Chef Mario Carbone reveals how to secure reservations at his NYC hotspot by gifting staff beer or ordering champagne, while debunking the Michelin Guide as a tire-sales-funded business prioritizing novelty over quality. He details Carbone's theatrical 1950s Italian-American vision, global expansion via digital recipes, and high-stakes moments like hosting President Obama with full Secret Service protocols. Ultimately, the discussion frames top-tier NYC dining as surpassing Italy due to intense competition, positioning Carbone as a cultural museum preserving a specific era amidst modern economic challenges. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Cases of Beer and Appreciation00:15:06
What's up guys?
Today we are joined by one of the most famous chefs in history.
His restaurants have been frequented by everyone from half white rappers to half white presidents.
His spot, Carbone, is harder to get into than a menopausal mothership.
Jeff, I don't blame you, okay?
We all get excited when a brown box gets delivered.
Anyway, today he is going to tell us the number one trick to get into any restaurant in the world, why Michelin stars are nonsense and how to bet on yourself and build a business even in a recession.
Give it up for New York City's own Mario Carbone.
Thank you.
Okay.
I'm very excited for this.
There's so many questions that I have to ask you.
I want to learn about it all.
But first of all, I want to know how, how does someone get a reservation at Carbone?
Someone, are we asking for you?
No, I just want to know someone.
I just want to know someone.
Not even me.
How does this a regular guy doesn't have to do?
Democratic society.
I mean, it's a policy that's just one month out.
You're just going to lie to the people at Very.
You're going to lie to people immediately at the beginning of the podcast restaurant.
Let's imagine.
You have 200 seats to fill for a night to make your money.
Yeah.
You're going to let us any, like, you can't, you can't leave it to chance, like, that these two people are going to come in.
They're going to fill those seats and they're going to spend good money tonight.
So, like, of course, we keep information on everybody, like, who's coming in, who are our regulars, take care of those people, what's their spend, so that I know these 200 people tonight are coming in, not just a random set of people, because that's drastically going to change what we do tonight as a business.
So it's almost never random?
It's not never.
Like, when was the last time you had a walk-up?
It happens, but it's at Carbone, it's rare because it's so, it's in such demand.
I mean, so we do put out reservations.
Generally, what we do is we put out the sort of the shoulders, right?
We put out early p.m., 10 p.m.
Yeah, because we have the internal demand to fill it with regulars.
Okay.
Can somebody like grease a regular colour?
You can get into it.
I mean, it's not about necessarily greasing a host.
Thank you.
I would say.
Like, you came in here, you greased me, right?
You gave me Cuban cigars.
These are real Cuban cigars.
Supposedly, we got a connection at the airport.
You got at the airport.
So we snitching on them.
Duty-free.
So, hold on.
So these are real Cubans.
Once we get a little lighter in here, we'll probably light these.
Oh, you're not going to smoke, right?
Yeah.
Will you have one?
Too much asthma.
And then we need a little ashtray, too.
Okay, so you come in here, you grease me.
I don't even know what this greasing gets, right?
You want to grease a kitchen?
How about you?
You already want to grease my kitchen one night?
Yeah.
You take the five o'clock 5.30 reservation.
Okay.
Bring in two cases of beer, go straight back into the kitchen, drop it in the pass.
Be like, hey, it's for you guys, tonight chefs.
From me, Schultz, reservation of two, five o'clock.
Wow.
Now we're talking now.
It's going to cost you 30 bucks.
And then what, and what happens after that?
They're going to be like, then one of the chefs will be like, yo, someone just dropped two cases of beer.
Like, who's that?
I don't know.
Let's go find out.
Look it up.
Like, oh, Andrew Schultz, two top at five o'clock.
Has he been here before?
No, first time.
Wow, you did the right thing.
Send him out to a little something from us.
And then all of a sudden, your name starts to populate in our system.
Then maybe you order a nice bottle of wine, treat the staff nicely.
Now, all of a sudden, the next time you call to make a reservation, you give us your phone number.
Immediately, your name is going to pop up and be like, Andrew Schultz.
