Mar Belo

Another hidden gem of Long Branch dining. A small Portuguese restaurant with incredible décor and ambiance.
The best time to go is lunch. There is an exceptional lunch menu with very reasonable prices. My favorite item for lunch is the steak and shrimp, it is served with potatoes, vegetables, and a great sauce on top. There are some great seafood options for lunch as well.
There is a small plate of olives and great bread served before your meal as well. There is also a big selection of tapas, wines, and beers.
Wait staff is very professional and food is served promptly and cooked perfectly. This is a place I will keep coming back to, very deserving of the five star rating.

Great place. Parking in the back is very convenient. Everyone was very nice from the hostess to the waitstaff. Food was delicious. I absolutely loved the bread and garlic butter. My steak was cooked to perfection. I also had the sangria and it was excellent. Prices seem high but the dishes are at least two portions so they aren’t bad at all. I did notice a sharing charge ($ 6 to share a dish). Definitely go!

Great food and service! Highly recommend! Best shrimp I’ve ever had. Anything you get will be amazing.

We came here for my father’s birthday. There is parking in the lot off Broadway. The décor is very nice. The meal was fantastic. We started with the garlic shrimp, grilled Portuguese smoked sausage, and the grilled baby octopus. The shrimp and sausage was amazing. I’ve had better prepared octopus, however, they give you a fairly big portion which made up for the lack of taste. The sangria was superb; my mom said she would go back just for the sangria. For the entrée, I had the monkfish while my brother and parents ate the paella. All of our entrees were very good. Would definitely recommend this place to friends.

We came here tonight with my in-​laws and husband. What a delightful restaurant with such friendly service! My husband and his father respectively enjoyed a scallop special and lobster bisque, which seemed delicious. I had the salmon, which came with asparagus and delicious creamy mashed potatoes. My husband and his parents went for the more popular seafood dishes: paella, seafood pescator, and mariscada seafood. All three of their dishes were huge portions of shrimp, scallops, squid (and all three had takeaway bags at the end of the meal!). The two stews came with rice on the side. I will note the «green» sauce for the mariscada is more of a «white» sauce. My husband and his father shared a bottle of white, which they thoroughly enjoyed. Although a bit on the pricey side for this area, the amount of seafood given was well worth it.

We had a very nice dinner here tonight. The seafood pescador was chock full of a variety of seafood that was well cooked and served with saffron rice. The salmon with rosemary cream sauce and yummy mashed potatoes was also delicious. The mackerel appetizer was 4 small whole fish with cooked onions, garlic, olive oil, etc. The food was nicely seasoned. Every table gets warm bread with olives and seasoned butter. There was soft bossa nova style music playing lightly in the background that added ambience. The service was excellent. Demi, our waitress, and another gentleman served us and were very friendly and helpful. The desserts sounded wonderful, but we were too full for any. Next time! We’ll definitely be back.

Awesome sangria. Great Paella. Friendly service. Can’t ask for much more on date night

What a wonderful place, great Portuguese restaurant With awesome staff, Demi is a gem. Can’t wait to return

Impressive little Portuguese restaurant! The food was fresh and not too expensive. Of course, if there is paella on a menu, I’m going to order it! And they definitely knew what they were doing. It was filled with fresh seafood (calamari, clams, mussels, scallops, shrimp and a half lobster) and the rice was seasoned perfectly. Another shining dish at the table was the flank steak with homemade chimichurri sauce — the steak was very soft and flavorful and came with sliced potato fries. I have to say I was not so impressed with the sangria. It was overly sweet and tasted like it had simple syrup in it. Also, the service is very slow… but friendly!

Hard to get good portugeuse food in the area. This place is a great place for a date. It has a great atmosphere. The service is very friendly and knowledgeable about the menu. They area also very attentive making sure that everyone is enjoying themselves. The red sangria is recommended. I have had the Fraldinha No Churrasco which cant be reproduced. the meat is so tender and the sauce that it comes with makes it even better. The Paelha Valenciana comes with alot of seafood which is all cooked to perfection. I will be coming back for dinner soon.

This place is fantastic! The food is delicious, the portions are generous, and the service and atmosphere are suburb. This is a truly a GEM in Long Branch! Be sure to get the pitcher of sangria — — it’s phenomenal!

