We stopped in on spur of the moment decision after taking a walk in Essex. We thought it would be fun to take a short water taxi ride to the Siren Restaurant.The waitress Erin was fantastic. Friendlyprofessional and couldn't have been nicer. We each had a drink and split a calamari appetizer (we were going to have dinner at home about an hour so later). Calamari was as good as it gets. We plan to stop back for dinner in the next few weeks. Beautiful setting and look forward to returning.Ben and Rosemary FigueroaMadison, CT
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Calamari
Ashley Carroll
4 of us had lunch on a beautiful day. All of us left completely stuffed because the food was so great.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Crab Cakes, Lobster Roll
Philip W.
Stopped in here For lunch with clients and were happily greeted by the hostess who told us our table should be ready in 20 mins. Great. So we headed to the bar to sit in the shade as it was 85 deg. and we'd been walking around town. As we sat down,the bartender started mumbling something about vodka. When asked what hell he was talking about he asked one of my clients what was in her water bottle. We actually thought he was kidding. She held it up and said it was water ( which it clearly was) and he bent down and almost touched the bottle with his disgusting snout. He then asked her husband what was in his water bottle while complaining about how people bring their own alcohol in and order soda to mix their own drinks. Absolutely classless. No one had ordered anything. And after that, no one was going to. We went to our table and had a nice meal. the wait staff was great but your bartender is a classless, clueless dillweed.
Rachel B.
This place is so cute! The patio was so nice with views of the marina, bar is small but also capitalizes on the views. The little boat ride (like 30 feet) to the "island" makes it summery and fun. We came on a Saturday as a party of 5 and the hostess took our name saying "there's 5 people ahead of you, are you sure you want to wait? I have no idea how long it will be." We said sure and got a drink at the bar.. but seemed super odd to it be able to give an estimate. while at the bar the bartender offered us to dine there so we said sure thinking a table would take an hour. About 20 minutes of being at the bar the hostess says our table is ready .. so we asked to transfer our meal to the table. The hostess and bartender got a little annoyed with this but we really didn't want to eat at the bar. With 5 people it's hard to talk to everyone. Anyway we sat down and since the bartender stayed on as our waitress we barely saw her. Never got waters and only got a drink refresh when they dropped off the dinner. Both bartender and hostess seemed overworked and annoyed all night. Food was just okay.. I had the cauliflower bowl and it was good but a crazy amount of green onion was on top.. almost more than there was cauliflower or edamame. Others had the crab cake sandwich and said it was ok, over sauced and roll was dry. This place has potential to be amazing but needs to work out their staff morale and fine tune the dishes.
DebbieGMadison_CT
A friend from Ivoryton took us here. We'd been to Essex many times but never to Siren. The little ferry took us the 30 feet across the water! The ahi tuni poke bowl was excellent. Our friend had the chicken sandwich as usual and it was excellent as usual. Erin our wait person was very personable. Great time.
J M
The ferry was fun but my goodness the food is terrible. We started with the Brussel sprouts with sauce on the side. We noticed right away if you eat the sprout without the sauce you can taste fish in the oil. My guess is same fryer is being used. The lobster roll wasn't very good and certainly not worth $32. The mango mojito had no soda water in it. It was made by an inexperienced bar tender. We ordered a chocolate tort for my nephew and 20 min and it didn't come out. We questioned the waiter and the excuse was they were slammed in the kitchen taking care of entrees first. We said forget it. Got the bill, paid and left. We won't be going back. So many better restaurants in the area.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 2
Marie Maselli
Cute place but food was mediocre. Ordered dinner and hostess suggested we substitute fries for the mashed potatoes, which we did. Also substituted side salad for mashed on 2nd dinner. Check came and not given an itemized bill. When brought yo her attention just told us that she was given one. Well maybe it was bc they charged us about $24 EXTRA for those substitutions and the waitress never told us we’d have to pay full price as if we were ordering extra food. Would No recommend.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 2
Service: 1
lizlichens
Have been here several times- always good food! Love taking out of town guests here- they love the charming ferry ride. Excellent service and wonderful ambience!!!!!
Patricia Murray
The food was great, a bit of a breeze off the water, transported by ferry, and dining in a marina; what an amazing experience.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Lobster Roll
Sarah R.
