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Café Mars

$50 and over

Contemporary Italian

Make a reservation

2 people

Mar 14, 2025

7:00 PM

Booked 25 times today

Experiences are available.

Innovative
Great for creative cocktails
Neighborhood gem

Café Mars is an unusual Italian restaurant. Come see what we mean!

For parties larger than 6 please email info@cafemarsbk.com to help craft your hassle free dining experience!

Why they're an Icon

MICHELIN Bib Gourmand2023

From the OpenTable editors: There's inventive, and then there's this Gowanus Italian restaurant. A special MICHELIN award for outstanding service is reason enough to visit, but dishes like jell-olives and fluke crudo in aged parmesan have set social media aflame and given New York a rare new take on Italian cooking.

Additional information

Location
272 3rd Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215-1002
Award-winning
1. MICHELIN Bib Gourmand 2023
Phone number
(347) 987-4225
Price
$50 and over
Cuisines
Contemporary Italian
Hours of operation
Wed–Sat 5:30 pm–9:00 pm Sun 5:30 pm–8:00 pm
Dress code
Resort Casual
Parking details
None

Experiences

Global Italian #3: Arberëshë
$75.00 per person
Mar 29, 2025 - Mar 30, 2025
Arberëshë, the only cuisine located within Italy in our Global Italian dinner series, is the focus of our third installment. Beginning in the 1400s, a stream of Albanians sought refuge from the Ottoman Empire, in the legendary footsteps of the Albanian hero Skenderbeg. They settled towns and communities throughout southern Italy (especially Calabria, Basilicata, and Sicily), creating the Arberëshë culture and language that live on to the present day. Café Mars is honored to be collaborating with old friend, Chef Fejsal Demiraj. Born and raised in Yonkers to Albanian parents, Fejsal cooked at noma for 6 years. Over the last 5 years, he has been exploring his roots in Albania and Kosova in preparation for his own restaurant project. Fejsal has also just launched AMËZ, jarring up the world’s first gourmet ajvar for retail. Where other Global Italian events focus on the dynamics of Italians in foreign communities, this unusual Arberëshë dinner explores (initially) foreign people in Italian land. Both views, inhabiting a space apart and a part from Italian culture, are fuzzy and fascinating. The Arberëshë cuisine is also much older than the rest, and the back and forth has blurred the definitions even further, centuries of give and take (they invented the cannoli!) have produced a clear and distinct cuisine that is also unmistakably Italian. On March 29 & 30th, please join us for a five-course dinner (w/ surprises) and explore the space between. As this is a set menu please contact us beforehand to see if and how we can accommodate any dietary restrictions or food allergies. For parties larger than 4 please contact the restaurant via email!
Large Party Pre Fix Reservation (5-6 guests)
$85.00 per person
Multiple dates available
For parties of more than four guests, we offer a pre-fixe menu that showcases our favorite menu items and our favorite way to dine -- family style! For this menu, the party will receive an array of snacks, followed by an antipasti course. Then, a selection of our house made pastas and "main" dishes will round out the meal. To finish, you'll get to try all of our desserts! Beverages are available a la carte.

What 106 people are saying

Overall ratings and reviews

Reviews can only be made by diners who have eaten at this restaurant

4.9

4.9 based on recent ratings

4.9Food
5Service
4.9Ambience
4.7Value

Noise • Moderate

Loved For

New York City
Best Service
New York City
Contemporary Italian
Brooklyn
Best Overall
Brooklyn
Best Service
Brooklyn
Best Ambiance
Brooklyn
Innovative

Review summary

AI-generated from verified diner reviews

Café Mars, nestled in Park Slope/Gowanus, offers a "unique and delicious menu" with creative Italian dishes that "blow us away." The "warm and welcoming staff" add to the vibrant, whimsical atmosphere. Known for inventive offerings like the "lemony pasta" and "garlic monkey bread," it promises a delightful dining experience.

