About Mara
Mara opened with the Four Seasons Hotel Minneapolis in 2022, with Gavin Kaysen — the James Beard Award-winning chef who already operated Demi and Spoon and Stable — serving as culinary director. The combination of one of America's great luxury hotel brands and the city's most decorated chef produced a room that was, from the moment it opened, the most formally impressive dining experience in the Twin Cities.
The concept is Mediterranean in scope and sensibility — the flavors and techniques of the 22 countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, interpreted through locally sourced Minnesota ingredients and Kaysen's classical French training. Handmade pastas. Wood-fired meats. Fresh seafood. The breadth of the Mediterranean canon as executed by a kitchen with the staffing and resources that only a Four Seasons can provide.
The room itself is a significant part of the proposition. The Four Seasons Minneapolis occupies a tower at 245 Hennepin Ave in downtown, and Mara's dining room is designed with the kind of invested restraint — quality materials, considered lighting, correct table spacing — that most restaurants reach for but few actually achieve. It is a room in which a person of means feels at home, and in which a person who does not normally dine at this level feels the gap acutely in a way that works to your social advantage as a host.
The Hotel Advantage
Mara's position within the Four Seasons confers structural advantages that freestanding restaurants cannot replicate. The valet service at the hotel handles arrival. The concierge team can arrange for flowers, champagne, or other specific requirements in advance of the evening. The hotel rooms above mean that an important dinner can seamlessly become an overnight stay. For visiting clients — particularly those coming from other cities for business meetings — a dinner at the Four Seasons followed by an offer to have a car retrieve them is a level of hospitality that communicates investment in the relationship.
The bar program at Mara is similarly polished. The beverage team takes tableside service seriously — cocktails prepared at the table, wine selections guided with genuine knowledge, non-alcoholic pairings that have been thought through with the same care as the wine list. This is service at the Four Seasons standard, which is to say: it is very good, and it shows.
Why Mara for Impressing Clients
The Four Seasons address does more communicating than any single dish can. A client who is aware of the brand knows what it means to be brought here. A client who is not aware will become quickly aware from the moment the car pulls up. The room signals unambiguous quality, the service delivers on it, and the food — Kaysen's Mediterranean menu — is serious enough to justify the occasion on its own terms without the hotel backing. The combination is effectively unassailable as a client-entertainment venue in Minneapolis.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner service all operate at Mara, which makes it the most flexible entry point for any kind of hosted occasion — a breakfast meeting, a client lunch, or a dinner for a visiting executive team. The hotel meeting spaces are immediately adjacent for multi-part engagements.
The Menu
The dinner menu at Mara moves through the Mediterranean with Kaysen's characteristic precision. Raw bar items and light starters draw from coastal traditions — crudo, house-cured charcuterie, small vegetable preparations. The pasta course brings Italian hand-rolled shapes filled with seasonal Minnesota produce. Wood-fired meats anchor the main courses: prime beef aged on-property, whole fish from sustainable fisheries, heritage pork from regional farms. The pastry program is led with the luxury-hotel investment that it requires — the dessert course at Mara is a deliberate event.
Reservations and Logistics
Mara takes reservations via OpenTable. The restaurant operates seven days a week: breakfast from 7 to 10:30 AM (9:30 AM Sunday), lunch from 11 AM to 2 PM, and dinner from 5 to 9:30 PM (9 PM weekdays). Valet parking is available at the Four Seasons. For special occasion arrangements — flowers, champagne, private dining inquiries — call (612) 895-5709 or contact the hotel concierge directly.