A Night at Carbone.

A Night at Carbone.

28 Sep 2025

Below a rather special hotel on Grosvenor Square, lies a restaurant not for the faint hearted. It’s not accessible from the hotel lobby; you walk around to the side, looking for the two doormen dressed in heavy burgundy trench coats and peaked caps, who warmly smile and usher you in, underneath the word ‘Carbone’, spelled out on cut lettering over the golden door. If you don’t have a reservation, this is as far as you will be getting.

As we walked in at half five, a couple were being informed by the host that their only hope for a table was the terrace on this, a fairly cold September’s evening. A one-star Google review of the restaurant reads “Prepare to hear sentences like “we don’t seat partial tables” and answers like “no” with no further reasoning.” We had been looking at similar writeups, as well as the menu, and wondering if we should cancel and eat elsewhere. That said, this is Carbone, and it’s finally made it to London.

One of the most in-demand venues in gastronomy, The O.G. Carbone in Greenwich Village is famed for a waitlist as long as the island of Manhattan, and stories of A-listers being told there are no tables for months. An early press write-up of the London opening spoke of being sat next to Victoria Beckham. When we were enjoying after dinner drinks in their astonishingly beautiful bar, none other than Gordon “IT’S FUCKING RAW” Ramsay, swooped past us, being escorted to his table.

A purveyor of Italian American cuisine in dining rooms reminiscent of mid-century Italian restaurants in New York City, founders Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi researched the history of this storied zeitgeist, including the infamous mob joint ‘Rocco Restaurant’, that closed in 2012 to make way for Carbone. They have inarguably found a winning formula: elevated Italian American cuisine, a gastronomical genre that offers something for all and unites demographics through being grounded yet extravagant, all served it up in a dining room fit for the gods, in locations where people want to be. London’s outpost is aptly situated within the old U.S. embassy.

This hype and fluff means Carbone can get away with some wise guy behaviour of its own: charging prices that are so high I actually laughed out loud at my desk when I was looking at the menu, causing my colleague to look up from her desk in bewilderment. Around £thirty for a plate of pasta. Glasses of wine for £forty. A sirloin for £one hundred and thirty. The ‘Lasagna Bianco’ is… £ninety-eight. “You never know…“, my colleague said. “…it might be the best lasagna of your life.” Despite her urging me to bankrupt myself, how good this lasagna might be will forever be a mystery.

Italian food is worth this kind of money by itself, no matter how amazing it is. Therefore, the experience at Carbone needs to take the lead. It does. Once you have been OKed at the imposing host desk, you head down a grandiose, muralled staircase to the massive restaurant downstairs. The lights are dim, the air of foreboding carries through down here. Weirdly, I feel nervous. The hosts are basically models. The music is a mix of Jazz, Blues, and Soul. We were shown to our table as “Then He Kissed Me” by The Crystals played, made famous by the iconic scene in Goodfellas where Henry Hill and his date arrive at the Copacabana through the kitchen and seated at the best table in the house.

At our own lovely table, with a two-top either side of us that were kept free to allow some privacy and space, we surveyed a sprawling and heaving dining room of burgundy booths, art deco paintings, frilly table lights and trolleys bedecked with food. The European’s jaw dropped. It’s the most stunning dining room I can remember, moody, anticipatory, and, like the portion sizes, very American. The menu is printed on a folded sheet of A2 card. “Handy if you don’t want to talk to each other”, our server joked. He was a joy, navigating us through the choices. “Choose one macaroni to share” he warned. “Whatever happens, you will be taking doggy bags home.”

We were presented with a complimentary breadbasket, a mixture of spiced focaccia, bouncy and moist tomato pizza bread, and warm sourdough. This was delivered with generous plates of salami and pickled cauliflower. Coupled with our cocktails, a whiskey sour and a Chinato Sours (made with bourbon and Barolo), this was apéro on a scale I have never seen in London, and more than enough to quell our appetites. The cauliflower stung my throat, making me cough. I felt wonderfully out of place choking on vinegar in such a gorgeous dining room, amongst the polished and dainty clientele. A waiter brought over twenty-four-month aged wedges of Parmigiano Reggiano, which soothed the burn.

