The atmosphere at Maritana is contemporary / resort style, so there are no dark corners to lurk in or stuffy entrances, but both their menu and execution set the bar very high for other classy dining options in the Tampa Bay area. Do not miss a chance to order the cheese plate, because it will blow you away! Be romantic and time your 1 1/2 hour dinner to end at sunset so you can whisk your date to the Don Cesar's beach for a perfect ending to the night. read more

Classy service. Great bread. Weird raw yahoo appetizer. Grouper entree with jasmine rice was to die for. Hubz enjoyed delicious scallops. Chocolate spheres dessert were out of this world. $240-250 for 3 of us to have dinner including wonderful bottle or wine read more

Maritana Grille was recommended by others who have stayed as Don Cesar, and I have to agree with the other people who have rated this establishment high scores! Overall, it was excellent. Every dish was unique, to say the least, and the cheese plate was fabulous. My boyfriend and I ordered the steak and the snapper. The portions are a decent size, as well. I want to take a second to focus this review on the staff there. Jess, you are an asset to this organization. Wow! You made our whole dinner special. We will most definitely be back! read more

One of the best steakhouses in the Tampa Bay Area hands down. Enjoyed a nice filet paired with mushrooms and mashed potatoes. Ambiance is great and service is impeccable. Highly recommend this restaurant if you're looking to splurge. read more

Excellent menu. Beautiful presentation. Excellent service. Nice wine list. Delicious food small portions but satisfying

We were married at the don 10 years ago and missed the chance to eat here. We just went back for our 10th anniversary and had 2 wonderful meals here. Wow wow wow. the coconut cocktail - so good. Everything across the board was spectacular and the chef came to speak to us as we'd exchanged emails prior trying to set up the perfect meal for our anniversary. Start to finish perfection. read more

Service was excellent. Food was extremely expensive for what was served. I've been to many many restaurants in the biggest cities in the US... This one fails to deliver. Crab claws... All claw no crab, oysters... Itty bitty. Drinks and dessert excellent. Atmosphere especially for St. Pete Beach vey nice. 5 people and 18% gratuity automatically added by Lowes Hotel.. Bad for waiter, what's the incentive for good service? Bill was $497 for 5 of us. read more

My husband & I ate here a few weeks ago, the food was excellent & so was the service. Janet our waitress was so sweet & also very knowledgeable about the menu & wine list. She recommended the tomato bisque with Brie foam, which didn't disappoint. Hands down the best soup I've ever tasted. Well done chef Emily Ferrari, & thank you for the recipe. Nice to see a female head chef read more

The Maritana Grille. The food is unrivaled (a chef with a great imagination and expertise); service is exemplary (friendly, knowledgeable and helpful); ambiance, simply splendid (wall aquarium). Fine dining at its finest! Priced as you'd expect really fine dining to be but OH SO worth it!! read more

Maritana Grille was delicious!! I had the Chilean Sea Bass with potatoes and an amazing wine sauce. I had to hold myself back from licking the plate. The server was very nice and accommodating. We decided not to have dessert or drinks because the atmosphere was just a little too bright and close together. If you're looking for more of a private experience then this may not be the place for you. Just make sure you make time to try the food. You won't regret it!!! read more

Only order the entrees. They are terrific. Everything else such as salads are a waste of money. I think they are trying.

This was one of the best meals we have had. From the food, to the perfect service by Noel, we could not have asked for a better place to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary. The service was top notch, our every need and request was met with speed and efficiency. The food was better then we had expected. We tried the octopus and the tuna tartare for our appetizers and they were absolutely delectable! For dinner, I enjoyed the Rack of Lamb, my wife enjoyed the Mahi. Both meals were fresh and delicious as well as beautifully prepared and plated. For dessert we had the "reveal" which was a very nice finishing touch. I would recommend this place for anything from a weekend date night to a special occasion. read more

My wife and I ate at the Maritana Grille while vacationing in St. Pete Beach. Checking us in on Saturday evening, March 3, host Erika said she had no record of our reservation and the restaurant was full that night. But she consulted with the manager, they found us a table, and comped us a free round of drinks for the confusion. The table wasn't exactly in an ideal spot, but everything from there on was absolutely ideal. I had a Blanco Cosmo as an apéritif. My wife had The Prisoner, a Napa red blend wine. Both superb. Our waiter - Jess - was knowledgeable about the menu and attentive to our needs throughout the evening. Plus, he was originally from Minnesota, so he had that going for him. I had the Beet Carpaccio salad, my wife had the Spring Greens (aka the Winter Greens) for starters. For the main course, I had the Coffee Rubbed Filet (sans the coffee rub), and my wife had Chilean Sea Bass, one of the daily fresh fish specials. Dessert was a deconstructed Creme Brûlée. Light and flavorful. All in all, a wonderful evening, diminished only by the reservation snafu and the marginal table location. We'll be back. Thank you, Erika. Thank you, Jess. And thank you to everyone else who made our night special. read more

