Ella's Americana Folk Art Cafe
3 and 1/2 stars
5119 N. Nebraska Ave., Tampa, 813-234-1000 or ellasfolkartcafe.com
I shy away from the the term "hipster," if only because it's tossed around with a disregard of meaning that puts the misuse of "cool" and "hip" to shame. Sometimes it's a slur, sometimes a misguided attempt to classify a widely varied range of people. But when it comes to Ella's Americana Folk Art Cafe, it fits.
This new restaurant is in a restored house in Seminole Heights, which may give you the impression that it's a tiny, funky place with a few tables and a lot of art. Not by a long shot. There is a lot of art, from the life-size metalwork sculpture of a horse in the front yard — seemingly in the throes of a painful attempt to stand up — to detailed pieces composed of found objects, and everything in between. By the hostess stand are sculpted faces above pages from books, their contorted features conveying a sense of the text before you even get close enough to read it. It's an impressive display, and the restaurant's devotion to the "folk art" part of its name is reflected on Ella's menu, where each artist is afforded an entire page with pictures and a bio.
Even so, that artwork can get lost in a space that is both bigger and much slicker than my preconceptions of what a Heights house restaurant would look like.
This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2009.