So we would watch all things Bobby Flay and just talk about shit, Carbone says. Their love for producing food and having a showcase is more important, Rosen said. Read the latest edition of the Commercial Observer online! The team continues its Florida expansion with ZZs Sushi Bar: a Japanese restaurant and membership club in the heart of the Miami Design District, slated to open later this month. I was trying to get a job here, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right there, were going to build our first Carbone hotel., See All the Outfits From the 2023 Met Gala Red Carpet, Why Tucker Carlsons Exit From Fox News Looks Like an Execution, Prince Harry and Prince William Reportedly Still Havent Talked After Spare, Dune: Part Two: An Exclusive First Look at the Sagas Epic Conclusion, The 25 Best Shows on Netflix to Watch Right Now, From the Archive: Seduced and Abandoned (2014). He is the co-founder and co-owner of Major Food Group (MFG). The best food, the best drinks and the best people. The previous workers had been working on wooden pallets on the kitchen line because the floors were so bad, and there was an open container of marinara on the counter with a ladle still in it, as if they had just walked out. The Major Food Group team scored prime real estate in the exclusive South of Fifth neighborhood on 49 Collins Avenue a stone's throw away from Miami mainstays, Joe's Stone Crab and Prime 112,. Im not gonna lie, I dont really know anything about Dallas, Carbone says, sitting in the not-quite-finished dining room at the end of an oblong parking lot in the Design District of the Texas metropolis, 1,551 miles from Greenwich Village. Then another Move: Carbone takes out one of the cigars gifted to him, looks me in the eye, and lights it as Sinatra hits the last high note in My Way. Torrisi is standing nearby, downing a glass of wine. When Jeff has an opinion, all sorts of etiquette about the way that you should break the news [when] you disagree with somebody are off the table, he said. But its taken on a new dimension of late. Major Food Group and its founders Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick has made a big impact in South Florida since opening Carbone in Miami Beach during the height of the pandemic,. It doesnt look ready, but he is. The trio set about transforming the space into Carbone, an upscale red-sauce joint that paid homage to Carbones Italian American roots. After a spell serving sandwiches at lunch to modest returns, some press accompanied one of their first dinner services, and soon they were drawing lines around the block. Aside from their ritzy new zip code, they successfully opened their doors at the peak of New York to Miami migration. So they started looking around. But you also get what you pay for, which a lot of times doesnt happen.. And all three brought total dedication to the craft. The restaurant delivers its highfalutin versions of classic Italian American comfort food hitsragu, ravioli, rigatoni, calamari, puttanesca, shrimp scampi, lobster fra diavolo, veal Parmesanwith a side of arch referentiality: the red-tuxedoed captain singing along to Frank while his bazooka arms mix a gigantic Caesar salad; the reddest, spiciest, booziest vodka sauce ever served over noodles on white tablecloth; the courtesy-of-the-chef wink wink nod nod free courses coming out to make you feel like youre a made man in a mob hang. The idea to do what Carbone is, thats more acutely Marios particular dream as a young chef, says Torrisi, whose name graced their first restaurant, Torrisi Italian Specialties. There was a lot of Good for you, kids! for a long time, the first couple of years. Speaking of the Kingdom: Theres also a new edition of Torrisi Italian Specialties, simply called Torrisi, opening in 2022 in the Puck Building, which is owned by Kushner Companies, the real estate empire once run by Jared Kushnerwhose firm recently took a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabias sovereign wealth fund. The first Move is a meta one: leading us past the main dining room with tiles reminiscent of those in the restaurant in which Michael Corleone accepted his destiny in The Godfather, through the kitchen la Scorseses direction en route to the best table at the Copacabana in Goodfellas. Led by Co-Founders Mario Carbone, Jeff Zalaznick, and Rich Torrisi, MFG established roots in Miami at the beginning of 2021 with two smash successes: CARBONE in the South of Fifth neighborhood and the private membership venue ZZ's Club in the Miami Design District. Ardent Carbone fans will recognize menu favorites with subtle updates like stone crab from the raw bar or coconut-lime confections for a local touch. After hearing