The service was great, the atmosphere is nice & relaxing. The food was great, even though it's a seafood restaurant we got the steaks which were cooked perfectly. The sides were delicious as well. Definitely upscale if that is what you're looking for. Very pleased to have a great meal at St. Pete Beach. read more

Maritana is ridiculously excellent on all ends - food, service, atmosphere, and ambience. Greeted immediately by a welcoming and personable hostess, she found out reservations and indicated that she had a great table for us. She, Melissa, wasn't wrong, with the exception of sitting at the chef's table this was a great spot. We could see the whole restaurant; observe two large, wonderfully stocked aquariums; and yet we weren' on of other tables. The temperature was comfortable, the air fresh, and lightly scented. We were immediately greeted by our waitress Nickie, who was fun and relaxed, and provided us some options for different water and a wine list. We were given two of the most beautifully designed menus I have ever seen or held. The menu offered a variety of appetizer options including a stone crab, tuna tare tar , oysters, a variety of salads, a corn reduction bisque, and more. The entrees included local fresh fish options like grouper, cobia, and wahoo. On the meat side - lamb, fillet, duck. The food was incredible. They were marvelously plated and presented. The stone crabs, tar tare, and bisque are incredible. The cobia with gnocchi... I've never had fish prepared as perfectly as tonight - Light, flakey, fresh, and delicious. I attempted to taste everything with a clear palette - The gnocchi had the most deep and complex flavoring if anything I have ever tasted. In all we had 5 dishes... None of them disappointed, rather they all surprised. Each was an adventure in its own right. Bravo Chef! Try the reveal, it's the best desert in the neighborhood. read more

4.5 stars: 5 stars for location and 4 stars for value. We decided to go to the Don Cesar for a birthday celebration. We began by getting a proseco at the inside bar and walking down to the beach (the beach bar is more casual and we wanted proseco in a proper glass). We sat at their little patio by the beach and were treated to a magnificent view and sunset over the water. We then went inside for another proseco and to enjoy the beautiful live piano music, then off to dinner at Maritania. The atmosphere was a simple elegance. We sat by one of several aquariums. Our waiter was Tim who offered flawless service. We did not get the price fixed 3 course meal which was a decent value at $65 PP. We were extremely disappointed to learn they no longer offer the chilled seafood buffet that we had read so much about! We began with a bottle of Rose Brut $89 and a artisan cheese plate. The cheese plate was lovely but not spectacular. Then a dozen oysters. They were just as we like them deep shell, medium sized. However, we are purists when it comes to oysters and like them with cocktail sauce with extra horseradish. We had to ask for it and although it was promptly delivered it was the fresh grated variety that is rather mild and we had to ask for another serving as we like a nice kick to our sauce. The oysters are not served over ice and therefore by the time we caught our waiter to ask for more horseradish they had lost their chill. Our entrees were diver scallops, which were only mildly warm on arrival and venison which was delicious. No dessert as we were full. Tim, however, brought out a lovely plate of chocolates with a candle and a Happy Birthday sign also chocolate. The bill was $289 without tip. So to encapsulate: The food was decent but pricey, atmosphere mildly sophisticated and service lovely. One negative note, if you do not sit directly in the inside bar area, you have to get the drinks at the bar yourself and then carry them to the couches to listen to the piano music. The piano player was excellent! read more

wonderful experience..great food exceptional service you have to go .........will not disappoint this is special occasion evening and worth it......... read more

Superb! We ordered the chilled seafood appetizer along with the Oceana tasting menu and wine pairing. The sampler (clams with prosciutto , west coast oysters with caviar, tuna tartare, chef's ceviche, and shrimp with chilled melon) was amazing and artfully presented. The caviar, creme fraiche, puff pastry app was possibly the best bite of all and paired amazingly with the champagne. The wahoo was next along with a proprietary white wine blend. Light, crisp and tasty. The sea bass and Chardonnay followed and was expertly cooked. Along with the gnocchi, it was like a sea version of chicken 'n dumplings. Next was a perfectly seared diver scallop with a short rib agnolotti along with a Pinot Noir which was rich and had amazing mouth feel and was much more filling than the size would suggest. The dessert was a fleur de sel (chocolate ganache and salted caramel ice cream) along with a Madeira. The wine was a bit sweet for my taste and was a tad overwhelming with the richness of the dessert. However the dessert itself was exquisite. Overall we very much enjoyed the meal. Our service and the ambiance was perfect. Will definitely return if we're ever down this way again. Highly recommended. read more

Very good food at a premium price. The cuisine is inventive. Tile fish was outstanding, and the waiter really knew his stuff. This and Castile are the two places in St Pete beach we found that are truly trying to be above average. read more

