Mise en Place settles into Ybor City home

In the food world, trends come and go. The new, trendy thing is hot — until it’s not. There are plenty of examples in the Tampa Bay area’s dining history.

Mise En Place is a notable exception. The Tampa fine dining institution has been on the tip of foodie tongues for 40 years, defying conventional wisdom about the precarity of the restaurant business and spawning offshoots, brand extensions, pop-ups, and fierce loyalists.

Now, it’s started a new chapter in Ybor City.

Last year, Mise closed its longtime location along Kennedy Boulevard across from the University of Tampa with a Halloween party. Its new home — the ground floor of the Casa Gomez office building at the gateway to the Ybor City Historic District — places it in an emerging food hot spot in one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods.

“Historic districts need to thrive, and Ybor City is a special place,” says Mise en Place co-founder and co-owner Maryann Ferenc. “When I moved to Tampa, we came here to blow off steam, dance, drink, and listen to live music.” 

 Back then, the neighborhood’s scrappier days were reminiscent of Ferenc’s native Detroit. Nowadays, young professionals in suits walk past while the TECO Streetcar rumbles by every so often. The new space on 8th Avenue faces Jose Marti Park and highlights a shift taking place in Ybor. Vacant spaces are being redeveloped and activated. There’s life on the street. The din of construction – and clucking chickens — is constantly in the background.

Will fine dining customers make their way to the new spot? They certainly did 34 years ago, when Ferenc and her fellow co-founder and co-owner, chef Marty Blitz, made the bold move from Platt Street to Grand Central Avenue, once a no-man’s-land between downtown and Davis Islands.

“I love experimentation,” Ferenc says. “It feeds my love of hospitality in the broadest possible sense.”

Over the years, Ferenc and  Blitz have done anything but rinse and repeat. They’ve cultivated a catering business. For about a decade, they managed Sono Cafe at the Tampa Museum of Art and operated a wine bar at Tampa International Airport, where they now run The Cafe by Mise En Place in Airside F. 

More recently, the pair ran The Dewey, a rooftop bar and grill at The Berkeley Beach Club on St. Pete Beach’s Pass-A-Grille. Hurricanes Helene and Milton wreaked havoc there in 2024, and The Dewey closed permanently last year.

The comic irony in these culinary business endeavors is that Ferenc is a self-professed non-cook. 

“I’m not a culinarian,” she says. “Marty makes the food decisions.” 

Blitz, the head chef, still asks all the staff for detailed feedback on new dishes. 

“Telling him something is ‘good’ won’t fly,” Ferenc says. “He wants notes!”

Mise’s menu has always been considered New American—innovative modern cuisine rooted in French cooking. Asked how Mise has maintained the attention and excitement of Tampa foodies, Ferenc is pensive.

“We evolve authentically,” she says. “We don’t chase trends, but we notice and integrate them, if it makes sense.”

The real throughline for the pair over the last four decades is a deep commitment to community.

“My gift,” Ferenc says, “is building platforms for talented people. I love it.”

Many former Mise employees have gone on to launch food and beverage businesses. But it’s bigger than that. Ferenc’s platforms don’t just launch talent; they magnetize a place. That’s why Ferenc works with Visit Florida, the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, and the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board to promote Florida tourism.

“Foodies love going out in search of culinary experiences on the periphery,” she says. “Hospitality and adventure go hand-in-hand, and I love showing how great a host we — me and my team, but also the Tampa Bay region — can be to locals and visitors alike.”

She hopes Ybor residents and neighbors will become Mise regulars and longtime fans from across Tampa will rediscover an area they’ve not explored in a while.

With easy parking,  Sky Puppy Brewing nearby for a pre-dinner drink, and a streetcar stop out front, Mise En Place’s new spot in the heart of Ybor City feels like a natural fit.

Mise En Place is open for lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday; brunch Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; cocktail hour Tuesday through Saturday 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.; dinner Tuesday through Thursday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

For more information, go to Mise en Place