: food+drink lab.

From the name, you aren’t exactly sure what to expect. I was hoping for inventive cuisine, and the menu looked promising, but a theme or inspiration can quickly hop on the kitschy train. My hubby and I joked about servers in lab coats, bringing drinks in beakers and cooking food in front of you with bunsen burners. Fortunately, there was none of that over-the-top theatre in the dining room. The servers were friendly, and the Edison inspiration seemed contained to the menu. The idea of fun and experimentation was used throughout, with a sprinkle of modernist cuisine (liquid nitrogen kaffir lime) rounding it all out.

The food really stood up. The tuna tartare starter was a juxtaposition of flavors and styles (not quite Asian, yet not classic either) I really enjoyed. I was delighted with the goat cheese truffles, stuffed with foie gras and coated in pistachios and my chicken salad tartine was a delicious homage to the French classic (a tartine being similar to bruschetta, something tasty on toast, in the case at Edison, more like an open faced sandwich) with flavorful chicken salad on rather lovely toasted bread. My husband’s club sandwich was well made with a perfect runny egg, even if the sandwich itself was along the predictable line. The drinks menu included a wide variety of wine by the glass, a large selection of beers and several killer cocktails.

Funny enough, Chef Pierola, the mind behind Edison, was formerly a chef at Bern’s (small world) who set out to start her own restaurant a few years back. With Edison she has a success on her hands and if you are in Tampa, I highly recommend it. The food was my favorite of the trip and I’ll definitely be back.

Have you eaten at Edison? What did you think?