Cardi B’s latest track Imaginary Playerz (a homage to the similarly titled Jay-Z song) includes the line ‘Birthday at Carbone, to me that Olive Garden’, comparing the New York institution to the vast casual dining chain majoring in a similar style of food. This later prompted the US rapper to lament to website MusicNews.com that she would never get a seat at Carbone ever again. “They never gonna give me a seat, and I’m a little sad about it,” she is quoted as saying. “I really hate that I had to shit on one of my favourite restaurants, so no more rigatoni for me or branzino.”
It takes a special kind of restaurant to be namechecked by one of the music industry’s hottest artists, and Carbone is just that. Described on its own website as ‘one of the most celebrated Italian restaurants in America and a quintessential New York City dining experience’, Carbone has become one of the most talked about dining spots in the world since it was launched by Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi in 2013. Through its parent company Major Food Group, run by Carbone, Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick, it has expanded across America as well as into Doha, Dubai, Riyadh and Hong Kong and is part of a burgeoning global restaurant group that operates numerous brands in iconic locations, not least The Grill in Manhattan’s Seagram Building, Dirty French, and Sadelle’s.
Now this expansion has reached the UK, and the group has finally thrown open the doors of its lavish London restaurant, located in the imposing former US Embassy building on Mayfair’s Grosvenor Square, which is also home to The Chancery Rosewood hotel and its host of restaurants. You don’t need a US rapper to tell you that, as statements go, American moves onto this shore don’t get much bigger than this.
Accessed through its own ground floor entrance, where sits a large mosaic tiled bar area, diners descend into the depths of the US Embassy where they are met with a restaurant of vast proportions. Through the second set of doors is another bar area with seating to the far end and then to the right is the main dining room that opens up into a second room, all of which are decorated with artwork that include pieces from Rene Ricard, Rashid Johnson, Julian Schnabel, Rita Ackerman, and Lola Montes. The interior, said to blend Italian restaurants from 1950s New York with Mayfair elegance, is lush, lavish and downright indulgent.
Given the journey to get to this point, it’s no surprise that no expense seems to have been spared. The London iteration may be Carbone number nine for the group, but it was always considered to be the most important after the original. “The first restaurant Mario and I wanted to open after the first Carbone in New York was in London,” says Zalaznick, who cuts a striking figure in thick black framed glasses. “It’s been a very patient journey.”
This longer than anticipated lead time of the London restaurant, during which seven more Carbone restaurants have opened, is down, the pair say, to finding the right location. “We spent lots of time and way too much money here, learning the market, and understanding very quickly that we needed to be in Mayfair and in a prime location,” continues Zalaznick. “We had to be 10 minutes from Claridge’s and if that was not the case we couldn’t open here. Obviously, great spaces in great places don’t come across very often.”
Opportunity finally knocked around three years ago, when “by luck and timing” the opportunity to move into the former US embassy arose. “It’s been an amazing journey,” says Carbone, the quieter of the two men. “It has brought us back here to this place where we wanted to be so badly. It’s been a real fairy-tale.”
At first viewing Carbone Mayfair bears little resemblance to the Greenwich Village original, which some have compared to stepping into a scene from The Godfather. In the 80-seater New York restaurant the tiled floors, banquette seating and bistro-style chairs create and buzz and energy of a mom-and-pop bistro; the Mayfair site, more than three times in size, is by contrast a significantly more glitzy affair. Yet this is fully in keeping with the brand’s expansion beyond Manhattan, where larger, more opulent versions have opened and which lean into a more glamourous feel that has become a hallmark of the brand on an international level.
We had to be 10 minutes from Claridge’s and if that was not the case we couldn’t open here
Jeff Zalaznick
“You can’t replicate this unique thing in New York and bring it to London,” says Carbone of the differences between Mayfair and the original. “We’re not bringing faux bricks and trying to make this thing feel like it’s Greenwich Village. That’s the opposite of what we want to do here. We spend a lot of time on making it authentic to the place it is in.”
“Every Carbone we design with the location in mind,” adds Zalaznick. “Mario and I never wanted to make Disney replicas of the restaurants. Each has the characteristics, colours, and patterns that are unique to the brand but at the same time we celebrate the city we’re in. Here we have an opportunity in the US embassy to tell a different story.”
Any differences end here, however. “The food is the same; the service is the same; music is the same. It’s the same exact Carbone experience that we look for globally and that we are very proud to present on a consistent basis around the globe,” says Carbone. “There’s nothing different apart from the way it looks.”
“What the captain (what the group calls its head waiter) says at the table, what food you’re going to eat, how it will make you feel is the same as in New York,” Zalaznick continues. “If it’s not then we’ve fucked up.”
This means that 90% of the menu in Mayfair will be the same as at other Carbones across the world, with a few adjusted dishes due to the need to use different ingredients. Dishes that have made the brand such a household name, such as spicy rigatoni vodka; Caesar salad alla ZZ; whole branzino; and veal parmesan feature, will be present and correct and even served on the same style of crockery. Carbone also uses the word ‘macaroni’ as a catchall for all its pasta dishes (rather than to describe the small curved tubes of the same name), as is the way of many Italian-Americans.
