After almost 20 years serving customers in Manhattan and Long Island, the restaurant has closed. Currently, many products unique to Mara’s Southern Kitchen are now available here, online, or at a store near you on Long Island.

“If you’ve ever been to Mara’s Homemade—the cozy, Syosset-based restaurant that serves some of the island’s best Cajun and Creole cuisine—in early February, you’ll have seen the proof: The restaurant’s long bar completely covered (and highly stacked) with private-order King Cakes.

Made by the restaurant’s chef-owner, Mara Levi, in the restaurant’s back kitchen, Mara’s King Cakes have an almost cult-like following of fans—and rightfully so. The ring-shaped cakes are delicious, made of a sweet, yeasty dough with a glaze topping decorated with purple-, green-, and gold-colored sugar. Inside each cake is—as the tradition dictates—a small plastic baby (to many, Baby Jesus himself), symbolizing luck and prosperity to whomever finds it in their slice of the good stuff.”