Marisi — Restaurant in San Diego

We had so much fun visiting Marisi in La Jolla! The restaurant and atmosphere are top notch with vibrant beautiful plants and flowers. Their main dining area is covered but open air but they have plenty of space heaters to keep you warm in the cooler months. The food is definitely fancy and priced that way. While the options are fun and the plating is beautiful, I do feel that for the price I was expecting a bit more. Our waiter recommended each a pasta and splitting a main - which with our appetizers was a lot of food. But it was nice to get to try so many things. Overall I probably would come back to bring family or friends. As we were leaving a table nearby got the prawns which smelled absolutely delicious.

Here’s what we had: Crudo - this dish was good and refreshing, the crispy capers were unique and went well with the dish. It was nicely balanced but was a little plain. Little gem (Cesar salad)- very refreshing, but I could even eat lettuce plain I love it so much. The sauce is very good and not too rich like some Cesars. There was maybe a hint of pesto? The sour dough pieces were a little tough to fork or to bite but I like the idea of bread pieces rather than croutons. Still yummy. Carbonara - I am a big fan of carbonara in general. I felt this one was very good and I liked the fresh garlic in it. The spaghetti tastes fresh and cooked to a nice al dente. I did feel it could have more bacon flavor, I think Im used to this dish being a bit more fatty and cheesy. Agnolotti (vegetarian) - this dish seems to switch frequently on the menu. I can definitely taste the pea and Im not sure how I feel about it. I loved the pistachio flavor and little crunch. The pasta is like small raviolis which had a nice mouth feel. I would have love to taste more pistachio and mint, between the pea flavor and a somewhat sharp cheese I feel the subtle mint and pistachio flavor was a bit overwhelmed. Swordfish (local fish dish, changes depending on day) - maybe it was just that I was more full at this point but I didnt love it. The mushroom was tart and the potato puree was a bit bland. The fish itself was nicely cooked soft and not chewy but flavor wise it wasnt what I was expecting. Milk chocolate (dessert) - very yummy creamy and fruity dessert. It does not a lot of chocolate given the name. The chocolate part is a chocolate mousse in the center.

Pornstar martini - delicious, very fresh house made passion puree, quite sour, sweet but not surgary. This was my favorite drink we had. Lemon drop - very smooth taste, lots of flavor. Would love to have a raspberry lemon drop option. Marisi Spritz - very good, not too much wine flavor which is great for me!

Parking: The parking situation is not great. There is free street parking if you circle and check each street. There are also parking lots for a charge of course ($20-30). This is standard for La...

Marisi is a beautiful restaurant with both outdoor and indoor seating. Reservations can be made online on OpenTable or through their website which I would highly recommend making reservations a few days in advance. Service was great with the exception of not being able to hear our waiter when he began to recommend dishes and drinks. The food and drinks came out promptly and there was barely any wait time between each course.

Focaccia bread- this was my favorite part of the meal. The bread was fresh, light, well seasoned and perfectly baked. The basil and chili sauce that accompanied it brought it to a whole other level making it difficult to share with my SO as the salty notes blended well with the slight heat from the chili and herbaceous flavors.

Burrata and stone fruit- the burrata was well seasoned with small flaky bits of salt scattered around the dish and a hint of the balsamic glaze. The stone fruit which consisted of plums and nectarines left little to be desired as they were unripe, sour and hard. The arugula was a nice touch as it perfectly complimented the burrata.

The hand made pastas were okay... we found that the selection was half vegetarian and half with some type of meat protein which is always nice to see when there are at least three vegetarian dishes on the menu. Our waiter was unable to provide a recommendation for a non vegetarian or non pescatarian dish. He also didn't clearly explain the dishes as the menu has very brief descriptions as well as words that if you are not familiar with the specific dishes you wouldn't know what you're ordering (ex. Genovese sauce). We ended up ordering pappardelle with duck genovese sauce and the rigatoni with pomodoro sauce and stracciatella cheese.

Rigatoni- the first few bites were delicious as I was able to pair each bite with the stracciatella cheese. As soon as I ran out of cheese the dish started to become too acidic. The pomodoro sauce was one note and I wish there were notes of basil, garlic or some type of sweetness to balance out the acidity of the sauce.

Pappardelle- This was my least favorite dish of the night. There was barely any genovese sauce (slow cooked onion, meat and white wine sauce) and very little duck in the sauce making it 85% pasta with and 15% sauce. The pappardelle was too thin for my preference and left a very gritty texture which was off putting. The pasta dish overall was salty and too rich making it difficult to finish the dish.

I was unimpressed with the pasta especially since the executive chef worked at Felix trattoria with Evan Funke. I'll probably give this restaurant another chance and try a...

My hope is that the owners and management read this review. Firstly, let's start with what was positive. The restaurant space is very well thought out. Seating that encourages conversation and a communal dining experience. Soothing lighting highlights artwork and decor that sets a familiar space. Cool Italian lounge music plays over diners. A nice, if not a little cramped, bar area that serves tasty and potent mixes. The menu hits the right spots as well. Appetizers, pastas, grilled items, sides set the right balance for what is intended to be a great dining experience. The pinot grigio we had, Villa Varda, was exceptional. Even the quality of the dinnerware, cutlery and glassware are well thought out. Then there is the service. From the host reception and lack of understanding for how reservations work, the complete failure of one of three managers to check in on us or other diners, to the painfully long time it took to even place a drink order let alone get our meals ordered. Service does not meet the intended pedigree of this restaurant. We arrived on time for our reservation, but were made to wait around 10 minutes. A couple in front of us, who did not have a reservation, were seated before us. We brought it up to the person working the host reception desk, who failed to understand that people with reservations are seated before walkins. And she wanted to debate us. A place like this should not have novices managing arriving diners. A conversation with a little volume finally got us seated. We got our menus and decided on what to order. And then we waited for our server. And waited. And waited even longer. Finally I flagged down a runner to ask if we even had a server. All the while managers walked the floor oblivious to the service bottlenecks. Our server finally arrived and to avoid any potential longer waits we ordered our wine and pastas. We skipped the burrata salad, since we saw how long it was taking food to arrive. Our pastas were excellent. We finished with the Meyer Lemon curd desert, a nice finish. And we finally made a connection with our server, but he was frantically trying to keep up with his tables. He failed to even offer a second glass of wine, which we would have ordered. Front of house here doesn't run smoothly. They would fail kitchen wars on Top Chef for that alone. We will go back and try Marisi again, based on their strengths. But our hope is management and guest services improve. Otherwise we'll cut our losses and...