Marea

Italian seafood. Loved the risotto. Great for a special occasion.

This was our first time back since recent renovation. We have been regular customers for years. Our server was wonderful. Wine and cocktail choices very good as usual. We both loved burrata appetizer. Mine with lobster and his vegetarian. His cheese ravioli was excellent. But since I am celiac I had gluten free pasta with shrimp. In the past Marea served the best gluten free pasta. I could not even tell the difference. Last night however it was tasteless, overcooked and gummy in consistency. It was inedible and server kindly removed it from our bill. So my main reason for dining at Marea is gone. I have better gluten free pasta in every other restaurant I dine at. Such a disappointment 😞

Food - 3.5/5 Everything else - 1/5 While the food was well cooked, tasty and presented well there was very little that made it memorable or stand out. It was decent, but very hard to justify the price when you can get better fish cooked in a chiringuito on a Spanish beach for 1/4 the price. This was a $400+ meal for 2 people and does not stand out in quality against meals we have paid less than half that amount for this week in NYC. It was also a bit disappointing that when we arrived at 8pm they had already sold out of some dishes and replaced Duck with Chicken on another dish... Where the experience really fell short of expectations was the ambience, service and small touches that add up to make a big difference that you would expect of a restaurant that presents itself as one of the best in the City. My partner is gluten free and this place has a very good selection of GF food, most of the menu is GF or can be adapted. However we had to constantly ask questions to discover what was safe to eat and remind staff that we had a coeliac at the table (e.g. Bringing gf and regular bread but only 1 bowl of oil for dipping, bringing the desert menu without explaining what is GF, bringing complimentary truffles with the check and not telling us if they are GF). We got there in the end but it was much more reactive than proactive service. There were also other aspects that made the experience frustrating. Upon taking the final bite of my food, while I was still chewing (and with still half my side dish remaining), the waiter came to take our plates away from the table. Then, after being in such a rush to clear our plates it was a 20 min wait before the waiter came back to offer us the desert menus. I ordered a drink with my desert which the waiter took care to make sure he got right, then never bought to our table. Before being able to remind them we were missing a drink he had already bought the bill to our table (the very second we finished desert, without us having asked for it). They managed to simultaneously make it feel as though we were being rushed through our meal while also feeling ignored. The restaurant itself is not a special place. The decor is bland, the lighting is really bright and the temperature was uncomfortably warm. The restaurant plays cheesy 80s pop songs a bit too loud to ignore and the service table next to us had a thick coat of dust as though it hasn't been cleaned for a while. Small things but I would expect more at this price point and of a restaurant that markets itself in this bracket. Ultimately they are charging prices which the experience in no way justifies. The food is decent, but not close to being good enough to overlook all of the other shortcomings. There is nothing we experienced that would encourage us to come back or recommend this restaurant to anyone else.