Carbone London review: Electric vibes, but the food…
Carbone London restaurant review
It is the job of a restaurant to blast you as far away as possible from reality, and for all its flaws, Carbone – the most hyped London restaurant opening since the Chiltern Firehouse – rocket launches you to the Garden of Eden. Colour palettes of crimson and burgundy present in lavish wall murals, mosaic floors and velvet banquettes, and overhead there is draped burgundy cloth. Lovely Day by Bill Withers plays in the background. Waiters are called ‘Captains’ and wear comically giant dicky-bow ties. The only giveaway that we’re not at an orgy? The starch white tablecloths.
The hedonistic atmosphere and all the colour reminds me of those mushroom shake bars in Thailand where you get high while laying on bean bags, bodies draped over one another. It’s so maximalist in decor that the building itself doesn’t even get a look in: the fact we’re eating in the basement of the former US embassy is quickly forgotten.
It should go without saying that this kind of carefree aesthetic is ruthlessly managed. That is to say, this crowd aren’t the types to drink mushroom shakes on beanbags. Tables are blocked from popular reservation platforms and reserved for high-net-worth clientele, the strip steak costs £144 and customer spending data is reportedly tracked to “curate the room”.
Carbone London: Is it worth it?
A-Listers are charmed by the strange bow tied men, including Posh and Becks, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Moss, although the food has been harshly criticised by some newspapers; one called the chicken inedible. The hype has gone way beyond the culinary credentials: the restaurant itself has become the story. Not content with serving the A-List but competing for their column inches.
How did we get here? Carbone is the Italian-American restaurant group founded by Mario Carbone, which opened its first outlet in New York in 2013. The London outpost is in the basement below the new Chancery Rosewood hotel, where some of the rarest polished stone in the world is underfoot and the decor is almost exclusively beige.
Waitstaff recycle chummy lines with a moderately convincing level of charisma (mine was hired from Chiltern Firehouse), there are supersized menus and one dinner guest when I go in remarks that if World War Three were to happen, at least we’d be safe here. Forget its Embassy credentials, there is just the sense of being very, very far away indeed.
By the end of my meal, I felt nauseous of tummy but lightened of mind
Like when the Old War Office and The Emory made history as some of the first London hotels to charge north of £1,000 for an ordinary-sized hotel room, Carbone has broken the rules. The wagyu ribeye steak is £108, the veal parmigiana £69, the branzino £84 and the lobster ravioli £60. But the fight to get in proves that when Carbone says jump, we say how high. Sources tell me that the restaurant is still number one for clients of luxury concierge apps who can pay huge sums of thousands to secure tables at supposedly booked out restaurants.
The big problem though: the food. The potatoes Louie, off-menu meatballs and mushrooms were harshly over-salted on both occasions that I visited. At £29, the spicy rigatoni vodka is Carbone’s great leveller. This is the restaurant’s most hyped dish. It is nothing special, although the heat sustains nicely. On the eye it is a disappointing dollop in the middle of a large white plate, a strange gear-shift away from the presentation elsewhere, which is vibe-keepingly maximalist. Orecchiette vito with pesto and rich Italian sausage is tasty but heavy as hell. Bizarrely for a restaurant that focuses on comfort food, the fresher dishes are best: beets siciliana is earthy and fresh; there’s a lively caesar salad with oversized croutons and daintily plated slithers of scallops rosmarino.
Off-menu chicken parm is wholly conventional and indistinguishable from one half the price. The wagyu ribeye diana, at £108 and pictured below, looks like slop from a bird’s eye view. If you can look past that the dish itself, a jamboree of mushrooms, brandy and mustard sauce, is moreish with the well cooked beef, but I only manage half as by this point and can’t bear anymore rich food.
Desserts are better: an off-menu cherry flambe with pistachio, chocolate and strawberry ice cream is joyously kiddish; nostalgic great balls of ice cream with big punchy flavour and the tableside flambaying plays into the addictive theatrical vibe. We had a cheesecake and chocolate brownie too ‘cause at Carbone you tend to keep saying yes to the cheery man with the big bow-tie.
Should you go? Yes. Once. Who really cares if the food is mid when the vibes are big? It’s a bit like at the Wong Kei in Chinatown, which is jam-packed even though the waiters are rude. Sometimes the real currency is marvelling at a spectacle.
By the end of my meal, I felt lightly nauseous of tummy but lightened of mind. Carbone is a fun place. I’d like to go back. It’s a shame this review means Mario might have struck a big line through my name. Oh well. Like the best knees-ups, it can’t and probably shouldn’t be recreated.
Go to carbonelondon.com