MesaMar Seafood – Keeping it Fresh

Now in Its Seventh Year, MesaMar Continues to Serve Spectacular Seafood 

Half the battle in bringing fine seafood to the table – some would say most of the battle – is the importance of freshness. Anyone who has caught and fileted a fish for dinner knows the difference between very fresh and less than very fresh.

At MesaMar, where seafood is the headliner, the catch sits on ice in the main “fish” room, flown in hours earlier from the Caribbean or driven by truck from the Florida Keys. When you order the house special – a whole fish that is half broiled and half fried – the waiter will first bring you the fish (preferably hog snapper) so that you can attest to its freshness (clue: clear eyes good, cloudy eyes bad). 

I haven’t seen a lot of opaque-eyed fish at MesaMar, mostly because its proprietor and head chef Lilia “Fifi” Molina is a terror when it comes to accepting only the most recently caught. She has been known to send back whole shipments and strike items from the menu rather than sully her seafood cred. 

In the best-selling book “Kitchen Confidential” by famed chef Anthony Bourdain, his advice was to never order seafood on Mondays, since most restaurants get their last shipments on Friday. For MesaMar – which is coincidentally closed on Mondays – the shipments arrive Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so nothing is ever more than a day old. Sometimes they will run out by late Sunday evening, with customers consuming 200 pounds on weekend nights, so nothing is held over. 

That freshness alone is sufficient reason to visit MesaMar, especially if you order the whole-fish house special, which is served with a meat-stripped fish skeleton propped up like a dragon, broiled pieces on one side and grilled on the other. “Regular customers love the catch of the day, half and half, with fried rice on the side. That is the local’s favorite, with tostones,” says manager Antonio Acevedo. Fried rice and tostones? Yes, that is the unique flavor proposition of MesaMar, seafood with overlays of Asian and Latin flavors. 

The Asian influence is evident in another customer favorite, the rock shrimp tempura, with a “secret sauce” that includes chili garlic, mayo, mushrooms, miso paste, and yuzu, a complex Japanese citrus juice that blends orange, lemon, and tangerine. It is an addictively delicious dish, crunchy, pungent, and sweet. Their fried rice is equally full of flavor, prepared from scratch each evening with high-quality ham, free-range organic chicken, and, of course, fresh shrimp. 

MesaMar also does wonders with lobster – in their case the spiny langosta from the Caribbean. Their Latin-influenced lobster tacos are lip-smacking tasty, as is their lobster ravioli with its Asian-infused cream sauce. While much of the menu at MesaMar remains unchanged from before COVID shut them down for six months, there are some new items on the menu. One is a salmon sashimi, with yuzu juice, truffle oil, green onions, garlic chips, dry miso and orange infused whip cream. It’s more like a salmon carpaccio, with thin slices enhanced by a citrus infusion. Light, tasty, and refreshing on the palate. 

Another new treat from Chef Molina’s arsenal is her gorgonzola and pear ravioli paired with bits of filet mignon, a perfect conflation of sweet, savory, sour, and salty. “We transmit emotions through food,” she says. “That is how I get inspired to make this food. Also, I like to eat.” 

The interior of MesaMar is a pleasant experience, broken into three rooms. The largest, the “fish room,” is where the latest catch is displayed on ice. The “library room” has a wall of leather-bound books (most in Swedish, strangely enough), backlit in a way that makes the room glow. Finally, there is the small “happy room” which has more bookshelves plus a constellation of large silver stars on one wall. The wait staff is agreeably friendly, premised on MesaMar’s philosophy that a happy relationship with customers is more important than professional formality. “It is very difficult to make 200 people happy on a Saturday night,” says Acevedo. But MesaMar manages pretty well at it, evidenced by customer seating that is now back to pre-COVID levels. 

MesaMar Seafood Table

264 Giralda Ave
(305) 640-8448
www.facebook.com/mesamarseafood