Along with the chef’s business partner, Jeff Zalaznick, we’re sat in the private dining room of Carbone London, a gastronomic playground hiding underneath the new Chancery Rosewood hotel above. We met a month out from launch, but things are already looking pretty polished. Tables are set; the bar is laden high with bottles. If it wasn’t for the full wait-staff team receiving training on the dishes they’d be serving as we walked in, it looked like they were ready to open that same evening.
Carbone’s regulars will feel at home here. Servers will dress the same as in NYC, courtesy of designer Zac Posen. The decor and ambience feels of the same playbook: walls are a rich shade of crimson, sparkly Murano glass chandeliers suspend from the ceiling and sultry little booths hide guests from prying eyes.
Artist and long-time collaborator Ken Fulk has designed a London-specific mural on the staircase leading down to the main dining room, but even the music seeping out of the speakers will be the same. The menu, too, is familiar. There are hints of a few city-specific specials but for the most part, fan favorites (including, yes, the spicy vodka rigatoni) are present.
You can’t blame them for replicating the tried-and-true Carbone recipe, as it’s worked remarkably well so far. Opened under the Major Food Group (co-founded by Carbone and Zalaznick along with chef Rich Torrisi) in NYC in 2013, the upscale American-Italian has a loyal horde of guests, from front-page A-listers to under-the-radar moguls (the group employs a strict no-name-dropping policy). The success has been replicated globally: Vegas, Miami, Hong Kong, Riyadh and more all have their own dose of Carbone.
So, what’s taken them so long to make it to London? “We’ve been coming here for over a decade looking for the perfect space,” Zalaznick says. “If it had been up to us, our second Carbone would have been here but we had to wait for the right space. It had to be Mayfair ‘cause that’s truly the only place we could be at home in London. It’s the home of luxury.”
“Carbone fits impeccably,” into London’s culinary scene, Zalaznick confirms with confidence. “It’s all about excellence, glamour, fun, enjoyment. It’s a place to come and have a fun time. It’s high end and its luxury, but at the same time it’s important to us that you come here and feel a sense of comfort, family and community.”
It is potentially this disregard for the previously stiff-lipped version of fine dining that saw the New York restaurant lose its Michelin star – first earned in the 2014 guide – in 2022. Were they bothered? “We never asked for it,” Carbone answers with a shrug. “We never displayed it,” Zalaznick adds. “Maybe that’s why they took it away. We had it up in the kitchen; we threw it out when we lost it. It was never something we were interested in.”
“It’s the antithesis of what we’re all about,” he says. “It’s not what we cook for, it’s not what we train our staff for. We could, but we try to go the opposite direction – our servers are a lot less robotic and a lot less formal. We’re bringing back the core idea of hospitality.”
You might assume this project would be all work, no play for Carbone and Zalaznick, but the duo are making the most of their temporary home. “We’re Londoners right now,” Carbone says. In the run up to the restaurant’s opening, Carbone and Zalaznick had been staying at the new Chancery Rosewood, which occupies the old American Embassy on the same site as the restaurant. “I was the third person to check in,” Carbone tells me. “I was fifth!” Zalaznick says.
For them, being in London is all about eating what they can’t back in New York: “I’m a China Tang fanatic [The Dorchester’s upscale Chinese restaurant] – I eat lunch or dinner there everyday. I eat Chinese and Indian food when I’m here because we don’t have it in the same way in America. The Indian food here is on a different level.’
“We’ve been to The Devonshire, too,” Carbone adds. The pub/restaurant in Soho, known for pouring one of London’s best pints of Guinness and a meat-heavy menu, has been steadily booked out since it opened in late 2023. “We took the whole team,” says Zalaznick. “We drank many Guinnesses, we had the roast meats, we had the potted shrimp – we loved it.”
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“Pub food has really picked up its game,” he adds.“Food people are giving me these crazy lists of all these pubs to go to – places to go for the food and the environment.” It’s those two crucial components that Carbone has built its business on. Let’s see how London fares.
Book here: majorfood.com