We've enjoyed coming to siren kitchen and bar several times! It's a great option for seafood and to sit outside for food in Essex! The drinks are always solid and the food is delicious! I got the shrimp roll which was tasty! Definitely recommend giving it a try if you're in Essex.
We only had drinks here but the service was excellent, the location magical and the setting very nice. This is a must-visit location in an oasis of must visit locations. The menu looked very interesting and fun. They had a couple fruity spritzers and a decent beer selection. What's not to love? We will absolutely return!
Michael P.
We rode our dinghy to Essex Island, with the intention of having drinks and a bite to eat. First off, the Marina doesn't have a dinghy dock, and they charge $10/hr to tie one up in a regular docking area. When we walked into the bar, it looked like a nice place to spend a few hours. Well, after listening to the bartender boasting to another customer that she was going to be working at other place soon... I started to feel a little strange. But my partner and I each ordered our drinks after confirming our drink mixers. I have to say that I've rarely, if ever turned down a drink... but the drinks that we each had were so terrible that my wife could not get down a second sip and I let my self down almost a half before throwing in the towel... The bartender made the worst drink I've ever had and was very unwelcoming. The food was tasty but frozen restaurant supply quality.
Eric Pero
Beautiful Essex location! Water taxi ride pleasant and captain was very pleasant. Nice views of boat harbor. You get a glimpse of what it's like to have the "good life". Food was fantastic. I had the cauliflower General Tso's rice bowl and my wife had a lobster roll with homemade potato chips. Meal was a little pricey but that's Essex. We've been here a couple of times and come back every few years. Highly recommend!Kid-friendliness: Grassy area around restaurant patio/boat dock where kids can be kids!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Lobster Roll
Debbi Tomel
Went here with a friend for lunch, lovely place!!! Drinks were good, food good, although, I ordered the lobster roll and lobster was not tasty, sweet at all. Service definitely needs help!!! It definitely was very relaxing sitting outside with the beautiful breeze! Maybe we just hit an off day, as we well know we all have them! Will try again!
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 2
Dan Madison
Really enjoyable place to eat. You take the free boat service to the little island which makes it Special. The staff was very nice and accommodating. Food was good as well. Cocktails were good but pricey but you are on the water. Atmosphere was great for romantic water view dinner.Parking: Short walk to transport boat
We stopped in on spur of the moment decision after taking a walk in Essex. We thought it would be fun to take a short water taxi ride to the Siren Restaurant.The waitress Erin was fantastic. Friendlyprofessional and couldn't have been nicer. We each had a drink and split a calamari appetizer (we were going to have dinner at home about an hour so later). Calamari was as good as it gets. We plan to stop back for dinner in the next few weeks. Beautiful setting and look forward to returning.Ben and Rosemary FigueroaMadison, CT
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Calamari
4 of us had lunch on a beautiful day. All of us left completely stuffed because the food was so great.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Crab Cakes, Lobster Roll
Stopped in here For lunch with clients and were happily greeted by the hostess who told us our table should be ready in 20 mins. Great. So we headed to the bar to sit in the shade as it was 85 deg. and we'd been walking around town. As we sat down,the bartender started mumbling something about vodka. When asked what hell he was talking about he asked one of my clients what was in her water bottle. We actually thought he was kidding. She held it up and said it was water ( which it clearly was) and he bent down and almost touched the bottle with his disgusting snout. He then asked her husband what was in his water bottle while complaining about how people bring their own alcohol in and order soda to mix their own drinks. Absolutely classless. No one had ordered anything. And after that, no one was going to. We went to our table and had a nice meal. the wait staff was great but your bartender is a classless, clueless dillweed.
This place is so cute! The patio was so nice with views of the marina, bar is small but also capitalizes on the views. The little boat ride (like 30 feet) to the "island" makes it summery and fun. We came on a Saturday as a party of 5 and the hostess took our name saying "there's 5 people ahead of you, are you sure you want to wait? I have no idea how long it will be." We said sure and got a drink at the bar.. but seemed super odd to it be able to give an estimate. while at the bar the bartender offered us to dine there so we said sure thinking a table would take an hour. About 20 minutes of being at the bar the hostess says our table is ready .. so we asked to transfer our meal to the table. The hostess and bartender got a little annoyed with this but we really didn't want to eat at the bar. With 5 people it's hard to talk to everyone. Anyway we sat down and since the bartender stayed on as our waitress we barely saw her. Never got waters and only got a drink refresh when they dropped off the dinner. Both bartender and hostess seemed overworked and annoyed all night. Food was just okay.. I had the cauliflower bowl and it was good but a crazy amount of green onion was on top.. almost more than there was cauliflower or edamame. Others had the crab cake sandwich and said it was ok, over sauced and roll was dry. This place has potential to be amazing but needs to work out their staff morale and fine tune the dishes.
