RESTAURANTS • FOUND Table
Hard by the Gowanus Canal (and on a wintry January evening, everything by the Gowanus Canal is hard) is a weird little restaurant that looks like it was designed by Italian futurists from the 1960s, who threw a bunch of Long Island Grandmas into an open kitchen, and told them to exquisite corpse themselves a restaurant.
If that doesn’t sound enticing, let me assure you that everything at the nearly two-year-old Cafe Mars — from the on-the-house (boozy or NA) aperitivo to the giant bowl of candy-wrapped suckers that holds down the pop-up card check — is calculated, authentic, delicious, and very Brooklyn.
We started with their most obvious Instagram bait: savory, olive-stuffed jellied olives (Negroni-flavored, of course) and Don Bocarte anchovies dusted in “pizza flavors.” Or as my dining companion who grew up outside of Philadelphia put it, “This is the best fancy toaster-oven pizza-oven-bite-flavored fishies I’ve ever had!” She wasn’t wrong.
All pastas are made in house. I loved the girelle, and was particularly pumped to taste it as described on the menu: “lemon, lemon, lemon, basil, capers.” It turns out that “lemon” (x3) means juice, zest and preserves, folded into cream, rolling around the girelle like Amalfi Coast lovers. I wanted to nap in that pasta.
We also had the king trumpet mushroom marsala, with “carrot-bergamot, not risotto.” Imagine three veal steaks, pounded long and flat, breaded, fried, and sauced with marsala. Now swap out the veal for huge mushroom steaks. The carrot-bergamot shows up in the marsala, the whole thing served on top of rice, dairy-free and delicious.
Drinks include vermouth service, wines, beers, an ample selection of NA drinks, and a bunch of thoughtfully balanced “New Tails” like the Giardiniera Martini with vodka, ramp gin, bell pepper shrub, and tomato water. In lieu of dessert, which we’ll be back for, our bartender/server/tour guide Jordan offered up a neat pour of Tramonte “Concerto” — a “suitcase” bottle of coffee amaro unavailable stateside.
The restaurant is done up in bright neon and loopy colors. Silverware is cleverly concealed in pull-out drawers under each table. And about that check: Who loves a pop-up card that says THANKS in bright rainbow lettering? Everyone and their Long Island grandmas, that’s who. –Matt Levy
→ Cafe Mars (Gowanus) • 272 3rd Ave • Wed-Sat 530p-9p, Sun 530-8p • Reserve.