the Torrisi buzz, Zalaznick went back for a second meal, then went out for a drink with Carbone, and they instantly connected over their shared philosophy on food and a vision for a possible future restaurant. Known as "Billionaire's Bunker," the. Ive never seen anything like it. Zalaznick soon quit JPMorgan and went to work at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in guest relations, which gave him a frontline seat to the hospitality business, before turning to his own ventures. Is it any wonder he and the former president are already locked in a 2024 cold war? In 2014, a year after the original opened, young restaurateurs behind the dining group Black Sheep helped open Carbone Hong Kong. Having planted their flag all over the city, Rich Torrisi, Mario Carbone and Jeff Zalaznick, the restaurateurs behind Major Food Group, are going back to their roots. It was built in 2001 and has a library, home office and a master suite with a private balcony. Zalaznick began searching for second-generation restaurant space, so that Major Food Group could move quickly. Its like, This space is closing. And hes like, I dont have any positions here. . We called [it] a 400-square-foot rocket ship, thats what we told each other in our apartment before we went to bed each night, Carbone says later. And they said, The new thing, thats supposed to be your space. Throughout the madness, Carbone remained the tastefully five-oclock-shadowed big shot in chefs whites, an Italian American culinary god to every foodie with a black card. Zalaznick had one thing the friends lacked: bona fide generational wealth. At the time, the kitchen was run by Andrew Carmellini, who would go on to open Locanda Verde in Robert De Niros Greenwich Hotel, The Dutch in SoHo, and the sprawling French bistro Lafayette in NoHo. In April, Jeff Zalaznick was in South Beach to celebrate the opening of the new edition of his firm's naughty French steakhouse, Dirty French. I get so excited when someone sends me a picture of their burger or something because I feel like all I post is Carbone.. Major Food Group (MFG) and JDS Development Group (JDS) have revealed the first images of MAJOR, the highly anticipated 90-story residential and hospitality tower, located at 888 Brickell Avenue. He has the bug and he had the money to do it, so he put his own money into his own place.. And hes sitting next to Jay-Z. Because updating the past is what they do best. Rich and Mario would have been successful on their own. The Carbone celebrity complex has been egged on by the dogged pseudo-reporting of the pandemic-era Page Six meets Gawker Stalker that is @deuxmoi, the gossip-spewing Oz of Instagram. MFG then set their sights on the ambitious venture of resurrecting Italian-American fine dining. A month after Carbone opened in Miami in January 2021, the group opened Sadelles inside the flagship of streetwear brand Kith in Paris. He said pandemic restrictions made it impossible to maintain the restaurants approach bringing in chefs from elsewhere and having them interact with customers. and Alex Von Bidder, the Four Seasons was a bastion of power in New York, where the whos who of media, finance and politics mingled, and regular guests could count on being courted. $135 per person for FUCKING SPAGHETTI??? And at the end of one service, he looks down the line at me. And he was convinced he could do it better. Design-wise, the sprawling dining room transports you to Miami in the 1950s lush mid-century Miami glamour with an Italian-American twist, brought to life by the inimitable Ken Fulk. But the two, Torrisi and Carbone, stayed close. It was like a 16-year-old and Taylor Swift right there, Carbone says. Weve never seen demand like this, he said, referring to the restaurant and Miami itself. Throughout the trip, murmurs of a contagious virus spreading in China began to percolate. Then in Seattle. What Carbone coming to South Beach did was validate that Miami was a vibrant community and a foodie scene, Ellis said. To date, MFG has received 2 nominations for Best New Restaurants in America by the James Beard Foundation, holds 18 New York Times Stars and 3 Michelin Stars. Estimated Net Worth: $770,000 Estimated Salary: $254,660. For a lot of reasons Carbone Beach seemed particularly hubristic. The couple sold the property to Major Food Group co-founder and co-owner Jeffrey Zalaznick and his wife, Alison, who were renting the mansion prior to closing on it in mid-April, records show.. They had spent all this time talking about their ideal menu, in their ideal spot. The restaurant opened its doors to the public that week, in late January 2021, just as the first winter wave of COVID-19 was reaching its peak. They