Bistro La Mer Aruba — Restaurant in Aruba

A bit of a disappointing experience at La Mer last night. Right off the bat, we were told there was no catch of the day and the lobster ravioli would not be available because they expected to be busy. So this menu item is there only for nights when the restaurant is empty? Really? For appetizer, oysters we're good, the Greek salad was so-so, and the octopus was chewy. The garlic shrimp were substituted for the shrimp cocktail and were OK, though highly overpriced at $26 for 6 shrimp. For mains, the skirt steak was decent, chicken parm was good and the Frutti di Marre pasta was so ridiculously spicy, it was inedible (though the restaurant gave us 10% off for the inconvenience and not warning about the spice level). Service was not good. We were brought the wrong drinks about 5 times (mostly because they belonged to another table) and the staff generally seemed lost, confused and clueless during the night. Drinks took over 25 min to arrive and the bread came after our appetizers. A stray dog wondered into the restaurant and walked around table to table for a good 20 min. Restaurant staff did nothing about that ... so much for fine dining. Wine pours were also miniscule. Overall, definitely a disappointing experience even though some of the dishes...

Great food and service but very salty food! Had to dock a star because the food was extremely salty for my liking. The octopus was perfectly cooked, not gummy at all and very smooth but it was coated in salt so I couldn’t enjoy it to the fullest. For the pasta, I told the waiter to make it less salty so it came out perfect. The smooth buttery baby scallops were my favorite. Another guest had the medium boneless ribeye and the steak was perfectly cooked, very smooth and delicious. But again, once the peppercorn sauce hit my tongue, it was extremely salty and tasted like a salt rub, which messed up an amazing steak! The polenta skin was also soo salty but the inside was perfect and delicious! If you like salty food, this is a great place but as someone who likes food below average salty (everyone at the table found it too salty too), I’ll make sure to tell my waiter next time to make everything less salty 🧂🤏

Kudos to the chef for coming out and taking in...

This was our first visit to La Mer, a new seafood restaurant in Malmok and in the WARIRURI building. We were extremely impressed with the service and the food. The charred octopus was the best we have ever had (tender and perfectly cooked), the branzino and the sea bass was also perfectly cooked (and for me that means light and delicate for fish), they had a great selection of deserts and delicious cocktails as well. They also asked us upon arrival if we had any food allergies. I would recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting Aruba and we will definitely go back again next time...