It's rare for restaurants today to be passed down from one generation to the next. However, Tampa's Ulele bucks convention as it's now under fifth generation family owned leadership. Focused on local ingredients, vibrant flavors, and a convivial dining experience, Ulele is becoming a local favorite for its distinctive personality and flavor. It also helps that it's located with views of the Hillsborough River, an outdoor sculpture garden, and features its own brewery. Below, we spoke with Patrick Quakenbush, executive chef of the Highland Avenue spot, for an exclusive look at what sets Ulele apart from the rest.
What was the idea behind Ulele?
In the early 2010s, “farm to table” and locavorism were all the rage. Richard Gonzmart, fourth generation owner of the 1905 Family of Restaurants, knew there was a deeper story to tell of the ingredients used by the indigenous Tocobaga culture of Tampa Bay and the area’s first European pioneers. With the blessing of the local Seminole tribe leaders, we created a menu inspired by the shellfish, seafood, livestock, and harvest from the land.
How would you describe Ulele in three words?
We started broadly with three ideas—Fire, water, spirits.
Today that also includes—Fresh, Native-Inspired, Home.
How did it all come together?
Ulele was created in a former 1903 city water works plant that had fallen into disrepair. After winning a bid as part of a city effort to revitalize the Tampa Heights neighborhood along the Hillsborough River adjacent to Ulele Spring, two years were spent renovating the historic structure into a restaurant that had an industrial yet modern and natural environment. That included indoor/outdoor seating overlooking the river and Richard Gonzmart’s modern art collection in the downstairs dining room and sports memorabilia items in the upstairs mezzanine. The music is a fun mix of Motown and 1960s and early ‘70s soul that Richard Gonzmart grew up playing in a garage band.
We also built Ulele Spring Brewery inside the restaurant to create craft beers as a pairing to the menu. Not only did it put Ulele in the conversation during Florida’s incredible craft beer boom, it honored the water that came from that facility in the early 1900s to make beers at the Florida Brewing Co.. That brewery created the Saloon Columbia in 1903, which became the Columbia Restaurant, Florida’s oldest and our flagship sibling restaurant in the 1905 Family of Restaurants.
How does the ambiance relate to the menu/beverage list?
One of the first things guests see entering the restaurant is an open kitchen with a circular, barbacoa grill where much of the menu is grilled, chargrilled, sautéed or sauced. It was intentionally built that way to mimic the fires built by the Tocobaga to cook with.
The indoor/outdoor bar is as intimate as it gets, with private-select spirits and Ulele Spring Brewery beers on tap brewed only a few feet away. There's also an oyster bar where walk-in guests can sit and watch staff shucking fresh Gulf oysters while enjoying their meal.
Outside, amid the natural spring and riverfront views, we showcase renovated storybook figures from Tampa’s Fairyland section of the former Lowry Park Zoo. The Three Little Pigs, Humpty Dumpty, and Cinderella all tell a different story of Tampa’s history.
What is it like selecting produce for the menu?
We’re blessed that Florida provides such wonderful produce for most of the year. We work with local distributors to feature the freshest we can find, especially for our native-inspired Three Sisters Salad made with crisp romaine, grilled zucchini, squash, red onions, cranberry beans, tomato, corn, red peppers, and Florida citrus vinaigrette. We make beer with local honey. We use locally grown strawberries in our ice cream. It goes on and on.
Everything from the produce to the beer to the wines come from family-owned or independent companies. Why is this important?
Ulele is owned by the fifth generation family of owners, the Gonzmarts. The restaurant supports family owned businesses the way the family has been supported.
What did you learn from working at large-scale restaurants like Planet Hollywood + Margaritaville?
It was a perfect way to prepare me for the demands of Ulele’s lunch, dinner and private events. And how to handle volume without sacrificing quality.
How did you transition from this style of cuisine to Ulele?
It was fairly seamless at the beginning, although there was more attention at Ulele to locally sourced ingredients and house preparation. I joined Ulele a year before COVID closed all of Florida’s restaurants for two months. Then it became a challenge to reopen the restaurant, adjust for supply chain issues, labor scarcity, and employee health. We’ve been fortunate to experience record years since as customers missed dining [with us].
How do you determine the flavor profiles?
We collaborate as a team to brainstorm about the cross-section of seasonal ingredients, availability, customer appeal, uniqueness, preparation, and menu items that tell the restaurant’s story. Our native-inspired menu pays homage through local ingredients such as snapper, crab, alligator, wild boar, venison, corn and grains. Okra, another customer favorite, is hand-cut, fried and tossed in freshly squeezed lime juice and kosher salt and served with house-made ketchup.
What is one must-try dish?
Our chargrilled oysters. Barbacoa-grilled with garlic butter, grated Parmesan and Romano cheeses, the [oysters] quickly became a customer favorite when we opened in 2014. [They're] a local staple since the Tocobaga harvested them from the Hillsborough River and Tampa Bay. We also serve them on the half-shell with our own house hot sauce made with Florida datil pepper. It’s so popular, we sell it by the bottle.
What’s the team's favorite dish from the menu?
One of the most popular dishes for staff as well as customers is the Seafood Risotto with pan-seared shrimp and sea scallops, butter-poached lobster claw, crawfish tail meat, saffron risotto, charred com cream sauce and a seasonal vegetable.
What is your favorite beer (or drink of choice)?
Every spring, Ulele Spring Brewery’s brewmaster, Tim Shackton creates Honeymoon Lager, a limited-edition variety of our popular Wedding Beer brewed with a kiss of Florida strawberries locally-sourced from nearby Dover and Plant City. It's topped with a plump red strawberry on the rim. Customers and craft beer lovers look forward its release every year.
How did you first get introduced to the world of fine dining?
My love of food comes from the extensive traveling I did in Europe; journeys that exposed me to several cultures and tastes. Growing up in Germany allowed my family to be exposed to a wide range of food as we traveled from Spain to France to Italy. It provided me an informal culinary education very early in my life.
What is next for Ulele?
We’re looking forward, in coming years, to expanding our private dining options and increasing the size of our kitchen for more capacity and efficiency.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me to work for a celebrated business that thrives on quality and value, relationships and family. Ulele is a special restaurant—a destination in a spectacular setting that has been successful since the day it opened in 2014.