never left. One day, while Zalaznick was sitting in Torrisi which doubled as an office of sorts a guy came over, someone who knew Zalaznick from back in the day, and tapped him on the shoulder. In @deuxmoi world, Carbone is akin to this centurys Deux Magots, with Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson filling in for Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. They have a matter of hours. Out comes the tableside-tossed Caesar but also a tire-size platter of extra-rich beef carpaccio speckled with ant-size chives. Brooklyns further than three hours away! Carbone says. Parisians flocked to the store at brunch hour, keen for a taste of bagels served on an Instagrammable three-tier tower. They are masters of showmanship. These are for yousticks just to commemorate, and they should be right up your alley because I kind of know your profile, the man says. Carbone is akin to this centurys DEUX MAGOTS, with Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson FILLING IN for Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Once it was announced that Major Food Group would take over the countrys most famous restaurant and turn it into The Grill, the criticism leapfrogged several social strata up from the comments section. fashioned in a palette of terracotta and emerald green with damask-upholstered walls and leather banquettes. 2023 Cond Nast. Investors were hoping that the Carbone essence could be successfully uncorked for the 10-gallon-hatted high rollers in Big D: AT&T executives, Cowboys and Mavericks, old-money art collectors with Twombly-dotted mansions. Chef Ed, whats going on with our great wall of bread?. Jeff Zalaznick Net Worth. You dont understand, the fan says. About as intimidating a human being as youre going to find, Carbone says of Lee. He studied economics in Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences, served as a trustee from 1995 to 2003 and currently is a Presidential Councillor at Cornell and sits on the Board of Overseers of Weill Cornell Medical College. Carbone had worked at Lupa right across the street. It was absolutely, immediately embraced, said John Ellis, a Miami retail broker at Newmark. Anyone can read what you share. And people might not notice the Move, and thats the pointthe point is that you arent thinking about it because we got you, we captured your imagination, were pouring wine quickly and were getting you a cocktail and youre having a great time and thats why youre coming back. The restaurant has earned praise from Bloomberg, Eater and The Wall Street Journal for its hand-rolled bagels and classic dishes. For months, I had been speaking to Carbone in an effort to understand how his name had become shorthand for a very specific kind of luxe dining in the last decadehow he and his cofounders built and are now expanding a supper club that has so consistently lured not just the likes of LeBron and Jeter, Spike and Drake, Jared and Ivanka, but all the various moguls and machers and hypebeasts and influencers in their various wakes. His job was to show up at dawn, scale fish, fetch coffee, say yes to everything, and leave long after the last service. He wears his restaurant world celebrity with the well-groomed mien of a guy with a few menswear podcasts in the Spotify queue. During the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix in May, the owners of Carbone, the decade-old temple to red-sauce dining in Greenwich Village, opened a pop-up underneath a gigantic tent on the beach. The roommates decided to join forces. Even before the migration started in earnest in the fall of 2020, Zalaznick could sense the building momentum. Its laid-back aesthetic, consisting of rattan ceiling [+] fans, eclectic furniture, and lush greenery, nods to Havana, bringing a distinct Miami flair to the Carbone experience. The Carbone trio enlisted Zac Posen to design the captains tuxedos. Since its opening, Sadelle's has become a New York brunch institution, serving more than 700 guests per day every weekend. In 2016, MFG took over the city's iconic Four Seasons Restaurant located in the historic Seagram Building, and restored this landmark restaurant space with the opening THE GRILL, THE POOL, The Pool Lounge and The Lobster Club over the course of 2017. but my parents are from Sicily, he says, turning toward his dad. