Almost Everything Time Has Done to Your Smile Can Be Corrected
Smile design by Dr. Summer Lerch, the first woman in New England accredited by the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. Natural, harmonious smiles in downtown New Haven for more than 40 years.
★★★★★
4.9 Google Reviews
We are proud to be New Havens top rated dentist, thanks to our amazing patients who trust us with their smiles!
Smile, You Deserve It
The words painted on our wall by Dr. Lerch's husband, and the promise behind every smile we design in New Haven.
Dental Services We Offer
Where the doctor, the engineer, and the artist meet
At the Center for Esthetic Dentistry, we believe dentistry can be a doctor's science, an engineer's precision, and an artist's eye all at once. Located in the heart of downtown New Haven, two blocks from the Green and across from Yale Medical School, our practice offers everything from unhurried cleanings to complete smile design, clear aligners, and facial aesthetics. For more than 40 years, Dr. Summer Lerch has practiced by one standard: find the smallest change that fixes what you actually see in the mirror, and match it so naturally that no one can tell where the dentistry ends and your tooth begins. Whether you are finally ready for the smile you have been quietly thinking about, or simply want a dental team that listens without judgment, we would love to be that place.
At the Center for Esthetic Dentistry in downtown New Haven, dentistry is a doctor's science, an engineer's precision, and an artist's eye all at once. From unhurried cleanings to complete smile design and facial aesthetics, Dr. Lerch finds the smallest change that fixes what you see in the mirror, and we would love to be that place for you.
Smile Design & Cosmetic Dentistry
A beautiful smile is every tooth in harmony with the ones around it, and with the person wearing it. We listen to what you see in the mirror, then find the smallest change that gets you there, from reshaping a single tooth to a complete smile makeover.
Services
Porcelain Veneers
Smile Makeover
Dental Bonding
Teeth Whitening
Gum Contouring
Smile Design & Cosmetic Dentistry
A beautiful smile is every tooth in harmony with the ones around it, and with the person wearing it. We listen to what you see in the mirror, then find the smallest change that gets you there, from reshaping a single tooth to a complete smile makeover.
Services
Porcelain Veneers
Smile Makeover
Dental Bonding
Teeth Whitening
Gum Contouring
Facial Aesthetics & Designer Lips
Your smile lives on a face, and caring for both belongs in the same chair. Designer Lips restores natural lip fullness with no needles at all, and beginning October 1, 2026, Connecticut law allows licensed dentists to offer cosmetic injections as well.
Services
Designer Lips (No-Needle Lip Treatment)
Lip & Peri-Oral Rejuvenation
Wrinkle Relaxers (Starting October 1, 2026)
Dermal Fillers (Starting October 1, 2026)
Facial Aesthetics & Designer Lips
Your smile lives on a face, and caring for both belongs in the same chair. Designer Lips restores natural lip fullness with no needles at all, and beginning October 1, 2026, Connecticut law allows licensed dentists to offer cosmetic injections as well.
Services
Designer Lips (No-Needle Lip Treatment)
Lip & Peri-Oral Rejuvenation
Wrinkle Relaxers (Starting October 1, 2026)
Dermal Fillers (Starting October 1, 2026)
Clear Aligners (Invisalign®)
Teeth keep moving long after braces come off, and nobody here judges you for a lost retainer. Clear aligner therapy quietly walks your teeth back into place while protecting them from wear, and nobody at the office or the dinner table has to know.
Services
Invisalign Clear Aligners
Shifting After Braces
Bite Alignment & Grinding Protection
Retainers That Hold
Clear Aligners (Invisalign®)
Teeth keep moving long after braces come off, and nobody here judges you for a lost retainer. Clear aligner therapy quietly walks your teeth back into place while protecting them from wear, and nobody at the office or the dinner table has to know.
Services
Invisalign Clear Aligners
Shifting After Braces
Bite Alignment & Grinding Protection
Retainers That Hold
Restorative Dentistry
Old dental work ages just like teeth do, and it can stop matching long before it stops working. We repair and replace crowns, bridges, and fillings so everything in your smile agrees again, in both strength and color.
Services
Porcelain Crowns
Dental Bridges
Tooth-Colored Fillings
Full Mouth Reconstruction
Implant Restoration
Restorative Dentistry
Old dental work ages just like teeth do, and it can stop matching long before it stops working. We repair and replace crowns, bridges, and fillings so everything in your smile agrees again, in both strength and color.
Services
Porcelain Crowns
Dental Bridges
Tooth-Colored Fillings
Full Mouth Reconstruction
Implant Restoration
General Dentistry
Great cosmetic dentistry starts with a healthy mouth, and that is where we begin with every patient. From unhurried cleanings and exams to root canal therapy, your everyday care happens with the same familiar team in the same warm office.
Services
Cleanings & Exams
Digital iTero Scanning
Tooth-Colored Fillings
Root Canal Therapy
General Dentistry
Great cosmetic dentistry starts with a healthy mouth, and that is where we begin with every patient. From unhurried cleanings and exams to root canal therapy, your everyday care happens with the same familiar team in the same warm office.
