Heading over for dinner tomorrow evening. Anyone ever been?
very good meal when Charles Olalia (rice bar, patina) was exec chef while back, haven’t been recently…great views from patio. has a nice little restaurant garden. tried several of their restaurants during stay there–pleasantly surprised-above average to very good.
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Solid food put out by Chef Bernard Ibarra, albeit not especially cutting edge. Feels very much like what you’d find at a resort because that’s what it is.
Make sure to order some of his salt pairings. Fantastic program where the chef collects salt from local kelp beds and flavors it with Meyer lemon, rosemary and other produce they grown on site, then sprinkles over simple grilled fruits and vegetables, house-made chocolates, etc.
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I’m not the one who selected the restaurant. Thanks for the helpful tips!
Friday evening was lovely along the shore. We saw dolphins swimming as we enjoyed a leisurely dinner.
We both opened the meal with cocktails. A mint julep for him and a Dreamer’s Tonic aperitif (made with Lillet) for me.
Bread service was house made English muffins with butter and fleur de sel
The charcuterie board had prosciutto, Spanish chorizo, sopressata, salumi, mortadella, mustard, roasted garlic, and house pickles.
Maine lobster roll
Cured foie torchon - Harry’s berries, house made granola, buttered croutons
Southern BBQ shrimp
Maine Lobster - uni, burrata, house made papardelle, butternut squash
Dessert was a lovely berry tart and a salted caramel pot de crĂŞme with chocolate. It was too dark to take pictures.
We had some nice wine pairings with our meal. However, when asked about salt pairings the staff indicated they didn’t do those anymore.
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So is this one of those cases where it’s “if you got nothing nice to say, then say nothing at all”?
Bummer that you didn’t get the salt pairings. Was the food at least decent?
This is a nice place to go if you want a fairly decent meal at a lovely location. Nothing here will blow your mind. I was taken here, so had no input on the matter. I would have much rather had a trip to Nobu in Malibu.
Sorry…edited to mention that they don’t do them anymore. I asked. The staff looked at me oddly.
We had a family celebration for my parents 60th at Mar’Sel. Though I usually steer clear of hotel or resort dining, it was the closest reasonable option to the Wayfarers Chapel. The food was very, very good, interesting but not too complex, and thoughtfully plated. But what REALLY made me happy I had decided on Mar’sel was the service. It was absolutely done right, excellent wine suggestions, the server explaining the menu items beautifully. Overall they hit the perfect balance of warmth, kept everything coming out, the service running like clockwork and at the same time gave us space to just be a large table of chattering happy people. We felt very well taken care of. We did one long table on the patio with a view of the moon rising and illuminating the ocean, pretty spectacular.
Maybe, because it is a resort, they have a management style that leans towards an overall positive experience for diners.
It certainly worked for us.
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Agree with you on service. The staff know the menu well and have thoughtful suggestions on wine pairings. Jeffrey was great the entire evening.
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I seriously need to update my previous review! We took my parents to Mar’sel again for their anniversary this year, and I am sad to say we did not repeat our previous success. There appears to have been a complete turnover of staff and all new faces. The service was really ordinary, the waiter and maitre’d were more pretentious than warm. As for the food, none of the flavor concepts really worked for us. We ordered starters: two salads, both very overly salted, scallops which were a bit iffy freshness wise, and the pea soup, which was ok. For entrees we did the filet, which was cooked properly, but just not a very impressive flavor, lobster roll which had odd hard bits of fennel and way too much brioche for the portion of lobster, chicken which was overly brined, and the duck which was, well, just odd. The desserts we shared a homemade chocolate ice cream which was extremely icey though nice chocolate, and a white chocolate banana cremeux which was sadly not very cremeux but rather rubbery. If I had not been trying hard to make my parent’s evening a success, I would have sent some of these items back. None of my family are as picky as me, but on the drive home, even they said it was not as good as last time. To be clear, our previous visit was 8/2015, though I neglected to post the review until this June. Now, I would not recommend Mar’sel, in it’s current version, for any reason other than the extraordinary views.
I guess Sergio quit
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donald’s been busy.