Agua Restaurant & Lounge

The story

Crafted with passion, served with love

Where Italian Tradition Meets Peruvian Soul

Italian owners Cristiano and Walter founded Agua Restaurant & Lounge with a clear intention: to break conventional Italian restaurant stereotypes and bring something genuinely different to Grand Cayman. Their seafood restaurant, now located on the waterfront at Camana Bay, draws on two rich culinary traditions — the precision and craft of Italian cooking and the bold, citrus-forward energy of Peruvian cuisine — to create a menu that belongs to neither country alone.

The restaurant relocated to its current Camana Bay address in 2018 with a refreshed menu, and has since become a fixture for both locals and visitors to the island. The wine program earned a Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence, a recognition that speaks to the seriousness with which the team approaches the full dining experience — not just what's on the plate.

The Food

Agua's philosophy is direct: "Seafood is our passion, freshness is our mission, and quality is our commitment." Ingredients are selected daily, and the kitchen works with both local produce and internationally sourced items. Handmade pastas are prepared with organic Italian flour — the Linguine allo Scoglio, with mussels, octopus, calamari, garlic, cherry tomato and parsley, is a signature that captures the Italian side of the kitchen cleanly and without excess.

The Peruvian influence shows just as clearly. The Snapper Majarisco — local Queen Snapper with wild shrimps, calamari, octopus, mashed plantain and aji amarillo — brings together the Caribbean catch with South American technique. The Tuna Tartare arrives with avocado, ponzu acevichado sauce, crispy quinoa tuille and sweet potato, while the Agua Poke pairs local yellowfin tuna with sushi rice, wakame and acevichado sauce. The Cod Miso, with fresh wild cod in miso marinade over fried cassava and Brussels sprouts, shows the kitchen's range beyond the two anchor traditions.

At lunch, an express menu offers two or three courses at a price that makes the cooking genuinely accessible — a wahoo carpaccio with leche de tigre and pickled onion sits alongside homemade tagliatelle with octopus ragù, and a white peach panna cotta closes things out.

The Experience

The space offers both indoor dining and outdoor seating by the water. Chef Davide Sannia and Sommelier Regis Marechal lead the kitchen and cellar respectively, and the team regularly hosts wine pairing dinners — recent evenings have featured the Nebbiolo wines of Piemonte and the coastal producers of Sardinia, each built around five-course menus that bring the Italian side of Agua's identity into sharp focus.

For private events, Agua can accommodate cocktail parties, corporate functions, intimate weddings and even private island dining experiences. It is, as one guest from New York put it after a dinner that covered fresh pasta, ceviche and fish dishes that "looked like they belonged in an art gallery" — a place worth going out of your way for.