Marea will open at The Snow Lodge within The St. Regis Aspen Resort on December 22, and executive chef PJ Calapa has a clear vision for his version of après-ski dining.
“When we toured the space, they were like, ‘Eat your carbs and drink your chlorophyll water,’” Calapa tells Observer. “And I was like, ‘Well, I’m bringing all the carbs.”
Marea is an elegant Italian seafood restaurant that’s been a fixture on New York’s Central Park South since 2009. It opened its second location in Beverly Hills last January. Like in California, Marea will serve its most popular plates (like its fusilli with octopus and its lobster with burrata) while unveiling new dishes at its Aspen residency.
Calapa is bringing staples like his branzino tartare and his caviar-topped garlic bread bruschetta to Aspen, while also considering the winter weather and appetites he’ll encounter at The Snow Lodge.
“I don’t want it to be so cookie-cutter in the sense that you go to Marea anywhere and it’s going to be the same,” Calapa says.
Cooking in Los Angeles led Calapa to create dishes like avocado filled with spot prawn tartare and a shaved artichoke salad. In Aspen, Marea will have a new crab-and-caviar dish and a new frisée salad with tuna lardon.
At the same time, “We took a little inspiration from Aspen and the mountain and went a little less seafood-centric,” Calapa says.
One new dish is rotolo, essentially a rolled lasagna, with white Bolognese.
“I think it’s going to track very well in Aspen and be something a little bit heartier that you would have at, like, your grandmother’s house that makes you feel warm inside,” Calapa says. “It’s probably the first time we’re opening a place where people are going to show up very hungry in the best of ways. I’m excited about the actual hunger levels of some people coming off the mountain.”
The rotolo is part of the house-made pasta selection at the Aspen Marea, which also includes spaghetti with clams, mafaldine with shrimp and pappardelle with crab. Carbs and crab, that’s the Marea way.
Marea is planning to serve early dinners for the après-ski crowd that’s looking for sustenance and a relaxed night after strenuous days hitting the powder on Aspen’s slopes.
“We’re building out the reservation book now, and I was like, we need to open at least at 4 p.m. and make a 6 o’clock reservation the second seating,” Calapa says.
He’s down to open earlier if he sees the demand for 3 p.m. meals.
“I think it’s big pasta and a piece of meat,” Calapa says of the dining experience many Snow Lodge guests will be craving.
So Marea will, of course, have its tomahawk with rosemary salt in Aspen. Calapa makes a duck dish that changes with the seasons, and he’ll serve it at The Snow Lodge with a butternut squash puree and toasted pepitas. Visitors looking for an extravagant seafood main course can savor Dover sole.
For Altamarea Group founder and CEO Ahmass Fakahany, opening in Aspen is about following his customers and the demand he’s seen for Marea. Altamarea Group, which put an outpost of Crazy Pizza in East Hampton this past summer, likes seasonal locations.
“My thought was St. Regis and Marea and Aspen makes a lot of sense,” Fakahany says. “Logically, it’s where our clients move toward, and we’re migrating with them.”
Marea at The Snow Lodge is a residency that concludes at the end of March, but Fakahany very much wants the space to look and feel like Marea.
“It’s going to have our decor, our team, our process, our chefs,” he says.
In Aspen, Fakahany is bringing in furniture and installing honey onyx, which is a key design feature of Marea. Everything from the banquettes to the candleholders will make it clear that you’re at an outpost of Marea. Fakahany is even having paintings that Marea displays in New York redone in smaller versions for Aspen.
This location will have about 80 seats, which is about half as many as the other Mareas.
“It’ll be more cozy and intimate, which I think works well for après-ski,” Fakahany says. “I think that sense of conviviality will work well. And there’s a nook near the bar, so there will be a little atmosphere near the bar where you can linger and eat and kind of congregate and hang out.”
Fakahany is open to the idea of Marea returning to The Snow Lodge after this residency. But it took him more than 15 years to open a second location of Marea in Beverly Hills, so he’s not a man who rushes into any decisions. He’s happy to let this first season in Aspen play out and go from there.
At the same time, he’s also been thinking about where else he could take Marea.
“I think Marea is definitely a new-age luxury brand,” Fakahany tells Observer. “We call it relaxed glamour. It’s a dinner party for people who are invited without being a club member. And I think there’s an appetite for that model. For us, it’s about selecting markets where there is appetite for it and also looking at some seasonal spots. It can be Europe, it can be a couple places in the United States—but very selectively.”
He’s gotten a lot of requests for Marea in different locations, and he’s open to the idea of spinoffs.
“A lot of incoming demand is also subcomponents or splinters,” Fakahany shares. He sees a future where his next ventures could be something like Marea Crudo and Caviar Bar or Marea Beach Club. Marea Crudo Lounge and Marea Crudo and Pasta are also among the concepts he’s considering.
In the meantime, he likes how so many things are connected in Aspen. St. Regis Aspen owner Stephane De Baets, who previously created New York’s Chefs Club (a restaurant with high-profile chef residencies at a prime downtown location that’s now home to Torrisi), cares deeply about top-tier dining. The Snow Lodge (founded by New York nightlife veteran Jayma Cardoso) is a spinoff of The Surf Lodge, which is a big part of the East End summer scene. Fakahany likes how this is all in the “same ecosystem.”
Marea in Aspen is about luxury and a high-energy environment, but it’s also about comfort and slowing things down.
“We want that feeling of a Sunday supper at grandma’s house, but it could be any day of the week,” Calapa says. “And it gives you that warm and fuzzy feeling and creates memories where you would like to do this multiple times in a week. I think we’re also getting people in very much of a vacation mentality. It’s a wonderful thing to have at your fingertips, people being very open to enjoying the time and the space and indulging a bit.”