Wow.
Oh, so there's a database that rewards the type of customer you are.
Well, it's more that we keep information on everybody.
There are tons of notes on everybody.
And it can go from allergies, the table they like, the table they don't like, preferential amount of time, when they want to dine, et cetera, et cetera.
So we keep notes on everybody because that's the crux of the business.
Who's coming in tonight, right?
That's everything.
We can't just open the door to random.
Wow.
Does that go for every nice, exclusive restaurant?
Is this?
Everyone keeps notes and they all do it their own way, but everyone keeps notes on their customers.
And there's, you know, there's softwares for this that help you track all this information.
How many times have they been there?
What was the last time they were there?
But the beer move, that would work in most places.
The beer move works in most places.
Thank you.
It works.
It works great.
I really appreciate it.
Guys, this is Ricky.
Everybody, the face.
I'm delivering drinks all day.
Anything you guys need, all right?
Yeah, let's get something cooking, man.
What are you doing?
You're an Apple Spritz guy.
I like a Spritz, I'm not going to lie.
Apple Spritz.
I'm the one who's going to be a little bit more crazy.
I need a nice mock tail.
He's shaking it right now for you.
Yes, it's already happening.
I'm going to have a Spritz as well, Rick.
Two Spritzes, absolutely.
Let's go.
A Spritz would be great.
Two Spritzes.
Thank you, Spritz is all around.
That's a smart move, guys.
All the way around.
Okay.
Oh, this is, they make a little vagina out of it.
This is cool.
A little V-cutter.
Okay.
So we got a V-cut.
Oh, this is the normal thing.
I thought this was like some crazy cigar cutter that I got here.
Helping that canoe a little, you know?
Okay.
So there is a way.
So back in the day, I would think you just tip well and all of a sudden then maybe consume it.
It helps.
I mean, what's well, though?
Like 100%, 200%?
What's well?
I mean, 100% of the bill.
That's insanity, right?
That's insanity.
It happens.
Talking tariffs now?
We've got one guy who comes in every now and again and will spend a great deal of money and, regardless of what the bill is, leaves 100% tips.
So Rogan, every time I go out to eat with Rogan, he tips 100%.
Every single time, which I tell him every single time is insane, but I want the waiters and the staff at the restaurant to make some money.
I never even considered the idea of walking into the kitchen with alcohol when the restaurant already has alcohol and then hand.
How do I even get into this?
Well, the kitchen's not getting the restaurant's alcohol.
So at the end of the night, they're going to have your two cases of beer to crack open after a long service.
They're hot, they're sweaty.
It's been a long night.
But the kitchen still has agency, meaning they can send out some dishes, send out a little bit.
They're guaranteed you're going to get a little something.
So when I had my daughter, somebody told me they were like, listen, you got to take care of the staff at the hospital.
If you go out and get food, get pizza for everybody.
You go out and get bagels, get bagels for everybody.
And they did nothing different than I did.
But it seemed like maybe we did.
I'm not even sure.
Actually, I think they delayed the pregnancy as much as they possibly could to keep on getting free food.
My wife is in labor for 24 hours.
If I had got them like some Snickers or whatever, maybe we would have had that baby instead.
Yeah, why wait?
Yeah, right.
I'm incentivizing them.
Well, this is a traditional.
I mean, if you're at a sushi bar, that's a classic move.
It's like, hey, you get a round of beers for all the sushi chefs.
That's a classic move.
First thing you do when you sit at a nice sushi bar, buy a round of beers for all the chefs.
This is one of the reasons we're so excited to sit down with you.
It's learning restaurant etiquette from the inside.
I feel like it is so, and I want to get into your history.
I want to get into how you built this thing and how you put those other two guys that don't do much on your back.
You know what I mean?
I really want.
I mean, what are those guys' names for?
Zaznik or something like that?
And what is it?
Torino or something.
Yeah, Toronto, Toronto, and Zazaz.
Down the block.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, no.
Great guys, great guys.
Lucky.
No.
No, no.
