Chef Mario Carbone and Jeff Zalaznick
Despite not being officially confirmed until recent days, it's been an open secret for many months now that one of New York's finest restaurants, Carbone, is opening in London. The New York Italian restaurant has been around since 2013, and has spawned a restaurant empire that's seen Carbones open across the globe. The original in New York is also still fiendishly hard to get a booking for (we know - we've tried and failed). Here in London, it's opening as an attached but distinct part of the old US embassy on Grosvenor Square's transition into the Chancery Rosewood, and is arguably the signature restaurant of the whole development.
But what actually is Carbone? For those not in the know, we sat down with chef Mario Carbone and Jeff Zalaznick who, along with chef Rich Torrisi, are in charge of the Major Food Group empire that's behind Carbone (and lots more).
A look at the back dining room of Carbone London - the huge room is split into two distinct sections
How would you explain Carbone to a Londoner who isn't aware of it yet?
Mario Carbone: It's the quintessential New York Italian or Italian American (those are synonyms for me) fun fine dining restaurant. We try to deliver a great food and drink experience at the highest level in a really fun and entertaining, comfortable environment.
Jeff and I are both native New Yorkers and we grew up eating at these old-school Italian American restaurants. We both had a love for them, but we knew that there was still another level that they could achieve, potentially in our hands.
The thesis was - what if the food was really great and the service was really attentive, trained and polished? How much better could this even be? We all love it at its current state, but what became Carbone was the ideal version of this Italian American grand cuisine and style of service. For us, that's set in the mid-century, late 1950s. There's a definite style of service that comes with that, and a definite flair for entertainment and theatrics. We come from a fine dining background, so it's all about the quality of the service, the ingredients, the portion size, the service teams, the wine list, the cocktails - all the things that go into a great restaurant, just set to this very particular style. If you look at Italian food as regional cuisine, this is a very particular region of it - the New York region.
The main dining room in London is massive - this shows off about a third of the space
What kind of theatrics do you bring to the whole experience?
Mario: You're setting a stage of play, you're building a period piece and with that, there's a distinctive style of service. For us, it's in the captain; they're named that for a reason as they're there to guide your experience, to steer the ship that is your table to wherever it may go. They're there to get feedback from you about what you're interested in doing that night. Is your first time here or is it your 100th time here?
As soon as you sit down, with the giant menu in your hand, pretty much immediately the table is covered already. There will be a very generous bread basket come out, with cheese, pickles, salami. Now you're already getting into the mood, the lights are down, the music is going, you're starting to relinquish control to your captain.
How do you cater for different diners in different countries? Do you try to cater for them or do you think "they're coming to experience us"?
Jeff Zalaznick: I think we definitely look at it as they're coming to experience us.
For the most part, people do have some sort of familiarity with the concept or what it stands for, and what we're about, whether they've been to Carbone or not. I think that very quickly they get the whole idea of the captain, that he comes and takes control of your journey. They can give the full experience, interact with you and guide you through your entire journey. They also quickly understand if that's not the customer they have tonight, that they want a simple meal and don't want to talk to you for 20 minutes. That's the skill in knowing who and when and how. We're ready for whatever type of customer comes in. It's all about being ready for that and being able to take people down whatever path they're willing to go down.
The spicy vodka rigatoni - the must-order dish and probably what Carbone is most well known for.
And is the menu similar to New York?
Mario: The menu is the same as it is in New York. Plus or minus a few dishes, but basically the core of the menu is the same.
I know that in the American menu, there are also off-menu items, like the meatballs?
Mario: There will be meatballs!
The aforementioned meatballs in action.
So, for a first-time visitor to Carbone, what kind of things should they order?
Mario: A first-time customer to Carbone should have the raw tuna Calabrese, the beef carpaccio, the Caesar salad, baked clams, a half portion of rigatoni, a portion of tortellini Ragu in the centre of the table. You should get an order of meat per person, the branzino, the veal parm and some vegetables.
Are you bringing any specials to London that you might not be able to get at other branches of Carbone?
Mario: There are a few dishes that we're doing here for the first time, and most of those are product-based. We came in six months ago and did an initial tasting of all the raw ingredients that we knew we would need to make the menu. To see where the vendors are gonna come from, and what parts of the country they're going to come from.
With the ingredients, by and large, it's actually much easier for myself and the chef team, because so much of it in New York is already being imported for us from Europe. The langoustines that come to us live from Scotland can come more times a week here than they can in New York. Locality is always important. It's just not a thing that we trumpet from the rooftop. It's always been something that's been part of how we operate, because of course it is.
Through the process of getting these ingredients, you get, for instance, incredible scallops. We think, wow, these are far better than anything we've got in the States - what should we do with that? So we wind up with the hot appetiser we're doing with the scallops.
We're doing risotto for the first time for Carbone in London. Jeff and I both love risotto, but the kitchen in New York is like a shoebox, right? For risotto, you need basically one employee who just does that. Just stirs risotto pots for 40 minutes at a time until it's ready. So we have a beautiful kitchen here, we were able to do it and it felt like this was a great first place to do it.
