Mara-Velous

The Four Seasons Hotel opened this week in Minneapolis, and while I am sure I will never stay there, I'm super-excited about their new restaurant, Mara. Or, more to the point, I am especially excited about the bar, because our favorite bartender ever, Adam Witherspoon, is the bar manager. I won't bore you about how we follow Adam around like some kind of cocktail groupies. Let's just say that he's worth it, and we hadn't seen him since the pandemic started, and the hug he gave us when we walked in was a 2-years-of-pandemic kind of hug.

We normally sit at the bar so we can chat with Adam and watch his magic, but that was full, so the charming hostess got us at a table where we could watch the action and Adam whisked right over with some prosecco. And it turned out the table was perfect for one of our other favorite activities — people watching — which was particularly great (and a little intimidating) that night.

The bar menu is different than the restaurant menu, and was lovely, with a Mediterranean bent. But this is no street falafel, folks!

Pro tip - the focaccia stole the show! And we hadn't planned on dessert but they sent it over and they were right.

Of course the stars of the show were Adam's cocktails. My first was an Arpegé, based on lilies of the valley, and Patrick's was the Serum #124, which Adam had created so he never had to make an espresso martini again (but guess what one of his first tickets had — 5 espresso martinis! You posers totally missed out!)

When asked what his favorite drink was, though, Adam said the Cardinal, so we had to have one of those. Please note the high-end jello shot, which made us dissolve into laughter.

We went because of Adam, but everyone there was so welcoming and friendly! Our server, Rachel, was especially fantastic, but several staff members stopped by to see what we thought. We meant to stop in for a quick drink, but pretty soon it was 3 hours later and we had had one of those nights where we felt incredibly lucky to have the lives we do.

Which is to say, I will meet you at the bar at Mara pretty much anytime you want to go!