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. I met everybody in town who was great; people from Europe came, Rosen said I always gravitated back to Jeff., He liked the mix of creativity, chutzpah and business acumen that the three partners offered, and how Jeff complemented the two chefs. After the meeting at the Jane, all three of them got together, this time at the Mulberry Street playground across from the bar Spring LoungeCarbone called it Shark Bar, like any legit SoHo dweller doesand agreed to form a partnership that would turn into Major Food Group. When Zalaznick told . But it seemed as though all the young guys in Carmellinis kill-or-be-killed kitchen were comers, content to sweat out the rough times and earn the scars needed to open their own places. They were energized and engaged coming off of Torrisi, and they just shifted gears into Carbone. Torrisi and Carbone knew the guy, they had grappa after tasting-menu meals at the restaurant sometimes, so it wasnt all that strange. The pair could not have chosen a better backdrop, a certain element of metatextual, post-everything exegesis having been baked into Carbones ziti from day one. Krishnendu Ray, a professor of food studies at New York University and author of The Ethnic Restaurateur, explained that Italian cuisine is becoming one of the dominant forms of haute cuisine, gaining ground on French and Japanese. Its a simple ribbed white tank for guys that has been called a wife-pleaser.. Even if this was set to be a huge weekend for the Magic City, this kind of ambitionthe kind that prompts one to prop up a cathedral of carbs in South Beachhas been in somewhat short supply since the pandemic crippled large swaths of the restaurant industry. Carbones like a MOVIE SET, where every waiters like an actor, says Daniel Boulud, who ONCE EMPLOYED Carbone and Torrisi at his own Caf Boulud. The drift from hospitality to real estate is a natural one for Major Food Group, whose other name brands include Parm, ZZs Clam Bar and Dirty French. Zalaznick, Torrisi, and Carbonewho together own the company Major Food Groupare also behind such iconic concepts as THE GRILL, Sadelle's, ZZ's Clam Bar, Parm, and Dirty French. A construction site five hours before opening is the sort of adrenaline were looking for., Still, he seems a bit on edge. It was devouring Italy. Upon opening, Parm received two stars from The New York Times and was named as one of the 101 Best Places to Eat in North America by Newsweek. Carbone Beach. Just three months after signing the lease, Zalaznick and his partners, chefs Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone, were hosting A-list celebs, New York expats and real estate bigwigs including Barry Sternlicht, David Grutman, Craig Robins and J.P. Perez for a preview night at Carbone. From Leonardo DiCaprio, Rihanna, and Jay-Z to Kim Kardashian, Barack Obama, and secretive millionaires, its as if the rich and powerful simply are not aware that other places exist to get dinner. [Rich and Mario] are dreamers and lovers, and making money comes second. Thats a very strange thing for all of us. Major Food Group has expanded rapidly since inking its first South Florida lease last year. Are the majority of your restaurants in downtown New York? As a scion of the Milsteins, the prominent New York real estate family, Zalaznick initially followed the typical track for monied heirs of his generation: he went into finance, landing an investment banking job at JPMorgan after graduating from Cornell University in 2005. In looking for a replacement, Rosen needed someone who respected the space architecturally, and could take it in an exciting direction that wasnt too dramatic in its changes, retaining its classic elegance. It was in California, New York, France. I mean, that? In addition, Jeff and his partners believe strongly in giving back, and have pioneered an exciting charity partnership with the Robin Hood Foundation. Roccos dated back to 1914, containing within its walls nearly a century of Italian American cooking and culture. In Carbones first two months of existence, the site published 25 stories about the place, often under the same rubric: Carbone Fever. It was one of those restaurants where they got everything right, Leventhal said. The three young chefs served their interpretation of classic Italian deli sandwiches for lunch, and a seven-course prix fixe dinner in the evening, in a dining room that could barely seat 20 people. As we walk through the cramped kitchen, Carbone tells me that the nights crowd will be made up mostly of investors and friends and family, an elaborate cocktail party, he says. He grew up in a sophisticated environment where he could dabble, and go to places that he loved, said real estate mogul Aby Rosen, owner of RFR Realty, who would later partner with Zalaznick at the Seagram Building. Johnson designed the Four Seasons to be soft and relaxing, unlike the hot spot destination restaurants that dominate Manhattan. Nevertheless, a weeks worth of opening dinners were attended by titans of business and real estate, among them