106 Reviews

OT
OpenTable Diner
New York City1 review
5.0
Dined 1 day ago
1. Overall 5
2. Food 4
3. Service 5
4. Ambience 4
We had a fantastic meal and a really fun night! The staff are all friendly, and chatting with them only added to our enjoyment. The sommelier is generous with his time and wine, answering our questions and offering tastes. We had a bunch of dishes, not a one of them missed the mark - I recommend the crudo, parm bites, monkey bread, and lemon pasta!
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P
Pleasedontposthis
New York City10 reviews
5.0
Dined 5 days ago
1. Overall 5
2. Food 5
3. Service 5
4. Ambience 5
Lovely, unique dinner. Looking forward to coming back again.
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P
Pamela
New York City8 reviews
5.0
Dined on March 2, 2025
1. Overall 5
2. Food 5
3. Service 5
4. Ambience 5
The Global Italian concept that Cafe Mars planned for this year is just phenomenal. So creative, so dedicated to Italian cuisine wherever it appears, a great concept. I've been to the first two--Chicago and Ethiopia/Eritrea--and they were both hugely successful on every level. In particular, I had no idea what to expect this past Saturday for the Ethiopia/Italian dinner. Every dish was unexpected and special, beautifully blending the two cultures. The endnote for the Chicago dinner was a pizza puff brought to Canal Bar, the Chicago-style dive bar next door, to be enjoyed with a shot of Chicago's Malört. The endnote for the Ethiopian dinner was a take-home panettone from Cafe Mars' collaborating restaurant for the event, Settepani. Attention to every detail of the whole experience. If you haven't been to Cafe Mars, go now (and often) to experience the delights of the regular menu and then plan on making the Global Italian dinners for the rest of the year--Albania is next! Yum and more yum! Thank you Cafe Mars!!!
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C
Catherine VIP
New York City1 review
5.0
Dined on February 15, 2025
1. Overall 5
2. Food 5
3. Service 5
4. Ambience 5
From the moment I walked through the door I felt genuinely cared for by every member of the staff. The offerings were creative and went together perfectly; I felt like I was at a culinary Metropolitan Museum of Art! This wasn’t just a dinner, it was an experience. I travel all over this planet and have eaten at some of its best restaurants. None have combined food, art, science, and soul like Cafe Mars.
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S
Sophia VIP
San Francisco1 review
5.0
Dined on February 14, 2025
1. Overall 5
2. Food 5
3. Service 5
4. Ambience 5
Cafe Mars was AMAZING. The service was so personal and attentive and kind. The food was BOMB. The pasta with Sunday sauce and breaded trumpet mushrooms were real stand-outs. Best meal and overall dining experience I’ve had in a long time.
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A
ANNA-KARIN
New York City3 reviews
5.0
Dined on February 6, 2025
1. Overall 5
2. Food 5
3. Service 5
4. Ambience 5
Absolutely unique, playfully elegant, delicious, excellent service.
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J
Julia
Greensboro1 review
5.0
Dined on February 2, 2025
1. Overall 5
2. Food 5
3. Service 5
4. Ambience 5
Service was incredible, cool architecture and great food
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C
Christina
Philadelphia2 reviews
5.0
Dined on February 2, 2025
1. Overall 5
2. Food 5
3. Service 5
4. Ambience 5
The food was phenomenal, and more impressively, so creative. Some of the dishes were unlike anything we’ve ever eaten and blew us away! Would definitely recommend and we do plan on returning.
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C
Camille
Nashville1 review
5.0
Dined on January 26, 2025
1. Overall 5
2. Food 5
3. Service 5
4. Ambience 5
Incredible! One of the best restaurants I’ve been to.
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B
BENJAMIN
Chicago3 reviews
5.0
Dined on January 26, 2025
1. Overall 5
2. Food 5
3. Service 5
4. Ambience 5
Café Mars is my favorite restaurant. We came for the Global Italian: Chicago event thinking "This could be fun." We left having had the best meal we've had in recent memory. Every dish was interesting and drop-everything delicious. The cocktails were terrific, complex, and very silly. Service was friendly, fun, and responsive. And little touches galore (a welcome taste of wine/kombucha, multicolored glassware, etc.) that make this place stand out. Overall, these folks are having fun with a restaurant in a way that is really, deeply admirable. There's a thoughtfulness and sense of play here that is so rare and special. Everyone owes it to themselves to have a meal or three here. It truly bears repeating: Café Mars is my favorite restaurant.
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FAQs

Café Mars is rated 4.9 stars by 106 OpenTable diners.

Yes, you can generally book this restaurant by choosing the date, time and party size on OpenTable.

Make a reservation

2 people

Mar 14, 2025

7:00 PM

Booked 25 times today

Experiences are available.

272 3rd Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215-1002

Additional information

Award-winning
1. MICHELIN Bib Gourmand 2023
Phone number
(347) 987-4225
Price
$50 and over
Cuisines
Contemporary Italian
Hours of operation
Wed–Sat 5:30 pm–9:00 pm Sun 5:30 pm–8:00 pm
Dress code
Resort Casual
Parking details
None

Café Mars

Make a reservation

Why they're an Icon

Additional information

Experiences

Global Italian #3: Arberëshë

Large Party Pre Fix Reservation (5-6 guests)

Menu

What 106 people are saying

Overall ratings and reviews

Loved For

Review summary

FAQs

How is Café Mars restaurant rated?

Is Café Mars currently accepting reservations?

Make a reservation

Additional information