So there are a few things like that. But by and large it's the core menu.
Carbone's veal parm, another classic dish
What made you decide you wanted to open in London?
Jeff: We've been looking at London since the day after we opened the first Carbone. For some reason, both Mario and I both had the shared dream, without really even discussing it, that the next location for Carbone would be London. It always felt like the most natural fit for us. It was a city that we had an incredible affinity towards, both from a cultural perspective and from a stylistic perspective. We have lots of friends here, we love coming here and we drew lots of inspiration from the old institutions here.
We spent a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of money looking around and understanding the landscape of London. We very quickly realised, as we kind of knew, that Carbone could only really exist in Mayfair and that was where we needed to be. We spent a lot of time looking for spaces, none of which were right. As you definitely know, it's not easy to find an amazing space in Mayfair, particularly something that's significant enough that we felt it was right for the brand.
So we tried something we are not so good at normally, which is patience, and we decided to give it a break. Time flew by and 10 years and 50 or 60 restaurants later, we were finally approached with this opportunity.
Obviously being in this building, the original American Embassy, right in the heart of Grosvenor Square, we couldn't ask for anything more. It's kind of a dream come true.
It feels like a perfect fit.
Jeff: Happy to hear you say it, we feel the same way. As soon as we heard about the opportunity and it was brought to us, we jumped on it and for the last two years, we've been diligently working to get it ready.
Carbone is mainly all below ground and when you got downstairs, you'll get to this bar first.
How do you approach opening a restaurant in another country? How involved do you become?
Jeff: We have a incredible team with people who have been with us for over a decade in restaurants with us all over the world, both Carbones and other restaurants. They continue to travel with us and be our force on the ground.
But of course myself and Mario are incredibly involved, much more involved than many people in our positions. Especially in the case of London. As you see, we're here a month ahead of opening and we don't plan on going anywhere. We moved here indefinitely to make sure this goes how we want it to go because this city means so much. We feel very commited to it personally as well, but obviously we have incredible people around us that keep that machine going. We kind of lead the direction.
When you have a listed building like this, does that come with challenges?
Jeff: It definitely does, but it's mostly the exterior that's listed so fortunately, that's not something we had to deal with. By the time we took it over that, that had all really been handled alongside the entire renovation of the building. So we were able to come into a space and design it like any other restaurant, but just with the great honour of it being such a special location with so many special features like the large outdoor patio upstairs, with an exciting, especially unique design.
Desserts. We'll have all of these, please.
As you've been here for about a month before the opening - where have you been to recently in London (restaurant-wise) that's impressed you?
Jeff: We've been trying to get out as much as we can, and when I come to London, I always focus on Indian food, as we just don't have anything of that level of quality in America in general. The Indian food you have here is just so spectacular, so we go to both somewhere new and also the same places we've been going for years. We spend a good amount of time here, so we do get to make it to a lot of restaurants. Recently we went to The Devonshire for the first time. We loved that and thought it was incredible - loved the food, loved the energy.
We're definitely trying the newer pubs that are getting a lot of attention and who are taking their food game up to a new level. I have a whole list of places that I want to go to in London, and just outside of London. I recently went to Dorian. I went to Mountain. I love A Wong for lunch and we spend a lot of time in China Tang, which is probably our home away from home restaurant - we love it there. We also do a lot of eating at the JKS Indian restaurants and other Indian restaurants like Jamavar. We do our best to make our way around and eat as much as we can to know what's going on, and it's also something we love to do.
Mario: In London, I love the super-thin-crust Roman pizzas at Marta.
Jeff: He can't stop talking about it, I'm going to have to go there.
And what about New York - outside of your own restaurants, what's good there right now?
Jeff: I pretty much spend all my time at our own restaurants there. That's a tough question for me, but I ate at an amazing spicy Thai restaurant called Chalong. That's excellent, probably the best meal I've had recently. I also love this bar called Sip and Guzzle, I've spent a lot of time there. And they do a great job at Apollo Bagels.
Mario: I'm usually fatigued if I've been at the restaurant, and if I haven't been to one of mine in a while, I want to go there. So my most recent great meal in New York is at Torrisi. I love Brooklyn Tavern. I like to visit my friends, so between eating in our restaurants and visiting friends, I never get to a list of new places to go!
The Carbone PDR. This will be extremely popular in the run-up to Christmas
(TBC FINAL QUESTION)
Jeff: To put it in all into perspective, 10 years ago this (list of recommended restaurants in London) didn't really exist. We were so in love with the city but a lot of it was through the great old hotels - Claridge's and places like that. We got so much inspiration as there was so much soul and so much history. Now, it's just so exciting to be here, both to open this restaurant but in general it seems like the restaurant world here has really erupted in the last few years. It's an exciting time and it's exciting to be opening in such a robust period in the restaurant business.
