La Marea Ristorante

Well rounded Italian restaurant. Nice dining room and really good service. House made pasta dishes are excellent. We had the yellow tail snapper special which hit the spot.
La Marea offers pizza that looks worth trying. Priced on the higher side, but worth making the visit from time to time.

Outstanding meals, service and very personable staff.

After being treated poorly at the Essex restaurant in centerbrook, we decided to go where we know will be treated like they want us there at La Marea. The food AND service are second to none. Everyone should follow this owner's way of business. Hats off to Nino and his staff.

The pizza is angelic -- lighest crust I have ever seen (both of us ate all the crust, without a second thought) (I speculate that the pizza-dough is made from imported "double-zero" superfine flour), -- and each pizza's cheese is thinly sliced bona fide buffala mozzerella (not the generic, shredded American "mozzerella").
This is also one of the few Italian restaurants where you hear Italian (not just Spanish) spoken from the kitchen.
Authenticity is not an unmixed blessing though.
This style of pizza was great as a Margherita, but I doubt that its angelicly-light slices would support many toppings or endure a drive home (were the pizzas to be ordered as take-out, rather than as dine-in).
The interior is rustic and spacious, evoking thoughts of an alpine lodge (so, why not dine-in?).
The entrees and appetizers were high quality (almost up there with the modestly-sized, angelic pizzas), but the portions are European-sized -- in line with the tales of Americans going to Paris, going to dinner, having an elegant dinner, and leaving hungry (and then going to McDonalds). So, if you want to stuff your face with supersized portions of relatively-high-quality, relatively-economical food, this place isn't going to become your new after-work bar or new go-to weekend-evening pizza-run option (stick with PizzaWorks, by the Old Saybrook train station, just 5km away for that).
But if you want a pizza that is of a type that is (easily inhalable and is) hard to find on this side of the Atlantic, and want that authentic pizza in an authentic (sometimes a little too authentic [a la the less diplomatic relative in your party yells out, ^hey, I ordered the entree, not the appetizer^]) environment, this is the place: where pizza intersects with fine, European, dining. But hey, America is full of the utilitarian type of pizza places. In juxtaposition to them, La Marea's presence significantly enhances the diversity of the Connecticut Shoreline pizza ecosystem.
The restaurant in general is worth a try. The pizza though, is a must-try, even if just so that you know what you're missing.

Excellent food! Fun and lively bar. The owmers are the best!