We generally felt that the food was great but started stronger than it finished. A starter of Yellowtail tuna with spice and sesame was refreshing, contrasting with the mountainous bowl of Caesar Salad, prepared tableside by our waiter. The dressing is mixed from scratch, and was perfect, though our server insisted his own salads at home are better. The croutons were ridiculous; slabs of brioche, crisp[ed to within an inch of their life, delightfully fluffy inside. It’s made to preference; “Where would you like the anchovies?” (all over); “Parmesan: a little, middle or too much?” (take a wild guess).

By the time the starters had been decimated, we were full. We shared Carbone’s signature dish, the Spicy Rigatoni Vodka, made with four ingredients, though we never found out what they were. It was a great plate of pasta; cooked well with a deep, tangy, and spicy sauce. Nevertheless, I am not sure if it was worth the hype, and we spent longer debating whether or not the rigatoni was actually rigatoni more than our thoughts about how it tasted.

We had over-ordered. Next up was a veal parm and sea bass, as well as funghi trifolati and Potatoes Louie; spuds crisped up in goose fat. Everything was an unnecessary extravagance, and we half-heartedly picked our way through half of one hundred and eighty quid’s worth of main course before admitting defeat and returning it to the kitchen, before it was presented back to us, tubbed up in a sturdy bag decorated with a pen-and-ink of Rocco Restaurant. Of the sea bass, The European said “it was good”, which has hidden and not so sunny connotations. My veal was the same. It was hearty, very on-theme, but not too memorable. Perhaps this was because our stomachs were distended. I cooked up the veal, mushrooms and some of the potatoes into a hash for lunch the next day, and it was certainly solid comfort food for a Sunday. Not the greatest compliment for such expensive dishes.

I could have looked at the dessert menu (the stracciatella tiramisu sounded very orderable) but our server apologetically informed us that the table was needing to be returned, so we retired to the bar and had a few drinks. A couple of bourbons, an Old Fashioned, and an Espresso Martini set us back a ton. The bar is an experience in itself. There’s a weird seating area at the back, by the toilets, that looked like a cramped holding pen for punters awaiting a dining table, but the counter was a great place to people-watch. We nursed our drinks, marvelled at the shelves of whisky behind the bartenders, and took photos of ourselves in the mirror on the ceiling.

The fight for counter seating was real, and when The European nipped to the loo after our first round, a lady tried to grab her stool. When she returned and bumped the thief to one side, receiving a stinky face as a reward, she insisted on us staying for one more drink “to make a point”. This is why I love her. The thief and her fella stood behind us sipping beers. According to their bill, twenty-five quid for two.  

This little interaction sums up what Carbone is when you strip everything away. It’s a flashy and expensive place to be seen, a place where people fight for their spot in the lights, fight to be seen with celebrities, fight for their wallets, fight for their waistlines. I felt comfortable and looked after, on account of surprisingly warm service and ridiculously dimmed lights. Nevertheless, this is a restaurant that I know I will never call home. I had completely lucked out on a reservation, and it was somewhat of professional interest to visit once, to see what the fuss is all about. We loved our evening, and it exceeded our expectations. As I write this, I don’t know if I would call it ‘value for money’, but I don’t regret a moment of the evening.

We won’t return to Carbone, because we have a mortgage to pay and cats to feed. If you’re wondering what to do, I say go and try it, but stay for a drink or two, the bread and salami, the Caesar salad and a bowl of pasta each. After this, run. Run to the bar, if you’re brave, or run back to Grosvenor Square, to safety, and a long walk home to shake off the carbs, and to reflect on surviving this unhinged paradise and what you’ve just done.

Visited 27 September 2025. Two starters, one pasta, two mains, two sides, two cocktails, two glasses of wine came to around £three hundred and sixty (including service charge). A trip to the bar for two rounds of drinks came to £one hundred (including service charge).