A friend from Ivoryton took us here. We'd been to Essex many times but never to Siren. The little ferry took us the 30 feet across the water! The ahi tuni poke bowl was excellent. Our friend had the chicken sandwich as usual and it was excellent as usual. Erin our wait person was very personable. Great time.
The ferry was fun but my goodness the food is terrible. We started with the Brussel sprouts with sauce on the side. We noticed right away if you eat the sprout without the sauce you can taste fish in the oil. My guess is same fryer is being used. The lobster roll wasn't very good and certainly not worth $32. The mango mojito had no soda water in it. It was made by an inexperienced bar tender. We ordered a chocolate tort for my nephew and 20 min and it didn't come out. We questioned the waiter and the excuse was they were slammed in the kitchen taking care of entrees first. We said forget it. Got the bill, paid and left. We won't be going back. So many better restaurants in the area.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 2
Cute place but food was mediocre. Ordered dinner and hostess suggested we substitute fries for the mashed potatoes, which we did. Also substituted side salad for mashed on 2nd dinner. Check came and not given an itemized bill. When brought yo her attention just told us that she was given one. Well maybe it was bc they charged us about $24 EXTRA for those substitutions and the waitress never told us we’d have to pay full price as if we were ordering extra food. Would No recommend.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 2
Service: 1
Have been here several times- always good food! Love taking out of town guests here- they love the charming ferry ride. Excellent service and wonderful ambience!!!!!
The food was great, a bit of a breeze off the water, transported by ferry, and dining in a marina; what an amazing experience.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Lobster Roll
We've enjoyed coming to siren kitchen and bar several times! It's a great option for seafood and to sit outside for food in Essex! The drinks are always solid and the food is delicious! I got the shrimp roll which was tasty! Definitely recommend giving it a try if you're in Essex.
Restaurantji Recommends
We only had drinks here but the service was excellent, the location magical and the setting very nice. This is a must-visit location in an oasis of must visit locations. The menu looked very interesting and fun. They had a couple fruity spritzers and a decent beer selection. What's not to love? We will absolutely return!
We rode our dinghy to Essex Island, with the intention of having drinks and a bite to eat. First off, the Marina doesn't have a dinghy dock, and they charge $10/hr to tie one up in a regular docking area. When we walked into the bar, it looked like a nice place to spend a few hours. Well, after listening to the bartender boasting to another customer that she was going to be working at other place soon... I started to feel a little strange. But my partner and I each ordered our drinks after confirming our drink mixers. I have to say that I've rarely, if ever turned down a drink... but the drinks that we each had were so terrible that my wife could not get down a second sip and I let my self down almost a half before throwing in the towel... The bartender made the worst drink I've ever had and was very unwelcoming. The food was tasty but frozen restaurant supply quality.
Beautiful Essex location! Water taxi ride pleasant and captain was very pleasant. Nice views of boat harbor. You get a glimpse of what it's like to have the "good life". Food was fantastic. I had the cauliflower General Tso's rice bowl and my wife had a lobster roll with homemade potato chips. Meal was a little pricey but that's Essex. We've been here a couple of times and come back every few years. Highly recommend!Kid-friendliness: Grassy area around restaurant patio/boat dock where kids can be kids!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Lobster Roll
Went here with a friend for lunch, lovely place!!! Drinks were good, food good, although, I ordered the lobster roll and lobster was not tasty, sweet at all. Service definitely needs help!!! It definitely was very relaxing sitting outside with the beautiful breeze! Maybe we just hit an off day, as we well know we all have them! Will try again!
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 2
Really enjoyable place to eat. You take the free boat service to the little island which makes it Special. The staff was very nice and accommodating. Food was good as well. Cocktails were good but pricey but you are on the water. Atmosphere was great for romantic water view dinner.Parking: Short walk to transport boat
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Chicken Sandwich