Services
Cleanings & Exams
Digital iTero Scanning
Tooth-Colored Fillings
Root Canal Therapy
TMJ & Jaw Pain
Stress has a way of showing up in the jaw, in clenching, grinding, and teeth that wear down years before they should. We look at how your bite is actually landing and treat the source, so your teeth stop paying the price.
Services
TMJ & Jaw Pain Evaluation
Bite Analysis
Clenching & Grinding Treatment
Custom Night Guards
TMJ & Jaw Pain
Stress has a way of showing up in the jaw, in clenching, grinding, and teeth that wear down years before they should. We look at how your bite is actually landing and treat the source, so your teeth stop paying the price.
Services
TMJ & Jaw Pain Evaluation
Bite Analysis
Clenching & Grinding Treatment
Custom Night Guards
Complimentary Whitening Add-On
Every cosmetic procedure at our office currently includes a complimentary whitening add-on. Ask about it when you call.
What our patients say about us
A warm, whimsical space in historic New Haven
Color, art, and the "Smile, You Deserve It" illustration on the wall. Free off-street patient parking behind the building.
Meet Our Doctor
Dr. N. Summer Lerch, DDS, FAGD, AAACD
Accredited · American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry · First in New England
Dr. Lerch likes to say her father planted the seed when she was five years old. He asked her best friend's mother, a dental hygienist, to quietly talk up the profession while the girls played, and Dr. Lerch did not learn about it until she was thirty. By then the seed had already bloomed. As a senior in dental school, a professor bonded her own front teeth, and she woke the next morning with sore cheeks. You have been using smile muscles you have never used before, he told her. That was the moment she knew what she would do for the rest of her life.
She went on to become the fourth woman in the world, and the first in all of New England, to earn accreditation from the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, widely regarded as the most rigorous credential in cosmetic dentistry. More than half of the dentists who attempt it fail their first try. After she passed, the Academy invited her to become an examiner, and for twenty years she evaluated other dentists' best work. The Center for Esthetic Dentistry has been a New Haven fixture since 1984, treating generations of the same families, and today Dr. Lerch is joined by associate dentist Dr. Frank Amaefuna. Her standard has never changed: a beautiful smile is not bright white, it is every tooth in harmony with the face it lives on.
Patients often say walking into the office feels more like walking into a home, with color, art, a few whimsical touches, and the same familiar faces year after year. Your consultation is a conversation, never a pitch, with a mirror in every room and time for every question, so you understand every choice in front of you. And when a smile design is complete, the team celebrates it with a Smile Styling Visit, because the words painted on the office wall are a promise: smile, you deserve it. Dr. Lerch is an Accredited member of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry and a Fellow of the Academy of General Dentistry.
Dr. Lisa Lam's path into dentistry started earlier than most. As a high school junior, her mom volunteered her at a local dental office, and she began at the very bottom, cleaning floors and sterilizing instruments. Over the years that followed, she worked nearly every role in a dental practice before earning her Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from New York University College of Dentistry in 2008 and completing her hospital residency at Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx. That ground-up experience shaped how she leads today. She knows what every person on her team is responsible for because she has done their job herself.
After years of practicing conventional dentistry, Dr. Lam found herself searching for more. When her own children faced chronic health challenges, she began studying the connection between the mouth and the rest of the body, and the more she learned, the harder it became to keep practicing the way she had been trained. She joined the International Academy of Biological Dentistry and Medicine, pursued additional training, and eventually opened Essential Dental so she could practice the way she believed dentistry should be done. Her approach is conservative and honest. She preserves as much of your natural tooth as possible, uses mercury-free, fluoride-free, and BPA-free materials, and only recommends what is truly needed.
What patients notice most is that she actually listens. New patient consultations run a full hour because the people who find her usually have a real story to tell, and she wants to hear all of it before making any recommendations. She works alongside functional medicine doctors and other providers to keep your whole health in view, and she holds herself to a standard she describes simply: she cannot rest until she knows the work was done right. Dr. Lam is a proud member of Spear, CDOCs, and the International Academy of Biological Dentistry and Medicine.
Dr. N. Summer Lerch, DDS, FAGD, AAACD
Accredited · American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry · First in New England
Dr. Andrew Browne grew up in the Washington, DC area, where his father, Dr. Jay Browne, practiced dentistry and gave him his first look at the profession. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Biopsychology from the University of Michigan in 2007 and his dental degree from the University of Maryland School of Dentistry in 2011. Soon after graduating, he moved to South Florida, building his early career in Boca Raton before relocating to Pompano Beach, where he has practiced ever since.
