Café Mars — Restaurant in New York

I recently visited Cafe Mars on a Friday night with high hopes after reading several positive reviews online. The futuristic and fun ambiance created an exciting atmosphere as my two friends and I settled in. However, there were some significant disappointments that marred our dining experience.

Firstly, the temperature inside was incredibly warm, and the lack of proper air circulation made us sweat throughout the meal. We were given colorful glasses to choose from at start, a nice touch, but the complimentary Prosecco was warm, and we had to request water, which wasn’t provided until after we ordered appetizers.

The jell-olives were overly boozy, and the Garlic Knot Monkey bread, while good, resembled Domino's garlic bites. Our main courses, the Girelle and Triangle Penne, were mediocre. Although not bad, they were far from impressive. To add to our woes, we weren’t given new plates, forcing us to eat our main courses on dirty appetizer plates with leftover food.

The grilled zucchini, recommended by our waitress, missed the mark entirely. The addition of hazelnuts gave it an unexpected 'woodsy' flavor, making it challenging to enjoy. Despite our disappointment with the main course, we held onto hope that desserts might salvage our meal. Unfortunately, when we placed our dessert order of al 3 desserts, the waitress seemed to misunderstand our readiness, and there was a significant delay in serving them. When we finally inquired about our check, she appeared surprised and said she had been saving the last Olive cake for us..we obliged out of guilt. To our dismay, the cake was overly salty, featuring an unusual combination of flavors that made it difficult to consume. This unfortunate dessert experience added to our overall disappointment with the evening. Between the 3 of us we couldn’t finish this small cake. Our overall experience was disappointing, especially considering the anticipation we had built up for this reservation made a month in advance. The lack of attention to detail, from the warm Prosecco to the delayed service and subpar food, left us hungry and dissatisfied. With a bill exceeding $90 each, we left Cafe Mars disappointed and regretful about our dining choice. I hope the restaurant takes this feedback seriously to improve its service and quality, as the potential is there for a much better...

I love Cafe Mars!! Funky and refreshing neon/nordic aesthetic that is a huge contrast to most Italian places. The food is also stand out and unique! My favorites this time around were the jell-olives (which are as tasty as they are IG worthy) the anchovies (wish the portion was larger - I would pay more and have them as a before rather than a snack, so flavorful!!!) the buccatini with mussels and the parm pork ribs. I've had the calabrian shrimp pasta in the past and can also highly recommend! The ribs are huge so if you go for them, you likely only need 1 pasta and a snack or two for 2 people. We didn't have room for dessert!

I didn't personally love highly recommended parm striped sea bass crudo as much as I wanted to, felt a bit bland after those anchovies, but that might be a personal preference bc I'm a spice queen.

I was talking about how one of the paintings seemed similar to the art at Leroy's Place and turns out the owner is married to the artist/owner of Leroy's Place (a fun art/gift shop in south slope) which makes so much sense in terms of the aesthetic. He even came by and chatted with us for a bit and told us how much be loves his wife, lol. I also happen to know that he sourced his plants from another local business - Brooklyn Horticulture! Love local supporting local.

My onlyyyy minor gripe is that they close the kitchen relatively early (9:10 on a Saturday) and we had to order everything at once - ended up way over-ordering. I get it though, and respect the choice to allow staff to get home at a decent hour. The vibe is so fun though I wish it was open later - has potential to be a cool neighborhood cocktail bar, esp if snacks/dessert were...

"This place is all over Instagram!" according to my BFs daughter. The space is very photogenic. Very cute! I really wanted it to be amazing because that's my wish for every new place, especially one that's in my neighborhood. The service was good. Our waiter was very well versed on the menu and drinks.

I love the little complimentary pre-meal drink in your choice of glass. I love the drawers of utensils built into the table.

Unfortunately, the food is all over the place. The only dishes that stood out were the monkey bread and the shrimp pasta.

The pickled mackerel didn't taste pickled. It was bland. The beets were okay.

The chicken liver was okay, but it looked kinda sad on the plate. The lamb sausage was probably the best dish flavor wise, but the actual sausage was extremely salty.

The lemon pasta was not interesting. Same wit the zucchini main course which we only ordered because we had a vegetarian. It takes a lot to make zucchini stand out and this didn't.

But the worst dish, the smoked rib parm with Japanese spaghetti salad was the one I was most excited to try. It looked great on the plate but the ribs didn't taste smoked and they were dry and tough and dull salad was not a good accompinament. I was trying to think of why anyone would want to eat macaroni salad with a mayo-based with a tomato sauce. I forget what the waiter said the chunks of meat were in the salad but they were unpleasant to eat.

The place got very busy...