Desserts, meanwhile, are presented to the table via a trolley, adding some old school glamour to proceedings.
It might have taken Carbone more than a decade to finally open on these shores, but its timing seems almost choreographed. The capital is in the grip of an Italian-American food renaissance, with restaurants such as Louis, The Dover and Grasso embracing the style, while New York style pizza places have been popping up across the capital and beyond. How do the pair feel about bringing the real deal to London?
“There’s still nothing that looks or feels like us,” says Carbone, acknowledging the current trend. “With our style of this cuisine and level of detail, when I look around, I don’t see anything like us, which gives me a lot of encouragement.”
“At the end of the day they are inspired by us and not really relevant to us,” adds Zalaznick. “We are a different price point and a different level, and we’re excited to bring our authentic version of our New York selves here to this market.
“In a good way the market has been somewhat bubbling, waiting for the real event to show up. People are being more exposed to this stye of food and are now ready for what we do at the highest level.”
There is an undeniable confidence in Carbone and Zalaznick but, given their track record, it’s one that is hard to deny them. The success of Carbone across the world is matched by that of Major Food Group, which has established a global restaurant empire of more than 40 sites since its inception in 2011. What do they put their success down to?
“We’re creative geniuses so it’s not difficult,” says Zalaznick in a manner that is hard to tell whether he is joking or not. “It’s easier because we have thousands of people working for us,” he adds on seeing my expression. “You can also see the difference because the two of us are sitting here today. Anyone else in our position would be on a beach somewhere and just show up a day before. No one else in our league is sitting on site a month ahead of time making sure everything is perfect.
“We’re very passionate - we practice what we preach. We are present for the restaurant and the people of this city.”
With our style of this cuisine and level of detail, when I look around, I don’t see anything like us
Mario Carbone
“We’re building things that we want and love to eat in,” says Carbone. “Whenever we see there’s a void of something we just build it because we want to hang out there and eat that food.
“What does get easier is that we have incredible core team of people who have been with us for a long time, they know the shorthand of what we’re saying so we can build things quickly.”
He points to the opening of restaurant Chateau ZZ in Miami in late 2023. The group’s first foray into Mexican cuisine was a departure but also in many ways business as usual. “It’s a Mexican restaurant but so much has been taken from a style of service we’ve done before,” says Carbone. It’s applying a lot of the successful things we’ve done in the past with Carbone to a different cuisine. The functionality works, the cadence of the service works, that’s where you get efficiencies.”
Zalaznick also puts the group’s success down to the fact that he eats in his own restaurants at least five nights a week, something which he believes made him something of an outlier in the industry.
“One of the most disgraceful and stupid things that existed before I entered the restaurant business was that it was unheard of for restaurateurs to actually sit down an eat in their restaurants. They would come in, stand there and look around but never sit down. That’s dumb. How on earth can you experience what the customer is going to experience?
“You can’t taste what’s on the pass and know what the food is going to be like when you’re sat at a table. It’s the equivalent of an eternity from the pass to the table,” he says, adding that he insists that most of the execs sit and eat and that he is constantly taking notes and watching what’s going on.
“Until you put yourself on the line every day and through the ringer of having to eat these enormous amounts of dishes so you can truly feel what almost every customer is feeling, you’re not close. I could run circles around you. Most restaurateurs still don’t understand that, and they certainly didn’t when we started. That could be my greatest contribution to this business.”
Given their confidence, do the pair have any concerns about cracking the London market? In short, no. “I don’t know how different London is as a market from New York,” muses Carbone. “We’re talking about the two biggest major metropolitan cities of the world. There is a huge crossover between our client base and a good understanding of what this is. There is no need to teach the cuisine - people will get it right away, they know what they are coming for and have a sense of what we do. I’m optimistic we’ll be able to hit the ground running.”
One of the most disgraceful and stupid things that existed before I entered the restaurant business was that it was unheard of for restaurateurs to actually sit down an eat in their restaurants
Jeff Zalaznick
“You’ve got to turn on the car before you drive it,” adds Zalaznick with a grin. “Success looks the same as it does in an any city. We want an incredibly energetic bustling restaurant that people are celebrating in all nights of the week and enjoying the experience and ambience that we’ve created. But at the end of the day the number one thing is the food. If we accomplish that here, we’ll be in great shape.”
It’s unlikely London will be the last location for the brand, either. “We don’t really whiteboard and plan, but every major city should have a Carbone. It’s how you define what the major cities are,” Zalaznick continues. “If they don’t then we did something wrong.”
And what of Cardi B? Is the rapper still welcome at her favourite red sauce restaurant or is she persona non grata? Well, she can rest easy. “Cardi B is always welcome at Carbone,” Zalaznick says. “We love her.” Like many of its fans, the feeling is mutual.
