It’s fair to say that Carbone in New York is global restaurant royalty. The spicy rigatoni with vodka sauce is legendary and the tableside caesar salad, which is sharp with anchovy, fabled. But it’s the guestlist that remains one of the main talking points and, 12 years after it opened, it’s still hugely difficult to secure a table. With guests like Leonardo DiCaprio and Taylor Swift, there’s no such thing as a quiet night at the original Carbone in Greenwich Village. It makes sense, then, that chef-founder Mario Carbone has set his sights high for the new London restaurant. “I’d like to feed the King” he tells Broadsheet.
Carbone, who started cooking fried calamari at a neighbourhood restaurant in Queens at 15, has secured industry fame thanks to his nostalgic take on the Italian red-sauce restaurants of mid-century New York City. In the years since the original debuted, Carbones have opened in Hong Kong, Doha and Riyadh – and the restaurants’ parent company, Major Food Group, has launched other brands in cities from Paris to Seoul. So why has London taken so long?
“London was always our dream, and Mario and I have spent immense amounts of time, effort and money coming here,” Jeff Zalaznick, Carbone’s co-founder, tells Broadsheet. The pair visited spaces across the city over many years to understand the restaurant scene. “But at the end of the day, we’re a luxury product and the only answer was Mayfair. If it wasn’t within 10-minutes’ walk from Claridge’s we weren’t interested,” says Zalaznick. Carbone London finally opens on September 17.
Carbone’s new home in London is inside the former American embassy – the rest of which has just reopened as The Chancery Rosewood. It’s a six-minute walk from Claridge’s. “We honestly couldn’t have made this location up,” says Zalaznick. Diners enter on the corner of Grosvenor Square (rather than through the hotel) into a small street-level dining room in Carbone’s signature sunny blue with leather banquettes, embroidered cafe curtains and mosaic flooring (an ode to the tiled floor in the New York restaurant, which is inspired by a scene from The Godfather).
Head down the mural-lined stairs and things start to feel more Mayfair. Interiors by American interior designer Ken Fulk feature a bar area enveloped in red damask; in the dining room ebonised wood and oversized Italian light fixtures resembling upside-down ciambella (Italian ring-shaped cakes) spotlight tables atop deep-red-and-white chequered floor tiles. It is dimly lit and tightly packed with a splash of opulence.
The key players from New York are on the menu, including slabs of tomato-topped “Grandma Bread” that are delivered to the table on arrival. Plus, there’s the must-order rigatoni, veal parm and lobster ravioli. But there are also dishes exclusive to London. A new starter of scallops in rosemary is an ode to the UK’s quality shellfish. And risotto is on the menu for the first time – thanks to a kitchen four times the size of the New York original. “I mandate that it’s made from scratch because you have to baby it,” says Carbone, who will have one chef dedicated to risotto each night.
“We want to make sure that [we’re] providing the core experience that people have come to expect, but it’s also important we leave 10 per cent to the location – to seasonal variability and to the chefs,” says Carbone. “Each location has its nuance.”
Carbone
30 Grosvenor Square, W1K 6AN
Hours:
Tue to Sat 4pm–10pm
