Café Mars

Inspectors’ Favorite Dining Experiences from 2024

"Delightful service with a personal touch, offering a carefree and unapologetic menu concept, where guests choose their own glassware and receive complimentary bubbly or kombucha." - MICHELIN Guide

"This trendy Brooklyn spot from Chef Paul D’Avino is quirky from start to finish, and that's exactly what makes it shine. The contemporary menu is equal parts modern and nostalgic, with an outlandish creativity to boot. It's all intended for sharing, so come with a gang and kick off the festivities with four squares of negroni Jell-O with Castelvetrano olives suspended inside. Garlic knot monkey bread is topped with dollops of Parmesan butter. Pastas get an equal dose of creativity, as seen in the bucatini naporitan with diced porcini mushrooms and nardello peppers along with Japanese pork sausage links shaped to resemble baby octopuses. Finally, marble olive cake may look typical but it's anything but, with a salty-sweet combination that brings it all home." - Michelin Inspector

The Best Restaurants in Gowanus, Brooklyn | Eater NY

"Housed in what used to be a pasta factory, the maximalist Cafe Mars is decked out with custom chairs with neon pink squiggly legs, and accents like a three-foot-tall pepper mill. Dishes are equally over the top, with some elements referencing Italian Itameshi cuisine. There’s Parmesan-cured fluke with “crazy water,” and a steak pizzaiolo with “penne fries” and tomatoes, and for dessert black olive marble cake." - Eater Staff

MICHELIN Guide Inspectors’ Favorite Desserts in New York

"A square of cake that looks like a typical marbled brownie, but as this kitchen excels at, the expectation is always flipped in some way. The lighter cake was a sweet olive oil pound cake batter while the darker was a black olive cake, which was more salty than sweet. It was finished with amaretto-soaked cherries and whipped cream. It was creative, and it came together well." - MICHELIN Guide

Biryani Bol Delivery Launches From Team Dhamaka | Eater NY

"I learned that the futuristic Italian restaurant Cafe Mars, opened in May in Gowanus by alums of Wd~50 and Aska, is hosting a Feast of the Seven Fishes: the dinner will be held on Friday, December 22 and Saturday, December 23 (the restaurant is not open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day). Menu items include fried calamari with sweet potato, an endive salad with caviar vinaigrette, and oysters with tomato relish; the full menu is available online and can be ordered a la carte or as a set, and reservations are up." - Emma Orlow