Chef Michael Flores, the man heading the kitchen at the Naples gem that is Marlena in Long Beach, isn’t chasing seasonality as a trend so much as he is using spring as a culinary lens. A handful of new dishes dot the menu’s staples and, with them, reflect what all the great restaurants of Long Beach are doing in the springtime. Bright produce. Restrained richness. Sharp, hefty handfuls of herbs. Preserved and freshly squeezed acidity.
And, perhaps most noticeably, the sort of produce-forward cooking that feels unmistakably Californian. Surely, Marlena opened as a Mediterranean-centric space, leaning heavily into Spanish and Italian influences; in a sense, it still does. But Marlena is one-hundred percent Californian in both its flair and love affair with the dichotomy of light and decadence.
“I think my approach has always stayed fundamentally the same, even as the menu continues to evolve,” Chef Michael said. “We have our staples—those dishes that feel intrinsic to Marlena—but every season, we’re introducing eight or nine new plates that allow us to respond directly to what’s happening in the markets. I’m deeply driven by hyper-seasonality.”
The current menu reads like a love letter to the state’s markets this time of year, where peas are sweet enough to stand on their own—or blended with white chocolate and feta… Carrots are treated with the reverence usually reserved for proteins… And citrus quietly threads through nearly every corner of the meal.
Marlena’s spring meny is all about contrast meeting balance.
The result of the final spring menu is a lineup built around contrast and balance: bright acidity cutting through richness, crisp textures paired against creamy elements, and vibrant colors that make every plate feel alive.
Take the scallop crudo ($25), where the delicacy of the seafood is sharpened with piparra chili relish, then grounded with earthy celery root and crisp sunchoke chips. It’s a dish that captures coastal California in miniature: oceanic, raw, vegetal, and lightly spicy without ever becoming heavy-handed.
The grilled baby carrots ($20) continue that ethos, arriving charred and smoky, balanced by wonderfully bright walnut gremolata and a spiced feta sauce lining their bottoms. It’s the sort of produce-first plate that feels equally inspired by Mediterranean cooking and Southern California farmers’ markets.
Even Marlena’s salads avoid the trap of feeling obligatory.
The red butter lettuce salad ($20)—with market beans, radishes, and a cashew yogurt green goddess dressing—leans into California wellness culture without feeling as vacuous as that culture can often feel, nor sacrificing depth and texture.
Meanwhile, the snap peas plate ($20) might be the menu’s most playful expression of spring. A personal favorite of mine since he served it last spring, the pairing of feta and lemon with white chocolate and pea tendrils is a wonderful nod to Chef Jeremy Fox’s famed play on the same ingredients. It sounds unexpected because it is: sweet, creamy, vegetal, and acidic all at once. Built around the fleeting sweetness of peak-season peas, it is a glorious gospel about just how underrated fresh peas can be.
Marlena’s pasta program continues to be one of the finest in Long Beach.
Chef Michael’s pasta program—one of the finest in the city—carries that same seasonal precision thanks to pasta chef Julianna Hernandez, creating wildly masterful shapes like busiate to round out the menu.
The English pea agnolotti ($32) folds spring sweetness directly into the pasta itself, pairing peas and browned butter with salty prosciutto and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Add crushed amaretti cookies—a flagship move of Chef Michael since he first served his butternut squash-stuffed agnolotti a few years back—that add definitive sweetness and texture. It’s rich but airy, decadent without becoming dense. And it is definitely for those who don’t mind sweetness to their pasta.
For the savory crowd, there is his gorgeously crafted busiate pasta ($32). This is the curled-ribbon-like pasta that feels like you’re opening a culinary present. And he coats it in a pistachio pesto and finishes it with breadcrumbs. It leans further into California’s affection for herbaceous sauces and nut-forward textures, offering something slightly greener, brighter, and distinctly warmer-weather than the deep ragùs of winter.
Pork, pizza, pesce—don’t skip the heavier dishes of Marlena’s spring menu, Long Beach.
Even the heavier dishes carry spring’s imprint. The Pachamama pork chop ($52) arrives with creamed spinach and burnt spring onion purée, bringing bitterness and freshness to a deeply savory cut.
Chef Michael’s the stuffed dorade ($45)—first introduced during his run at the Long Beach Grand Prix Fixe competition—feels especially emblematic of his style. Spinach. Herbs. Raisins. Capers. Breadcrumbs. All with brown butter to create a layered balance of salinity, sweetness, and richness that recalls coastal Mediterranean cooking that defined the restaurant’s earliest ambitions.
And then there’s the asparagus pizza ($29), perhaps the clearest seasonal snapshot on the menu. Garlic purée. Stracchino. Hefty lemon. Plenty of Parmigiano-Reggiano. They all frame asparagus not as a topping but as the centerpiece. Bright, grassy, creamy, and acidic, it tastes like spring in SoCal feels and looks: Sunny. Green in all the right ways. Something worth sharing with the table.
Surely, the regular menu is stacked. But do not skip Chef Michael’s array of spring specials…
Ah, the glory of a prime rib on Easter Sunday: This was my first spring special experience from Chef Michael at Marlena this year, a wonderful fork from his regular spring menu. Served with creamed spinach, a buttery delight of a compressed potato pavé, and a side of creamy horseradish, this dish represents everything delicious when Chef Michael veers from the coastal and goes for the comfort zone.
Or his wildly cool hamachi crudo plate, where a cream made from cippolini onions and morels lines the fish along with pickled green garlic. Satisfyingly extra creamy—the fish’s own umami combined with the cream sauce creates an unctuous quality that one can easily revel in—and wonderfully earthy with pops of brightness, it’s a surprisingly sexy dish.
The same can be said for his cacio e Pepe arancini balls. Layered with morels—clearly a favorite with Chef Michael this season and rightfully so given their quality from the folks at Long Beach Mushroom—and a hefty drench of parm, these balls of wonder are the perfect snack for the space’s outdoor vibe.
Marlena is located at 5854 E. Naples Plaza.
