Pangaea On Ocean Ave — Restaurant in Carmel-by-the-Sea

Stayed in Carmel for 7 days. (07/27/2025 - 08/02/2025) 3 of them included Pangaea for dinner. It's THAT good. We had two servers in the 3 dinners. Elijah (sp? Sorry sir if I'm wrong!) for 2 and Jonnie for 1 night. The food is just incredible. We went so many times because we wanted to try other dishes because the ones we had were so great. Having servers who make you feel welcome makes it all even better.

Drinks: Surfer RX was perfectly balanced, refreshing and very tasty.

The IPAs i tried were fantastic, not fruity, slightly bitter, hoppy and light. (Mai Tai was my favorite)

The Scenic Spritz was a favorite of my girlfriend and I tried it...perfection!

Apps: Fried Artichokes were lightly fried, not heavy and had a great dipping sauce.

Burrata was also light, refreshing and delicious.

Fried Calamari was crispy but the squid was tender. There's also fried bell peppers and that was a pleasant surprise.

Entrees: The Grilled Spicy Pork was highly recommended by Elijah. He said he puts the sauce on everything, and I believe it! It was flavorful and the pork was plentiful and tender. My only issue was I felt it was missing spicy!

Miso Salmon was cooked to perfection. Has a crispy sear, seasoned well. The wild rice added a great texture and was very tasty. Paired well with the bok choy.

Grilled Chicken and Artichokes had a lovely white wine sauce. It wasn't heavy. The potatoes were smooth and paired well with the veggies and chicken.

Sand Dabs (a local white fish like halibut) It was tender and not overcooked. The lemon and caper butter sauce was creamy and tangy. Went wellwith the mashed potatoes.

Seafood Pasta A great seafood pasta dish, light creamy pesto sauce, the perfect amount of fish and scallops to pasta ratio. It was just incredible. Get it!

Mushroom Ravioli This isn't some whipped mushroom cheese mix inside a pasta pocket. It's chunks of great hearty mushrooms, for texture. The pasta was thin and tender, perfectly cooked with an amazing truffle cream sauce. chefs kiss it's not a heavy pasta dish. It's just delicious and delightful.

Jonnie and Elijah were great servers, answered any questions we had, kept and eye on all their tables and had great banter. It's no wonder Pangaea has been Carmel's Best Restaurant in 2022, 2023, and 2024. I think 2025 will give them another Best in Carmel.

Get a reservation and enjoy it! 100% worth your time, money and taste buds.

My only problem for you was i only took one picture of the burrata app. And after we dug in. It all looked so great I didn't think to take a pic, I just wanted to eat.

Thanks Pangaea! You made our trip...

Stopped by here for dinner. This was the weekend of MotoAmerica and the US Women’s Open, along with many other events and activities taking place on the Monterey Peninsula. This meant that Carmel-by-the-Sea was quite busy. Nevertheless, because I was a party-of-one, I secured bar seating when I arrived, rather than have to wait for a table. There was a group of people in front of me, around 8 people, that were standing outside, sipping champagne, and waiting for a table. I was confused when I first arrived, upon seeing this group waiting outside. I thought that I would have to wait a while if I decide to eat here. After walking away several times, looking for another venue, and walking back here, I soon realized that they had bar seating and asked how long the wait was. There were 4 out of 5 seats taken.

Besides, it was around 7:30 pm when I arrived and the crowds were starting to thin out.

I had the coconut scallops and prawns with curry. How was it? In a word, it was delicious! The veggies they included on the dish was good, too, with just the right amount of tenderness for the carrots, zucchini, and broccolini. Each must have been cooked by themselves for them to get the texture just right.

The dish had a hint of curry, which was mild in spiciness. I appreciate this because some places make their food so spicy that you cannot taste the individual parts. They do this, too, to hide the badness of their cooking and potentially blandness of the meats and veggies. Pangea absolved themselves of this sin. I would recommend this place. I’m definitely coming back to try the other items on their menu,

Vibe/Atmosphere: A lot of people were in a good mood and having a grand ol’ time, dining here. I watched some of the activities, as I enjoy people watching.

Service: The wait staff were quite busy. They were in a rush to get orders filled out. I would describe the speed at which they move as comparable to being in San Francisco, which means they moved fast. Because I come down to Carmel-by-the-Sea to take a break from the work week filled with the hecticness and relentless speed of tech and the Silicon Valley, I wish that they would set the tone for their customers by moving slower. I know this suggestion would be hard for the Pangea staff to accept. People get edgy if they aren’t served promptly or if they perceive someone as moving too slow and getting in their way. Yet, the majority of the masses are in a rush solely because they’ve made it a habit...

We went to Pangaea Grill for lunch and we enjoyed it so much we ended up going again for dinner a few days after on our Carmel-by-the-Sea trip.

For lunch we had grilled artichoke (5.0/5.0) as an appetizer. According to my partner, it was the best grilled artichoke she's ever had, and she's tried many different artichokes. It was incredibly flavorful. We had fish tacos and kimchi tofu soup as entrees. The fish tacos (3.6/5.0) were decent but I would probably not get them again. The kimchi tofu soup (4.2/5.0) was tasty.

For dinner we ordered the artichoke (5.0/5.0) (yes, it was the main reason we came back), Spam Kim Bap Roll (4.4/5.0), Caprese (4.3/5.0) as appetizers. The artichoke was flavorful and went well with the provided dipping sauce. The Caprese was good, the mozzerella could have had a better taste. The Spam Kim Bap Roll was actually delicious, aside from the ponzu wasabi sauce which I didn't particularly like, but I had a hard time justifying its price for egg and spam. We ordered the duck breast (4.5/5.0) and seafood pasta (4.5/5.0). We also had a Farmers Market cocktail (4.6/5.0) that we enjoyed. The duck breast were moist and tender and went well with the side of steamed vegetables and rice. The seafood pasta was delicious. We would recommend both dishes and the drink!

The staff were friendly but they seemed understaffed. Our waiter for dinner was busy trying to attend to everyone and it made things take longer than they otherwise should've. We had to wait extra time to get our check and then wait again for the card to be brought back to us (~10-15 minutes for something that should've taken less than 5). They did check on us a few times and promptly removed finished plates.

The restaurant itself had lovely decor, we enjoyed looking at all...