Went there on a Saturday night got seated and waited a good 15 minutes before someone came to the table. One waiter was watching a soccer game other 2 were I where to be found. When the waitress finally came she said do you want to order something no we’re sitting there because we needed a place to sit. After we ordered she goes to the next table and starts reading off specials that she never told us. She was a very nice young lady just clueless. The sangria was fair at best. I had the paella Valencia and the fish was not real fresh. The Spanish potatoes were great. I might go back but would order some type of steak. Place is just «OK»

One person can really turn a good meal into a great one. Visited Mar Bello for lunch after driving around for 15 minutes and I sure am glad that I did. My bartender was attentive and engaging which made my meal that much more enjoyable. The bitoque, sirloin with egg in top, was very good and at a good price. Give this place a chance and it won’t let you down

Open Table’d a reservation last minute and we were seated fairly quickly. The starter bread with olives and garlic whipped butter is delish! Overall, great service despite the fact that they were fairly busy and jam packed. There was someone constantly refilling our water glass. I ordered the seafood paella which was topped with a good portion of lobster tail still in shell, sausage, chicken, calamari, shrimp, clams and mussels. My husband ordered the steak non churrasco which was equally as yummy. The portions were so large that the hubs and I both had leftover lunch for two days! Pair all this with a pitcher (or two!) of sangria and your belly will be happy! Great portions of good food for a great value! Definitely would come back here when visiting!

This place lived up to the hype and then some! Authentic Portuguese dishes, hearty portions and a fantastic wine list! All the food is freshly prepared from the salads to the seafood. We tried a Portuguese white wine to go with our meal — A vinho verde. What a great wine and not very expensive at all.
The service here is fabulous. Cristiano was knowlegable, offered items that could be easily made that werent on the menu, and had a great knowledge of wine and food pairing. Made for a fabulous experience
Looking forward to coming back to try their meats and are definitely coming back for an upcoming wine dinner!

Had a wonderful experience here. Really delicious food. Even the fries were good which at most Portuguese places the fries are usually a throw away. The service was what put it over the top though, talk about being pampered. So friendly, attentive. Our meals were really a delight tho I had skirt steak and my husband had a seafood hot pot and both were really well done. Will definitely go back.

They know what they are doing here. Inviting bar with a few regulars, perfectly dressed white linen tables in the main dining room. Upscale and modern décor. Something that I wish more Spanish restaurants would embrace and let go of the old world traditional décor. The Garlic Shrimp appetizer, a Portuguese must, is on point, served with warm bread for dipping. Clams in garlic white wine, olive oil are large and perfectly tender. Carefully not over cooked. The staff, well groomed and sophisticated yet hospitable and warm. Stiring up excitement as they expressed their favorites on the menu. Demi, mentioned the Lobster special on Thursday’s. Andre, working the bar helped us navigate through the wines. The Steak Portuguesa is the perfectly tender skirt steak with an over easy egg and just the right salty slice of ham on top. Finished with a beef garlic gravy like sauce. A Spanish coffee is a divine way to finish off dinner or lunch. Beautifully layered in a snifter. Something that Andre has mastered at preparing but the other staff, not as of yet. We hesitate getting one if Andre isnt there… We are officially regulars…

Excellent restaurant in Long Branch; Try the sangria also the Paella was amazing and I strongly recommend it!
Service was really good and our waiter attentive; there is free parking outside readily available and have plenty of options for dessert too!

This restaurant was a great, albeit slightly pricey introduction to Portuguese cuisine. I came here with a large family group (15 people) for Sunday lunch to celebrate what seemed like all our birthdays. They accommodated us with two long tables in their clean and classy interior. It was rather empty with only two other parties dining, which was a shame since this place was a hidden gem.
I was a little disappointed that the significantly cheaper lunch menu was not being served, but I guess that’s to be expected for fancier restaurants. The dinner menu was comprehensive and had something for everyone to enjoy. The only problem was that everything sounded so good that I had a hard time deciding.
I ordered the Bife a Portuguesa, which was a 16 oz strip loin topped with ham and a fried egg and a heaping portion of batatas fritas (fried potatoes) on the side. For some reason it didn’t click in my mind that I was ordering 1 lb of meat until it came to the table. The plate was intimidating, but it didn’t stop me from powering through to eat every last bit of red, juicy goodness. It was perfectly cooked and demi-​glazed with a wonderful sauce. The potatoes were sliced thick and fried to a nice crispness. The delicious white wine sangria helped guzzle it all down.

Four stars right out the chute — not bad. Really four and a half and I’ll probably upgrade them to five stars after another visit or two. Delicious food, very nice atmosphere and friendly and efficient service by all of the staff, especially Pedro our bartender. The dinners were excellent, both a steak and mariscada shellfish stew were some of the best Portuguese dishes we have eaten in a long time.
This place is better than Ria-​Mar and Portuguese Fisherman in South River as well as Malaga in Hamilton and Europa in Point Pleasant. So if you are hankering for some Portuguese cuisine shoot over to Long Branch — you’ll be glad you did.