Estéban Restaurant, Local's Favorite, Open for Grab & Go Breakfast, Weekend Brunch, Dinner, Indoor & Outdoor Patio Dining!

A fabulous Spanish/Basque forward restaurant with terrific small plates, specials and overall delicious dishes. The staff is welcoming, too! Always a must when we're in Monterey.

We had reservations for an early dinner at 5:30 on Sunday to take advantage of their oyster special. We arrived on time but finding parking was not an easy task. We had reservations for outdoors but they asked if could sit inside, we politely agreed. After seating our party of 6 and ordering our drinks we were informed that they were completely sold out of the oysters. The waitress told us that the hostess should have informed us of this before she sat us, which she did not. We were extremely disappointed because that was the only reason we chose this restaurant. Since we were already seated we tried to make the best of the night and ordered some tapas from their Happy Hour menu along with a pizza and hamburgers. The calamari was good and reasonably priced. The pizza was just ok and overpriced for the size. The hamburgers were awful and way overpriced. Three people in our party had margaritas that were awful. Needless to say, we will not be returning to this restaurant. We felt as if the advertised oyster special was just switch bait to get us into the restaurant. If they have this special every Sunday how do you run out of oysters within an hour of opening for dinner? Poor planning or a marketing tactic?

Came here for dinner for my wife's birthday, we had a great experience. Food was great. Our server ivonne was as attentive and very welcoming....service got a bit slow toward the end of our dinner but over all it was great.

Food is always varied and excellent. Prices are reasonable, given the food quality and ambience. Service is friendly and efficient. This is one of our favorites.

The Asia woman server is the worst, she look like she didn't want to work there at all, no greetings and very angry and mean attitude in the new year eve, and throughout the meal she didn't even come once to asked us anything we need or how was the food. We have to always ask someone else to give us water or bring desert menu, and we asked for check, 20 mins later she came in several times still didn't bring check and not once look at our table. Really bad! The food was so so, beet salad was the best, Cioppino looks good but the fish in the Cioppino taste bad too, and there is no shrimp, look like cost reduction eventhough the dish still cost over 40$. Overall, very upset for the service we got there in the new year eve.

The hostess was very nice especially since we got to the hotel close to closing time. Our server Solome was outstanding and even let us order the paella. He was kind and gracious. We enjoyed our conversations with him. We came back for Sunday brunch and the make your own Bloody Mary bar- so yumm! Then we came back on Sunday for the $1 oysters and Maker's Flight (super generous pours!). Planning on going back again for their paella date night. Food is top notch. I don't normally endorse hotel restaurants but this place is amazing even if you aren't staying with them!

We had the date night paella experience. Everything was delicious. From the sangria to the paella. My husband and I had the Del Mar paella. It was one of the best paellas we have ever had. I enjoyed the crispy rice at the bottom “soccarat”. It was excellent! I can't wait to go back.

Great service, always love the food, and had a cozy evening by the fireplace with dear friends. A wonderful evening.

Our service was great. The ambiance of this place is unique, two fireplaces one in and one outside. Being from the South I absolutely loved this and was sad to discover this after we were seated. The oysters were the perfect size but I keep forgetting that in the West they do not serve them with crackers. However, they were served with a lime juice concoction that was out of this world and made up for the missing crackers. Our charcuterie board had everything you could want to finish a bottle of wine. The cream brûlée was awesome. Parking was sufficient on the street. We will return. Thanks!!!

I love Esteban. The outdoor dining area is wonderful, and inside is lovely, too. I do not like the menu nearly as much as I used to like it, but it's still delicious. And Sunday night with $1 oysters is phenomenal.

My wife and I love coming to Esteban for dinner. We wish their was a restaurant like this where we live. The food is fantastic!

Food I ordered was unusual; sea bass with potato and other cooked veggies on top. Mostly delicious. I have only one complaint, exactly the same as my experience a year ago, servers left me alone (never came by) for a long time after I finished my meal. Last time I commented the same and got a graceful response telling me improvement will be made (not that I saw). Perhaps it's that I dine alone and servers are more interested in the larger groups.

Service was friendly and overall fine — one of my drinks took about 20 minutes to arrive, but I wasn't in a rush, so it didn't bother me. Dinner was enjoyable, and it was so convenient to be able to eat right before walking over to the show

We love this place and we're excited to try the burger special because all the other food we have had at Esteban's has been so good! Unfortunately the burger wasn't as good as we expected, mostly due to the bun being so dry and flavorless, bordering stale. Please change your buns!

Food was incredible, staff made some mistakes, and there was a drunken group at the bar that were hooting and hollering. The ambience between indoor and outdoor is night and day. I recommend sitting outdoors