About seven years ago, Dr. Browne bought this practice, and he has kept it independent on purpose. He has looked at the corporate offers and turned them down, because when a group buys a dental office, the pressure shifts to volume and add-ons, and he built this place the other way around. He describes his work like construction: there is a beginning, a middle, and an end, and at the finish there is something real that was not there before, a rebuilt bite, a tooth that matches so well you would never pick it out. That mindset is why he invested in cone beam 3D imaging, digital scanning, and in-house 3D printing, and why he takes the most conservative surgical route each case allows: protect the bone, keep the trauma low, heal faster.
Patients experience Dr. Browne as direct and unhurried. He tells you what is going on, lays out the options, the ideal fix, the middle path, and the starting point if money or time is tight, and lets you choose all of it, some of it, or none of it. Every plan goes in writing before any work begins, so there are never any surprises. The office is laidback, the team has been with him for years, patients are served in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, and cleanings get a full hour. Whether you live here year-round or you are only in Pompano Beach for the season, you are welcome.
Dr. Lerch likes to say her father planted the seed when she was five years old. He asked her best friend's mother, a dental hygienist, to quietly talk up the profession while the girls played, and Dr. Lerch did not learn about it until she was thirty. By then the seed had already bloomed. As a senior in dental school, a professor bonded her own front teeth, and she woke the next morning with sore cheeks. You have been using smile muscles you have never used before, he told her. That was the moment she knew what she would do for the rest of her life.
She went on to become the fourth woman in the world, and the first in all of New England, to earn accreditation from the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, widely regarded as the most rigorous credential in cosmetic dentistry. More than half of the dentists who attempt it fail their first try. After she passed, the Academy invited her to become an examiner, and for twenty years she evaluated other dentists' best work. The Center for Esthetic Dentistry has been a New Haven fixture since 1984, treating generations of the same families, and today Dr. Lerch is joined by associate dentist Dr. Frank Amaefuna. Her standard has never changed: a beautiful smile is not bright white, it is every tooth in harmony with the face it lives on.
Patients often say walking into the office feels more like walking into a home, with color, art, a few whimsical touches, and the same familiar faces year after year. Your consultation is a conversation, never a pitch, with a mirror in every room and time for every question, so you understand every choice in front of you. And when a smile design is complete, the team celebrates it with a Smile Styling Visit, because the words painted on the office wall are a promise: smile, you deserve it. Dr. Lerch is an Accredited member of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry and a Fellow of the Academy of General Dentistry.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is smile design?
Smile design is the process of planning your smile as a whole, so every tooth works in harmony with the ones around it and with your face. Sometimes that means porcelain veneers or a full smile makeover, and sometimes it means something much smaller, like reshaping one tooth or closing a single gap. At the Center for Esthetic Dentistry, Dr. Lerch starts with what you actually see in the mirror and finds the smallest change that fixes it.
Do veneers have to look bright white or fake?
No. The most natural veneers are matched to your face, your coloring, and the teeth around them, not to a Hollywood shade chart. Dr. Lerch is accredited by the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry and spent twenty years examining other dentists' cosmetic work, and her standard is simple: if you can see where the dentistry ends and your natural tooth begins, it is not finished.
Can Invisalign fix teeth that shifted after braces?
In most cases, yes. Clear aligner therapy can walk shifted teeth back into place, even years after braces, and nobody here judges you for a lost retainer. Aligning your teeth also protects them, sending chewing forces where they belong instead of letting an uneven bite wear teeth down over time.
What is Designer Lips?
Designer Lips is a lip treatment with no needles and no injections. Using the Exion wand from BTL, gentle radiofrequency and targeted ultrasound stimulate your body's own collagen and hyaluronic acid, so your lips regain fullness naturally. Treatment is a short series of visits of about 20 minutes each, with no downtime. Both Dr. Lerch and our lead dental assistant have had the treatment themselves.
Can a dentist in Connecticut offer cosmetic injectables?
Yes, beginning October 1, 2026. Under Connecticut Public Act 26-13, signed in May 2026, licensed dentists may administer cosmetic injectables such as wrinkle relaxers and dermal fillers. Dr. Lerch has been preparing for this change and will offer these services at our New Haven office starting October 1, 2026. Until then, Designer Lips is available now as a completely needle-free option.
How much does cosmetic dentistry cost, and do you take insurance?
Cost depends entirely on your case, and you will always know your investment before any work begins. Dental insurance does not cover cosmetic treatment, so those services are fee for service, while our general dentistry is in network with Delta Dental of New Jersey. Our treatment coordinator helps you map out a path that fits your budget, including third-party financing through CareCredit, and every cosmetic procedure currently includes a complimentary whitening add-on.
Where is the Center for Esthetic Dentistry located?
We are at 375 Orange Street, New Haven, CT 06511, in the arts and historic district, two blocks from the New Haven Green and across from Yale Medical School. Free off-street patient parking is available behind the building. Call us at (203) 624-5256 to schedule. We are open Monday through Friday.
If there is something you keep noticing in the mirror, let's talk about it
A consultation here is a conversation, not a commitment. Come in and let Dr. Lerch show you what your smile could look like.