If you are looking for a top-notch dining experience, then you must go to the Maritana Grille. This is one of the area's few fine dining establishments, but it is not fussy at all. They know they are at the beach, and they are friendly and not snooty. Tablecloths, nice napkins, nice silverware, nice glassware, nice serving dishes, beautiful decor. They have all that down and then some. If you're coming for the food, you will not be disappointed. The tasting menu at $55 is a bargain. Essentially, you get one item at no cost. 18% tip is figured in, but that's fine by me. We had the Chilean Sea Bass, Roasted Zucchini Soup, Kombu Cured Tuna, Blistered Peach Salad, the Banana Reveal (an unparalleled spectacle!), ice cream, and one other dessert I can't remember. (Their dessert menu is not online.) The bread plate before dinner is generous and varied. What you have here is a restaurant where everyone is a professional. The chefs manage the kitchen with complete consistency. The items are presented beautifully and thoughtfully. It is quiet enough to have a conversation and properly lit. Wow! Who would have thought we could find THAT any more?!?! If you are out for a great night, or have something special going on, such as a marriage proposal, an anniversary, a birthday, or a client to impress -- take them here. It has to be with someone you don't actually mind talking to, though, because you can hear each other without shouting over the nearby tables. :) read more

Nothing more than disappointed in this restaurant. Starting off, there's only two reasons why this restaurant got one star rather than zero. The first being that yelp does not allow you to write a zero star review. The second reason being that the waiter we had was amazing, turning a horrible experience into a memorable one. We attended Maritana for Christmas Eve Dinner and the food was less than sub par. Starting off we were given a cheap, basic bread basket that is found at every Bonefish Grille across the nation. Me and my family bought a beautiful bottle of champagne, celebratory of Christmas which would've been beautiful with any fish entree but was wasted due to a horrible meal. I decided to get the WHOLE Maine Lobster, costing $49 and I was expecting to get a glorious lobster. In the description of the dish, it stated that it would be accompanied by sun dried tomatoes, when I was presented with the dish I was overcome with sun dried tomato's. There was a small lobster tail and two tiny claws, mixed in with every sun dried tomato on this side of the Mississippi. I quickly ate my 5 total bites of lobster and then sat there staring at a boat load of sun dried tomatoes. To be honest, I would've rather spent my Christmas Eve at a local McDonald's than to waste not only my time, but my money as well at this overrated, sun dried tomato infested establishment. read more

Our experience here didn't start off very well. After waiting for 10 minutes at the host stand, then getting the worst table in the place- in a corner near a party of four, who were BY FAR the loudest people in the restaurant--, and furthermore, waiting 10 minutes for our waitress to bring water, we finally had it turn for the better. Our waitress moved us to a different table, because she too, thought the people by us were being obnoxious. Our food was fabulous. Sampler was great, tuna for me, and scallops for my wife were both top notch. The peach reveal was the most unique dessert I have ever see. My wife and I are both quite experienced in fine dining and can say that this is the best restaurant in the St. Pete area and is well worth it. We will be back! read more

About as good as it gets. Food is outstanding. Our waiter Jeff was near perfect. Sure it's not cheap and doesn't claim to be but unlike a lot of fine dining all 5 of us were actually stuffed. Many unique neat features (chefs gift, revel desert) that add to the overall experience. Very well done! read more

Very good. Great execution. Bartender was fantastic. Friendly service. Quality of food was excellent.

Excellent food especially the crab chowder. The service was also very accommodating and nice. It is pricey as expected.

Laurie was incredible-- made our anniversary sparkle!!!! She deserves a star beyond extraordinary, we will return, thank you so much!!!!!

Have been dining here for years. Definitely 5 star restaurant. Great for special occasions.

Wow, simply prepared perfectly. For special occasions, too pricey for regular dining.

Venison was very good. Oysters are west coast and the size of quarters(terrible). Stone crab was awesome. Dessert - olive oil cake was damn good. Overpriced but typical 4 star hotel fare. read more

We read the now infamous article that Maritana was mentioned in 'Farm to Fable' so while staying at Don Cesar we were a little hesitant and almost went off property but decided to give it a try. Best decision ever. The service was impeccable. Our servers were food experts (double checking the selections were wild and not farm raised) and a sommelier that knew more about the wine list than any other restaurant we have ever been to. I was disappointed when 20 min later I was told my dish was sold out - as a restaurant owner that is always a huge pet peeve of mine. I never complained other than a whisper or two to my husband. BUT the dish I ordered instead - wild snapper with meyer lemon risotto was shear perfection. Here is where Maritana elevated themselves to a whole new level. Unbeknownst to us our server pre-ordered a dessert for us and brought it over saying there were only 2 left so he wanted to make sure we got one because of our dinner mishap. Given the usual over apologies 'sorry for not having what you ordered can I bring you dessert' which we would have politely declined, our server pre-ordered on our behalf a dessert I didn't even know I wanted but have no idea how I ever lived without it. We will return and recommend every chance we can and not just because of the dessert gesture. Every bite of this dinner will elevate your taste buds to a whole new level. read more