But in all seriousness, understanding this kind of stuff offers crazy value to the average consumer.
So you're bringing a couple cases of beer.
Now, what happens if a waiter goes, why are you going into the kitchen with two cases of bees?
No, no, commonplace.
Or you give it to the waiter and say, hey, I brought a couple cases of beer for the kitchen.
What type of beer matter?
I mean, chefs drink, you know, simple, cold, easy drinking.
It doesn't matter.
Yeah, don't bring them any like weird, hazy IPAs.
They don't want that.
Yeah, yeah.
From what I think the chefs are, Corona.
Okay, there's a good question.
Actually, no, no, I want to stay on these.
I want to stay on these hacks.
Okay.
I got to go for it.
Yes.
You order a nice, so this is a front of the house.
You're going to get some appreciation.
You order a bottle of champagne.
Whether you're talking to the waiter or the salmille, you order the bottle of champagne and right before they leave, you kind of grab them, give them a little whisper, and say, I don't want the champagne flutes.
Bring me wine glasses.
A real wine drinker never, ever drinks champagne out of champagne flutes.
Wow.
This is bars.
Keep going.
The second you tell them I want, if you say AP glasses, which is all purpose, or you say, bring me wine glasses for the champagne, that immediately says you know what the fuck you're talking about.
And that helps.
I don't know.
It's better for the champagne.
The whole like, no one, no one likes drinking out of these skinny little things.
It's actually not great for the champagne.
Okay.
You want a real wine glass for your champagne.
Okay.
No one ever does that.
So the second you tell them that, that immediately puts them on that you know what you're talking about.
And you get a little more respect.
You're going to get immediate respect.
Okay.
And I never honestly, and it makes sense that it is this way, but I never considered that it was similar to like the nightclub in that the more that you spend, the more data you're giving the restaurant and the more they're going to prioritize you in the future.
I never even considered that.
It's all digital.
So as soon as you know, once you call for the second time, immediately the person that's on my team that's picking up the phone or looking at the email has side by side your information, the back of your baseball card.
Here's what you do.
Here's who you are.
Here you likes, dislikes, here's what you spent, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Not that it's always about spending.
We just want to curate a room so that it's not random.
So what we're trying to figure out is what the cheapest way to get currency in the restaurant is.
So bringing the beers.
Great one.
But staff, this is already assuming you got the res.
I'm curious when you walk up to the door, there's a Maitre D, which I have a long lasting beef with Maitre D's in New York City.
Do you want to get into it?
I'm curious.
I just get frustrated sometimes, you know, because you get this girl.
She graduated college like a year and a half ago.
She holds power.
She holds power over this entire restaurant, every person that comes in.
Is there anything you can do or say to a Maitri D that might kind of tilt the scales in your favor?
Thank you.
Saying, oh, my mom's in town and she's having a birthday, anything that would kind of.
I mean, those are those, they're going to see through those.
Yeah.
I mean, walk up reservations because at that point, you're at their mercy.
Thank you so much, Ricky.
I think.
Try to kill them with kindness.
You'll take anything.
Listen, I'll take your worst two seats.
I'll take the bar stools.
I'll take whatever you got.
So instead of trying to big shot, humbling yourself.
Because that's all they've got, right?
And all they've got is this little bit of power that they've been given at this front desk.
I would go with, listen, I'll take whatever it is.
Give me your worst two seats.
I'll be happy tonight.
I'll be in and out quick.
That's trying to get a lot of people.
They have to worry about what's been plotted for the night, right?
Like, so at Carbone, it's about a two and a half hour meal.
So we're plotting these reservations, right?
It's a very tricky little dance that we are assuming the 5:30 reservation is going to be done at 8 o'clock, right?
But it may not happen that way.
So the fact that if they've got an extra table, they might give it to you if you're like, I'm going to be in and out quick.
Does how you dress for the walk-up make any difference?
It depends on the restaurant.
It should look like this.
Look, I'll trim it a little bit.
I would trim it a little.
I think it depends on the restaurant a little bit.
But really, I would say, kill them with kindness.
Try to get in and out quick.