Robert Kraft, Jonathan Tisch, Leon Black, Steven Roth, and Henry Kravis. In fact, his side hustle is a fashion line, Our Lady of Rocco, and like both Carbonesrestaurant and restaurateurit wears its influencesMean Streets, The Pope of Greenwich Villageon its sleeve. Jeff Zalaznick and Mario Carbone two of the three owners behind Major Food Group, of Carbone fame - have relocated to Florida and opened four restaurants at The Boca Raton. Carbone and Torrisi both eventually moved on: Carbone to wd~50, the Lower East Side mecca where Wylie Dufresne was cooking on the bleeding edge of molecular gastronomy, and then to Del Posto, the citys first Italian Italian restaurant in decades to score four stars from the Times, courtesy of then critic Sam Sifton. Art dealer Vito Schnabel curated the work in the space, commissioning a series of paintings by the critic and poet turned artists artist Rene Ricard. And, always willing to play with the intersection of food and experience, Major Food Group had several collaborations on its roster. Additionally, MFG manages all food and beverage operations for the hotel, including special events and 24-hour room service. Jeff has served as the Cornell Hotel School's Entrepreneur-in-Residence and has been listed in 30 Under 30 by Zagat and Forbes. The sushi bar will be presided over by chefs Masa Ito and Kevin Kim, who earned a cult-following and a Michelin star at New Yorks Sushi Zo. MAJOR will feature 259 custom residences conceived as . His grandfather was real estate titan Paul Milstein. Carbone is very significant, because its the food of the poor immigrants, and its fighting against the Northern Italian disdain, said Ray. Carbone was made for Miami, said Jeff Zalaznick, as we chat outside on the patio of the newly opened restaurant. ), Dallas doesnt like to pay high prices for Italian unless they are in New York or Los Angeles or Italy, Nancy Nichols, a longtime local food writer, wrote after the spot closed. At Torrisi wed work until 11 p.m., then wed meet at 8 a.m. at Richs apartment, with Jeff, culling over old menus, looking through archives in the New York library, trying to find gems of creativity, Kulp said. May we all be rich enough to eat here more often.. It received a glowing two-star review from The New York Times and was named one of GQ's Most Outstanding Restaurants of 2015. What was next was the original Carbone. Zalaznick declined to provide further details about the locations. Its this sort of amazing thing that happened along the way, theres no way to put the pieces together to create that as a result, he says. . Major Food Group (@majorfoodgroup) has become synonymous with dining like royalty.From its superior food and beverage programming to its ultra-exclusive status as some of the hardest reservations to secure in each of its given cities, the dream teamMario Carbone, Jeff Zalaznick and Rich Torrisihave the golden recipe to bring their inimitable flair to dining destinations all over the . I have no interest in going back, she said. It was in that cramped space that Zalaznick first met with Torrisi and Carbone. Expansion of a global nature has, unsurprisingly, been an entire chapter of the Carbone playbook almost since day one. And they were hot.. Culinary titans Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick opened the doors to Carbone Miami last month and ever since, the legendary Italian eatery has been the hottest reservation in town. And then we came out with $50 veal Parms and tuxedos and they were like, Wait a minute. No offense to Jersey though. Wink wink. Since its opening, ZZ's Clam Bar has received three stars from GQ Magazine and Bloomberg. He then struck out on his own and conceived, developed and sold two highly . Major Food Group Returns to the Old Neighborhood, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/dining/major-food-group-torrisi-puck-building.html. Rihannas pregnancy announcement was bookended by visits. As for Chefs Club, Stephane De Baets, an owner, said he had to close because of the pandemic, notably because the company was foreign-owned and did not qualify for government support. Zalaznick quickly made it back to New York, where he got ready to take his family on a ski vacation to Aspen, Colo. By then a case of the COV-SARS-19 disease had been detected in Europe. Its a rocket ship. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Asia was masking up. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2016 as a Met. Jeff Zalaznick: ZZ's is about exclusivity and luxury. He knew the food, and he loved the food, but he was there to make money.. In the 1980s, the brothers developed a Madison Avenue building for Bank of America, were instrumental in revitalizing Times Square, and branched out into finance, acquiring the Emigrant Savings Bank New Yorks oldest savings institution. By 2010, the 27-year-old Zalaznick had had enough of being on the sidelines. In 2010, Jeff met his match in visionary chefs Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi at Torrisi Italian Specialties. We walk into the kitchen, where young guys in oil-slicked chefs whites are hammering away at their stations. Jeremiah Moss, the proprietor of an online historical concern called Jeremiahs Vanishing New York, accused places like Carbone of turning the Big Apple into an Epcot Center Jurassic Park of a city. Eater did a one-paragraph post about Mosss rant. At the center of it all is Mario Carbone, a perpetual kid from Queens now approaching middle age, who opened his namesake restaurant in 2013 at the age of 33. And I cant explain it sometimes., So pitched was Carbone Fever that within a few years, Major Food Group had a shot at the Mount Olympus of the restaurant world: the space in the Seagram Building that housed the Four Seasons. It opened Carbone in South Beach and ZZs Sushi Bar in the Miami Design District. The 9,600-square-foot mansion on Sunset Island II has eight bedrooms, nine bathrooms and one half-bath on a 20,000-square-foot lot. LeBron James alone managed to stop by Carbone Beach on four consecutive nights. Youre not supposed to be doing that., Other attempts to take New Yorks Italian cuisine nationwide include Il Mulino, a go-to West Village upscale spot that was sold to investors in 2001 and expanded rapidly; its parent company declared bankruptcy for seven locations in 2020 amid the pandemic. He was going to do something.. We recently caught up with Jeff Zalaznick, one of the managing partners of Major Food Group, alongside Rich Torrisi and Mario Carbone the team behind Sadelle's. He was born and raised in New York City and is a graduate of Cornell University. In 2015, RFRs Rosen, ever the provocateur, angered New Yorks most powerful by announcing his intention to replace the fabled Four Seasons restaurant at the base of his Seagram Building, when its lease was up the next year. And then, for the remainder of the day, he has an apron on, watching TV, gardening, doing something outside, actually cooking, Carbone continues. I think its a sense of familiar nostalgia, Mario Carbone chimes in. The second I walked in I immediately felt it was the perfect location for Carbone, Zalaznick recalled. But in 2011 the landlord reportedly informed Stanzianos grand-nephew Antonio DaSilva that his rent would be jacked from $8,000 to $18,000 per month, and the family balked. hahahahaha!!! My grandfather would wake up, hed get dressed, and part of getting dressed, hed put an apron on, Carbone tells me. I said, Not only is this gonna be Carbone, I know how were gonna get this open in the fastest time anyones ever opened a restaurant.. Property records show the Piazzas paid $10 million for the Tuscan-style home in 2008. Inside Wealth-Conference Con Man Anthony Ritossas Wild Web of Lies, Inventing Ivana Trump: Her Improbable Rise and Tragic Death. Mario Carbone has none of this disdain, and despite the high-flying Miami lifestyle punctuated by bro hugs from LeBron, hes still the kid from Queens who worked at local eateries through high school. Then theres the recently announced private Carbone inside a members club set for some not-too-distant future in Hudson Yards. The critics came around too. And its all thanks to this man. fans, eclectic furniture, and lush greenery, nods to Havana, bringing a distinct Miami flair to the Carbone experience. It was devouring Italy. At one point, a friend who represented the building at 181 Thompson Street told Zalaznick about the site, that they were renting the retail space, which for 90 years had been held by a legendary but bygone Greenwich Village red-sauce joint called Rocco Restaurant. On a brisk Texas morning on the last day of March, I am sitting with Carbone at the new Carbone in Dallas, in the bones of a restaurant set to open, alarmingly, that night. It was the 17th restaurant he'd opened in 16 months. Carbone went for drinks with him at the Jane Hotel. Rocco provided the space that could be the canvas on which Carbone and his partners could create a postmodern red-sauce joint that could seize the zeitgeistseize it not with Momofuku Kos Donald Juddinspired minimalism or wd~50s thing-that-looks-like-another-thing neo-surrealism, but with a novel pour of self-aware nostalgia. In December, Pete Wells at the Times named it the second-best new restaurant hed reviewed that year, bested only by Sushi Nakazawa, a now-faded fancy sushi joint.
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