Falling for Mario

I'd spend all my days at Bar Mario in Red Hook

Friends, the time has come to confess: I am in love with Mario. We met only a few nights ago, and I can’t stop thinking about him. Sadly, he’s a bar, well not really a bar, but a restaurant with a really nice bar. Bar Mario that is. And perhaps even more heartbreaking is that the Mario the bar is named for is a fictional character! There isn’t even a Mario behind Bar Mario. So things aren’t looking so good for our love affair, but nonetheless I remain smitten. 

I am not sure how it’s taken me so long to get over to Bar Mario in Red Hook, but it’s been there a year. (I must say that my friend Dawn, who chronicles everything delicious and Italian in the city, has been urging me to go for some time now.) Well, now that I’ve been I kinda never want to eat anywhere else. 

As I mentioned, the “Bar” is not really a bar, but a restaurant with a striking bar, serving lovely cocktails, stirred slowly and garnished with housemade cherries and other fruits and vegetables so exquisitely steeped, marinated, and brined, you might find them in a chef’s mise en place. 

Oh, also, as I said, there is no Mario. He’s sort of an aspirational guy, a fictional character created by an Italian rocker named Luciano Ligabue, who sings a lot about an imaginary place called Bar Mario that’s sort of this very romantic spot in Italy, a joyful neighborhood hangout where older Italians play cards out front.

I’ll say this: There were no Italian men hanging out, playing cards or otherwise, but it was rather cold outside, that spring chill was no joke, particularly on Van Brunt where the wind comes straight down from the river blowing down tumbleweeds and stray children. I have no doubt that if the weather were warmer, there would be plenty of folks outside at the sidewalk tables, perhaps playing cards, but definitely drinking bottles of cold Lambrusco or Vermintino, many Negronis, what have you, passing plates of charcuterie and fried artichokes, delicately battered calamari and shrimp, Caesar salad with leaves the size of rafts dressed in anchovies, hit with heavy flurries of freshly grated parmigiano cheese and toasted breadcrumbs, and guarding bowls of pasta to save for themselves. A word of warning: the chef’s pasta does make you a bit territorial. 

The restaurant is on a corner of Van Brunt in Red Hook that glows in the spring evening’s pink dusk, like a nightlight in a dark hallway. It’s an ode to rustic Italian, with a menu that reads like an old school haunt in Rome with artichokes and hand cut pastas, and that effortless seductive vibe that seems to exist in every cobblestone piazza, and now has landed in the space formerly occupied by Fort Defiance. 

The place does feel like a fairy tale from Italy dropped into the wilds of Brooklyn, with chef Alessandro Bandini (chef Ale as he’s called), a dapper chap in his white chef coat with flowing locks of perfect salt and pepper hair, and bi-focal readers hanging on a chain around his neck, welcoming each guest like a long lost relative: “Buona Sera! Come in! How are you? Yes, sure we have room. Sit, sit!” He’s very dreamy, a kind of James Bond of maitre d’s. 

Alessandro hails from Florence and moved to New York City in 1997, spending the next 25 or so years charming guests in front of the house roles at a variety of Manhattan restaurants, including a long stint at the now-shuttered West Village celebrity-sighting hangout Da Silvano, and eventually opening Osteria Carlina on Hudson Street in 2021, with his buddy Moreno Cerutti, who’s from Turin. 

As the story goes, one day last May, a friend took him and his buddy Moreno to Red Hook for Hometown Barbecue, and the two fell in love with the neighborhood. When the old Fort Defiance space on the corner of Van Brunt and Dikeman became available, they took the lease, bringing their fictional Bar Mario to life. (They also moved to Red Hook, leaving Manhattan behind.)

The menu takes dishes from Florence and Turin, and is pasta-heavy with many daily chef’s additions. On Monday night the list of specials was so long I needed to take notes, but abundance is a good thing. The list included pollo milanese, a fried artichoke, a steak for two, pasta with spring mushrooms and cream (maybe?), and about a dozen other dishes I’ve since forgotten because, well, I didn’t take notes. 

Sadly the Milanese was 86’d by the time we drained our cocktails and ordered, but it was not missed; dinner was still exceptional. The “Spaghetti Hangover,” is a beauty, with a title that aptly indicates it as a cure for excess. I would happily come in every day, with or without a hangover, for this dish. In fact, I’d happily go out and get a hangover if that was what it took to eat it. But luckily you don’t have to go to all that trouble. You can show up, stone cold sober!

This pasta, as its name indicates, has all the things a plate of spaghetti needs to become a balm for life’s bumps in the road: capers, chiles, oven-roasted tomatoes, garlic, onions, anchovies, bread crumbs. and a good grating of Parmigiano. It’s fiery, salty, unctuous, bracing, and spicy, with every twist of spaghetti grabbing more flavor from the bowl. I cannot recommend it enough. 

Spaghetti Hangover and Mafaldine alla Maremmana at Bar Mario.

We also shared a bowl of Chef Ale’s Mafaldine alla Maremmana, a hearty dish perfect for these cold spring winds we’ve been having: a warm braise of slow-cooked wild boar ragu hugging frilled ribbons of pasta. It’s the cashmere throw of pastas.

The homemade gnocchi with creamy Castelmagno cheese is a viral favorite, but that will be saved for another visit. I think my next meal will also include the Pici Senesi a Cacio e Pepe: a little riff on the classic, made with pici pasta, pecorino,  tellicherry peppercorns, and sage.

Chef Ale also has a decent looking burger on the menu, the “Van Burger,” a five-ounce patty topped with giardiniera tucked inside a housemade focaccia bun. I can also see stopping in early in the evening for cocktails, and Mario’s Cutting Board, a generous assembly of charcuterie and cheese that includes a couple of kinds of salame, copa, mortadella, chicken liver pate, fig mustard, pecorino and homemade giardiniera.  

After dinner you can linger, and you absolutely should. The small room is enchanting, warmed with velvet seating the color of the sea in Sicily, art-deco light fixtures, and a long and strong dark wood bar that looks like it could support the drinking habits of many moody writers. The energy is warm and inviting, with Ale bopping around from table to table, seeing old friends, welcoming new ones. It’s what we need from a restaurant, isn’t it? That place where you feel cared for, adored even. As I said, I’m completely smitten with Mario, but we’re in an open relationship. You may fall for him too.

Bar Mario is located at 365 Van Brunt Street, corner of Dikeman, follow them on Instagram here.