Vino Carbone Miami is the new new restaurant from Major Food Group

(Bloomberg) — For anyone who tried and failed to get into Carbone, there’s a Plan B on the way, at least if you’re in Miami. In December, the group that turns spicy rigatoni vodka and veal parmesan into international memes will launch Carbone Vino in Coconut Grove. The 165-seat restaurant is designed to evoke a rustic enoteca in a neighborhood that has become a magnet for wealthy transplants, including Ken Griffin, who bought a sprawling estate there in 2022 for about $107 million.

In addition to a focus on the wine promised in the name, Vino will serve some Carbone classics: the Caesar alla ZZ, that spicy rigatoni. But many of the dishes will be versions of those created at Carbone Privato, the members-only restaurant of ZZ’s Club New York in Hudson Yards. “The pillars at Carbone don’t change much; I am aware of the people waiting to come in and what they expect,” said Mario Carbone, co-founder of Major Food Group. “But at Privato I really mess around with the menu.”

At Vino, the chef says he will serve dishes he makes for Privato’s small, elite audience, dishes he wants to “cook selfishly.” Among them: veal parmesan chicken transformed into a giant saltimbocca. “I’ve made a gajillion veal parmesan in my life. You’re bored.” Instead, he plans to serve a big, thick seared pork chop with thinly shaved pancetta and crispy sage, drizzled with a rich lemon sauce.

The menu also includes spaghetti bambini, a very luxurious version of a children’s dish that simply consists of first-class pasta, butter from grass-fed cows and old red cow Parmigiano from Parma. “It goes in a covered urn so it stays warm; a captain will throw it on the table.’

Other new dishes include pumpkin agnolotti, a seasonal dish covered in brown butter with rosemary and crushed walnuts; tortellini con tartufo with stuffed pasta with sheep’s milk ricotta, white truffle butter and vitello osso bucco braised in red wine.

The dish that Carbone is especially palpably excited about is a cannoli sundae, consisting of cannoli-flavored soft serve ice cream studded with chocolate chips, Sicilian pistachios, candied fruit and served with freshly baked cannoli shells for topping.

Vino’s wine program, overseen by Patrick Wert, the beverage manager, and John Slover, the company’s wine director. The 600 bottle list includes plenty of bottles from Italy, but they also source wine from regions around the world. Among the heavyweight bottles they will pour are a 2008 Giovanni Rosso Serralunga d’Alba Barolo and a 2020 Bachelet Monnot Saint Aubin 1er Cru En Remilly. They promise a range of price points and will also prioritize wines by the glass; When they open, about 30 will be offered, Carbone says.

The concept of a wine restaurant in bottle service-friendly Miami may seem counterintuitive, but co-founder Jeff Zalaznick laughs it off. “Part of what we have done and continue to do is reach a level of sophistication that people didn’t believe existed here, but there is a huge demand for it,” he says. Adding about the popularity of their places like Carbone and Sadelle’s, “That’s why they’ve accepted the New Yorkers coming.”

He sees the Coconut Grove neighborhood as a particularly good place for the concept: “The wine corner will be well received. It responds to what we do: a festive environment, but no nightclubs.”

The restaurant’s design features a warmly lit dining room, accented in dark walnut and mahogany, with heavy burgundy velvet curtains and a tin-tiled ceiling, which is perforated to balance the acoustics. There will also be a long bar with polished bronze accents in the separate lounge and a private dining room with a Murano glass lamp. Pieces by Julian Schnabel and Francesco Clemente will decorate the walls.

This is the group’s first independent Vino; they’ve been testing the concept in Dallas since 2022, with options like pizza on the menu. There will be no pizza in Miami, Carbone says, and it will function as a separate restaurant, unlike in Dallas, where “it’s an amenity.” He and Zalaznick describe Vino as a Carbone-meets-Italian-enoteca experience (with Carbone prices) that’s more accessible than their famed brand.

“A lot of it will look and act like Carbone,” says the chef, who estimates the menu will be 20 to 25% classics. But here there’s room for walk-ins, including the chance to eat at the bar, which isn’t possible at the local Carbone.

It is also tailor-made as a concept that Major Food Group is rolling out. “You never know when you’re going to have a Vino in New York, in London,” says Zalaznick.