In London, Carbone Stages an Italian Supper-Club Fantasy
Set within Ken Fulk’s decadent interiors, the Major Food Group mainstay serves up its cult of red-sauce glamour at Mayfair’s brand-new Rosewood Chancery hotel
The tone is struck before a single spicy rigatoni vodka leaves the kitchen. Guests entering Carbone London descend a staircase blanketed in a lively mural depicting a white-tablecloth fantasia of supper-club scenes, tuxedoed servers, and references to the restaurant’s own mythology. “The mural tells the tale of the ultimate night at Carbone,” notes Ken Fulk, the debonair American designer who has conceived its highly sought-after outposts in Hong Kong, Miami Beach, Riyadh, Dallas, Las Vegas, and now the British capital. The artwork is both a theatrical overture and a tantalizing appetizer for Major Food Group’s entrée into London’s culinary scene, the latest installment in a foot-on-the-gas expansion of its flagship restaurant masterminded by owners Mario Carbone, Jeff Zalaznick, and Rich Torrisi.
Since opening in Manhattan in 2013, Carbone has grown into a culinary powerhouse celebrated for transforming Italian-American red-sauce tradition. The London outpost continues that lineage while responding to the gravitas of its surroundings. It occupies part of the former American Embassy at 30 Grosvenor Square, a storied Mayfair building originally designed by Eero Saarinen but reimagined by Pritzker Prize laureate David Chipperfield Architects as the Chancery Rosewood hotel. The formidable setting marks Fulk’s debut hospitality project in the city—and Mayfair’s ceremonial tone proved an ideal stage for his flamboyant design theatrics.
Here, Fulk evoked the legendary American supper clubs throughout the mid-20th century from Harlem to Hollywood, while layering in unapologetically indulgent Italian design elements. “There’s a formality mixed with bravado best defined by the style of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack, El Morocco, and the Copacabana,” Fulk explains. “And we leaned into that history as well as theatrical interpretations, from Guys and Dolls to Goodfellas, all of which amounts to a celebration of a distinctly American swagger.”
The street-level bar introduces several Carbone signatures carried over from earlier locations, including high-gloss blue paneling, tin ceilings, and marble hexagon mosaic floors. Thompson Street regulars may also recognize embroidered café curtains and a zinc-topped oak bar, here adapted for Mayfair. “The bravado is felt in the saturation of color and the Italian midcentury elements,” says Fulk, who wanted the references to feel quintessentially Carbone while speaking to the neighborhood’s cosmopolitan charm. To wit: an alfresco dining terrace furnished with pinstripe rattan chairs and wrought-iron bistro tables is shaded by umbrellas and cosseted by lush greenery, affording high-profile clientele welcome privacy.
The subterranean dining areas shift the tone to what Fulk describes as “mafia-glam.” Behind a red leather door at the bottom of the stairs, a lounge enveloped in archival red damask from British fabric house Watts 1874 opens onto a spacious bar with inlaid marquetry and glowing fluted glass; ceiling panels clad in red-tinted mirrors reflect light in fragments. Beyond that lies the grand dining room, where ebonized wall panels and ceilings upholstered in burgundy billiard cloth dial up the decadence. “A touch of Savile Row detailing makes an appearance with the inlaid mahogany marquetry and wooden paneling in the private dining room,” Fulk notes. Oversized Ciambella fixtures illuminate the Rosso Levanto and Carrara checkered marble floors, casting a glow over campari-hued velvet banquettes and distressed leather chairs that sing against the crisp white tablecloths.
Art also plays a central role in establishing that rarefied atmosphere. Vito Schnabel assembled an impressive collection that includes work by Ai Weiwei, David Salle, Francesco Clemente, Rita Ackermann, Rashid Johnson, Lola Montes, René Ricard, Enzo Cucchi, Ron Gorchov, David McDermott, and his father, Julian. Pieces are placed throughout the rooms rather than clustered together. The staircase mural, for example, connects the upper bar to the lower level; Fulk describes it as a “vehicle,” or a way of collapsing time and creating a narrative that arcs straight into the heart of the restaurant.
Cuisine, naturally, remains a core draw. The menu features Carbone’s most in-demand dishes, from spicy rigatoni vodka to veal chop parmesan, served with trademark tableside presentations that have become standard when ordering mozzarella and peppers, caesar salad alla ZZ, dover sole piccata, lasagna, and banana flambé. Several dishes were created specifically for London, including langoustines flown in daily from Scotland, lobster risotto alla arrabbiata, and stuffed quail with sausage. Staffers deliver them donned in burgundy tuxedos designed by Zac Posen. The wine cellar offers 2,000 selections from a cellar that holds more than 10,000 bottles, with a focus on Italian producers alongside estates in Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Napa Valley.
A private dining room tucked within the lower level serves as the final reveal. Gilded molding, coffered ceilings, and a Murano chandelier forge a dazzling yet intimate enclosure conceived with a vault-like quality that nods to the building’s diplomatic past. As Fulk puts it, “What feels the most distinctive is the level of detail.” Carbone London proves that swagger travels well.