“Since the day we opened Carbone, this was always our dream,” says Jeff Zalaznick over whisky and cigarettes. With chefs Mario Carbone and Rich Tollisi, two Italian American chefs from Queens and New Jersey respectively, the trio founded Carbone in Greenwich Village in 2013. It became an instant success, a place almost impossible to book unless your name was Kardashian, Rihanna, DiCaprio or Obama. Jay-Z and Beyonce were practically regulars; people whispered about a mysterious “secret email” that got you through the door. It is a restaurant for beautiful people. Maybe an iteration was always destined for London?
“Once this came to fruition, and we were fortunate it was immediately successful, our next goal was to open in London,” adds Zalaznick, “We must have gone every month, learning and exploring. We were obsessed with the idea.”
More than a decade on and Carbone has finally arrived, the star attraction at the glitzy new Chancery Rosewood hotel on Grosvenor Square in Mayfair, the former US Embassy. The restaurant’s enormous: beneath a small ground floor space, one that feels a little like a staging area, is a sweeping basement with room for more than 150 diners. Walls are deep red and royal blue, the floor a chessboard of black and white, and plush banquettes bookend tables dressed in pressed white linen, each decorated with the restaurant’s colourful patterned plates. When the restaurant is in full flight, it goes a bit like this: Tony and Carmela Soprano dressed up to the nines and listening to Dean Martin, being served by a fast-talking man called Louis in a red jacket, drinking a Super Tuscan and feeding one another stuffed clams…
The brand is unashamedly, full throttle Italian-American culture. Almost parodical. Head servers are called captains; a handful of tables are tucked away behind walls for those who wish to only speak in whispers. Is London ready for the drama? Mario thinks the timing is “ideal” and says: “We couldn’t be any more enthusiastic about it. We’re primed and ready for this. There’s been a ton of interest and we think it will fit perfectly, right? I think the city is the most ideal place to open Carbone outside of New York.”
Between Manhattan and London, six other branches of Carbone have opened around the world. There’s Miami, perhaps the most coveted after NYC, and Vegas, Dallas, Hong Kong, Doha and Riyadh. In that time, the name Carbone has become a powerhouse, one synonymous with New York’s now famous “red sauce” dining. Think of rigatoni alla vodka, lobster ravioli and bubbling plates of parmigiana and you will land at Carbone. In London, in a first for the restaurant, there will also be risotto on the menu. Not an easy thing to pull off in such a big room.
When the restaurant is in full flight, imagine Tony and Carmela Soprano dressed up to the nines, listening to Dean Martin
Not that Mario uses the term red sauce himself. “It’s taken off in the last 10 years or so,” he says. “We didn’t call it that as kids going into these restaurants, they were just Italian restaurants to us — but you know, this was before the hyper-regional Italian cuisine became popular. Now you would say American-Italian or New York-Italian. Either way, it’s an important culture, it’s what we wanted to celebrate when we started all this.”
If London is a mirror to New York, it would explain the proliferation of NYC-inspired hangouts that have sprung up in recent years. Restaurants like The Dover, One Club Row and the Fat Badger are similar in as much as they focus on service and atmosphere as well as the food. Each has fostered a sense of exclusivity, sought after or not, and attracts a celebrity crowd ever-keen for martinis, grilled sea bass and discretion. At these restaurants, waiting staff are more likely to make you laugh and bring you a glass of wine on the house than talk to you about sustainable farming. Make no mistake, the produce is sound and the menu well put together, but you won’t hear the phrase “ingredient-led” while looking up to see Justin Bieber neck a Negroni.
To that end, Carbone might have helped pave the way for fun, boozy dining in the modern age. Journey back to 1980s London and you’d arrive at restaurants like Le Caprice, the original Ivy and Julie’s in London, and Le Cirque in New York. At each the food was almost secondary. People cared less, or at least harboured less pretence. Rewind further, to the 1920s, and you’d arrive at Les Deux Magots, the bistro-cum-gathering place for the artists, writers and musicians of Paris. Hemingway went often before Sartre and de Beauvoir steamed in.
It’s probably the celebrity crowd that has given Carbone the edge above all else. They were drawn to the fact their presence was never trumpeted. People found out that Taylor Swift went in all the time eventually but only because of other guests becoming excited (today she’s more often found at Torrisi in Little Italy, a sister restaurant that still has a Michelin star).
Talking of stars, the Manhattan original lost its own in 2022, which might be when the hype truly peaked. It was then that Mario was profiled in Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar waxed lyrical about Adele and Jennifer Lopez being spotted eating amid the wood-panelled walls, and the New Yorker teased would-be diners with talk of that mysterious email address.
“I don't think it's something you can covet,” says Mario of the bougie crowd. “I think you just do your job, make a great product, and let the chips fall. I don’t think you can seek it out without coming off as disingenuous. But we’ve always been lucky to attract a great clientele. I think it’s because they always feel comfortable, it’s always discreet.”
Still, in the past couple of years the buzz has settled, perhaps plateaued; the Instagram account Deux Moi still keeps tabs on the restaurant’s goings-on, tables remain frenetic and busy, but newspaper pages have subsided slightly. People are fickle. London might prove to be a welcome energiser, a second wave?
“We’ve made a lot of great friends, people who feel like this is a family, and we look forward to welcoming them,” adds Zalaznick. “But there’s no rush to the finish line. We're going to do our work, we're going to make sure everything's perfect, and we’re coming in. We're performers and this is a stage that we've always wanted to perform on. We’re excited to finally get to do our thing in this city.”
Carbone opens on September 17 at 30 Grosvenor Square, W1; rosewoodhotels.com
