Brasa, Argentine-Italian restaurant bringing wood-fired pizzas and pastas to Ocean City

A new Argentine-Italian kitchen was moving into 3303 Coastal Highway, and Brasa was aiming to give north Ocean City something that went beyond the usual red-sauce playbook. The restaurant’s profile and website described wood-fired pizzas, meats, pastas and wine, positioning it as a spot where pasta mattered, but so did live-fire cooking and a menu built for more than one tradition.

That combination is what separated Brasa from a standard Italian room. An OceanCity.com listing said the concept blended Argentine asado traditions with the laid-back, ingredient-first style of Tuscan Italian cooking, then spelled out the details diners would notice on the plate: house-made pastas with balanced, rustic sauces, authentic Neapolitan wood-fired pizzas, premium meats, seafood, seasonal vegetables and open-grill preparation. The same listing pointed to wood-fired steaks finished with house chimichurri, a clear nod that this was not a straightforward Old World trattoria.

The timing of the opening added to the buzz. Brasa was described as opening soon after the business announced the project in an April 16 Facebook post, and the construction was nearing completion when the news emerged. A Baltimore Sun report on April 24 said the restaurant was “opening soon” at 3303 Coastal Highway and quoted the business’s profile and website as promising “meats, pastas [and] wine … crafted with intention.” By April 27, the project had also been tied to the former north Ocean City home of Guido’s Burritos, underscoring how quickly the restaurant scene on that stretch of Coastal Highway has been turning over.

For pasta readers, Brasa’s draw was not just the fact that it planned to serve noodles, but the way it framed them. House-made pastas with rustic sauces sat alongside pizza from a wood-fired oven and a wine list meant to match both the grill and the pasta station. In a town where a lot of Italian dining still leans familiar, Brasa was preparing to offer something more specific: an Argentine-Italian hybrid that looked built to catch beach visitors, north Ocean City regulars and anyone looking for a new place where pasta came with smoke, char and a little chimichurri.