December 15, 2023

This Restaurant Just Wants to Have Fun w/ Madalyn Summers, Paul D'Avino, and Jorge Olarte of Brooklyn's Cafe Mars (An Andrew Talks to Chefs Special Conversation)

55 minutes

Cafe Mars, a six-month old restaurant in Gowanus, Brooklyn, has made quite an impression on guests and awards-bestowers alike with its unique brand of hospitality, which extends to both staff and guests, erasing many of the invisible boundaries long associated with dining out. Everybody on staff is cross-trained for the kitchen, dining room, and bar; the team closes out their preshift meeting with a stretching exercise; and guests are received and cared for with a familiarity that resonates with a growing fan base. You can call this enlightened hospitality, or (as Andrew suggests in the interview) holistic hospitality. To our guests today--beverage director Madalyn Summers and chefs Paul D'Avino and Jorge Olarte--it's just hospitality, and they hope, fun, Whatever you call it, it won the restaurant a Michelin Guide New York award for Service this year. A conversation that any restaurant professional will take something valuable from.

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THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:

Andrew is a writer by trade. If you'd like to support him, there's no better way than by purchasing his most recent book, The Dish: The Lives and Labor Behind One Plate of Food (October 2023), about all the key people (in the restaurant, on farms, in delivery trucks, etc.) whose stories and work come together in a single restaurant dish.

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By Andrew Friedman

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