Unfolding across a 1,100-square-foot space, Café Mars marries Italian-American tradition with a bold and playful design concept. Located in Brooklyn, New York’s developing Gowanus neighborhood, the restaurant was dreamed up by New York-based Format Architecture Office in close collaboration with cofounding chefs Jorge Olarte and Paul D’Avino.
As guests enter Café Mars, the pasta die door handle is a whimsical nod to the building’s past lives as a pasta factory and Italian grocery. The location is also situated across from D’Avino’s great-grandfather’s first residence in the U.S. after immigrating from Italy in 1901.
The restaurant boasts an eclectic blend of colors and textures, resulting in a rebelliously playful space that challenges expectations.
The front dining room and bar, for instance, is an exploration of asymmetry with custom yellow and white booth seating illuminated by colorful LED lighting embedded around millwork portals that expose the building’s original brick walls and create “a dialogue between old and new, embracing a subtle dose of whimsy, and celebrating details through the use of vibrant color,” says Andrew McGee, principal at Format.
The adjacent central bar, tucked beneath a white-oak paneled archway, features dining chairs with bold hot pink zig-zag legs, custom-designed by Studio Apotroes.
At the rear of the restaurant is a blue-hued dining room with large windows, exposed brick, and white hexagon floor tiles. A cobalt blue banquette runs along the edge of the space, while pendants with hot pink wiring suspend above curvy modular tables that can be rearranged for different party sizes.
The restaurant’s playful personality is rounded out by branding and typeface crafted by artist Massimo Mongiardo.
“At one point, as we were finalizing the color palette… the chefs came to us and said, ‘think Sesame Street,’ and very specifically referred to each hue from that point on as Big Bird yellow, Cookie Monster blue, Elmo red,” McGee adds. “The earnest playfulness of this feedback is indicative of the whimsy and joy that underscored the entire design collaboration and is embedded in the character of the space.”
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