Tampa Florida
12/24/2019
KITCHEN COUNTER FOOD CULTURE
2909 W Bay to Bay #100
COUNTER CULTURE is Chef Pierola’s modern homage to classic counter dining and its barstool kinship between diners and the kitchen. Elevated kitchen bar dining, open air mixologist bar, Florida patio seating, and sparkling Bay views.
Modern Plates and Vibrant Cocktails
Dinner Service 5p-10p everyday
Florida Trend
2019
Edison: Food + Drink Lab
AWARD: Golden Spoon
Jeannie Pierola is Tampa’s ever inventive, never tiring favorite daughter. Her kitchen’s wood flames and molecular wit can cook up charred octopus with horiatiki salad or dirty fregola, sear red snapper in espelette pepper or tangerine-grilled eggplant. She searches Florida for ingredients, the world for flavor. Explosive results. And more to come: Pierola redoes a diner as Counter Culture.
Tampa Bay Metro
2019
Edison: Food + Drink Lab
Best Creative Cuisine
Continuing to push culinary limits, Chef Pierola and her team blend unique flavors and provide guests a gastronomic delight. The unique and creative entrees and menu of small plates changes daily. Open for lunch and dinner.
Katie Glenz is the sommelier at Edison: Food + Drink Lab in Tampa. [MARTHA ASENCIO-RHINE | Times]
By Helen Freund
Tampa Bay Times
Sep 18 2019
From pét-nats to skin-contact whites, natural wines are popping up at restaurants, coffee shops and wine bars across the bay.
“Some of these wines, people wouldn’t even know that they were natural," she said. "You just have to really listen to your guests.”—Katie Glenz
edison: food+drink lab is proud to announce we have earned the prestigious 2019 Wine Spectator Award of Excellence. Wine Spectator has consistently recognized edison’s wine program since 2015. Our Wine Director, Sarah J. Belyeu curates a tight list of undusty hip wines that pair perfectly with Chef Pierola’s modern cuisine. More than just a pretty label—edison’s wines are carefully chosen great finds of exceptional value. Uncork something unique today.
We are so proud of our Chef Owner Jeannie Pierola having been named a semifinalist for the prestigious 2019 James Beard Award and we’d like to congratulate all the other honorees!
Very honored to receive OpenTable Diner’s Choice Awards for Best Food and Fit for Foodies. Thanks to all our customers for dining with us and to OpenTable for this recognition.
#5 Tampa Bay Times Top 10 / Top 100 Restaurants of 2019, and Laura Reiley put edison at the top of The Best Burgers in Tampa Bay.
Jeannie Pierola is one of the area’s most celebrated chefs, pushing the envelope with her own globetrotting-but-still-somehow-uniquely-Floridian culinary take. She has been busy, opening Swigamajig at Sparkman Wharf at the end of 2018, with her Counter Culture opening soon at the iconic Pach’s Place location in South Tampa. Food, service, cocktails and the wine program at Edison continue to dazzle.—Laura Reiley, Tampa Bay Times
photo: Luis Santana, Tampa Bay Times
We are so honored to receive a Florida Trend's 2018 Golden Spoon Award. 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and now 2018! Thanks to Florida Trend, our loyal customers, and edison's dedicated team.
Cru 12: Sarah Belyeu, Wine Director and Manager of edison: food+drink lab
By Jen Bingham September 13, 2018 Podcast
Is she a cheese-maker from Brooklyn? An organic farmer from Oklahoma? A genetic preservationist from St. Augustine? Yes!
A love of all things organic brought Sarah to wine, and wine brought Sarah to the attention of Chef Jeannie Pierola. That’s a pretty simple explanation for a really fascinating story, but you can’t expect much from the show notes.
When she isn’t juggling wine bottles at one of Tampa’s best restaurants, she’s helping to launch two new projects: swigamajig divebar and fishkitchen, and Counter Culture. On this podcast, Sarah spills the beans on those new restaurants, the difference between wine that’s grown versus wine that’s made, and what it’s like to work with Chef Pierola. listen
Featured wine: Clos de Luz “Azuda”
By Laura Reiley, Times Food Critic
TAMPA — On Wednesday night, about 60 people got a sneak preview of what Tampa diners soon will experience at Sparkman Wharf, part of the $3 billion Water Street Tampa neighborhood that Jeff Vinik and Strategic Property Partners are developing in what was Channelside Bay Plaza.
Still very much under construction — lots of cranes and dirt and temporary tents — it was a thrilling look at what will debut in late October. It’s a phenomenon playing out all over the country in cities from Philadelphia to Detroit: Shipping containers repurposed to comprise a series of small restaurants or food vendors. Think of it as a food truck rally with no wheels. Or an open-air food hall.
"It’s hip, it’s cool and cutting edge," said Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn while sipping a cocktail called Pillow Talk, something that will be offered at Jeannie Pierola’s shipping container restaurant, a dive bar/fish shack she’s calling Edison’s Swigamajig (the "swig" is for the cocktails and the "jig" is a reference to fishing lures). Pierola sat nearby in her chef whites, gearing up for the 7 p.m. unveiling of what she called a cracked conch coconut "caipirinha," a Key West pink shrimp toast "Monte Cristo" and a surf and turf dog with charred octopus.
"We started talking to (Strategic Property Partners) so long ago, more than a year ago. We want to do something here that’s all local seafood," Pierola said, her inspiration drawn from a now-defunct fabled seafood house on Anna Maria Island called Fast Eddies. She described what would be on the Swigamajig menu (heady stuff like cracked conch silver dollar funnel cakes dusted with Key lime sugar)... more
By Ashley Gurbar Kritzer–Senior Reporter, Tampa Bay Business Journal
Aug 20, 2018, 7:34am EDT Updated Aug 20, 2018, 1:39pm
One of Tampa's most prominent chefs will have an expanded presence at Sparkman Wharf, occupying two of the 10 shipping containers within the dining garden.
Chef Jeannie Pierola, a four-time James Beard semifinalist and creator of Edison Food and Drink Lab in South Tampa, is bringing edison’s swigamajig divebar and fishkitchen to Sparkman Wharf, which was previously Channelside Bay Plaza.
The concept is a reinvention of the "quintessential Florida seafood shack," according to Strategic Property Partners, the developer of Sparkman Wharf — "a no-frills, channel-side shanty that’s all about cocktails and the catch." more
By Meaghan Habuda Creative Loafing Tampa
Over the weekend, Tampa's Sparkman Wharf made the final partnership announcement for its intimate al fresco dining garden. Local chef and four-time James Beard Award semifinalist Jeannie Pierola plans to bring her newest project to the forthcoming waterfront hangout along the Garrison Channel, and it's been dubbed edison's swigamajig divebar and fishkitchen.
Regionites can rejoice for a couple of reasons: One, this means weekly reveals from Sparkman Wharf are over (hopefully). And two, swigamajig is, seriously, like, the best name ever. more
edison: food+drink lab is proud to announce we have earned the prestigious 2018 Wine Spectator Award of Excellence. Wine Spectator has consistently recognized edison’s wine program since 2015. Our Wine Director, Sarah J. Belyeu curates a tight list of undusty hip wines that pair perfectly with Chef Pierola’s modern cuisine. More than just a pretty label—edison’s wines are carefully chosen great finds of exceptional value. Uncork something unique today.