I'll take any seat you got.
What about the friendly handshake with a little cash in it?
I mean, that's as old as time.
Does that work?
I think it works.
I'm not advocating for it because my team is very well paid, but I mean, I'm sure it wasn't.
Would that be offensive?
Obviously, not in your establishments, but another restaurant.
Like, if you were to be like, hey, there's a little 20 bucks, you think a major D would be like, oh, like it could be beneath.
Who the fuck am I?
Like, are you?
You're trying to pay me 20 bucks to get you a table.
If you, if it turns out you're like talking to the general manager and not just like, you know, a well-paid general manager and you try to give him a 20 spot, he's gonna be like, what are you doing here?
Yeah, what's going on here?
Bro, I tried to pull the I Know the Owner thing once at Carbone Carbon?
No.
That's this week.
No.
At Emilio's, Emilio Bolano's, whatever.
And I'm talking to this big guy out front.
I'm like, yeah, you know, Emilio told me to come by because, you know, just a table for two, whatever, like that.
And he's like, oh, did he?
And I was like, yeah.
He said, what time did he tell you to come?
And I'm like, around like 7:30, whatever, like that.
And I'm like, I'm a little bit early.
He goes, okay, cool.
All right.
Well, we'll figure it out.
And I'm like, okay, I walk away.
And next person that walks up to him goes, Emilio.
No, I'm not thinking he's going to be sitting outside of his restaurant on a bar stool, like deciding who gets in.
He does two of them.
There's a Jewish.
Well, there's the kid and then there's the dead.
100%.
Anywho.
I mean, that's so funny.
Should have been like, hey, I'm a comedian.
I was just fucking with you.
I knew it was you.
Okay, so you got a lot of good restaurants under your umbrella.
Andrew and I argue a lot of times.
He's become this like real foodie type.
And that was really derogatory.
He was.
And I meant it in a derogatory way because he's very pretentious about it.
Yeah.
What I love, I was just saying this.
I went to Teresa.
It was the best restaurant experience I've had in the city because it didn't, it was elevated, but it didn't feel pretentious.
A lot of times I'll go to Michelin stars' places and I end up being underwhelmed.
Not a lot of times, a few times.
How do you feel about that?
Is that like a general, hey, Michelin star, you know, this is going to be a solid restaurant experience or not?
There's a lot to unpack with Michelin.
There's a lot.
There's a lot to unroll.
I see what you do.
It's a tire.
Michelin started as a subsidy for the tire company.
Now it's no longer.
So now it's a business.
So I think you got to take that with a grain of salt.
They're in their own business of selling books.
Michelin's tricky for a lot of reasons.
If you're to the restaurant, the kind of restaurant you're talking about, they're going for that accolade.
There's this sort of assumption that you have to do it in a really tight way, a really library style, hush environment, very sort of the chef is right.
He wants you to eat this from the left to the right sort of environment because they're coveting these stars.
I don't know if that's a good business model.
We are the opposite, right?
Yes.
I think that chefs, well-trained, high-level chefs fall in one of two categories, and we're firmly on one side than the other.
There's two categories.
Not that there's anything wrong with the two categories, but there's two firm categories.
One category is the chef that spends all their training, all their work, their life, their life's journey to make something that you've never had before.
Cash Tips and Business Models00:04:44
That's a very dangerous proposition.
Yeah.
But if you have whatever this thing is and you don't like it, the chef can at least fall back on the ego and say, you don't get it.
You didn't get what I was going to say.
This is the pretentiousness.
Yeah.
And that infuriates me because it's like, no, I get what tastes good and what doesn't, dude.
I get it.
And I preach to my team and my chefs, we're on the other side of that.
We are equally dangerous.
We are trying to make for you the thing that you've had thousands of times before.
And I want to make one of the best ones you've ever had, but you know exactly what it's like.
So I can't be like, oh, he didn't get that meatball.
You're competing with their grandma.
Yeah.
Like, you know what a meatball is.
You may not know what that chef was trying to go for, but like, if you didn't like it, it's probably not good.
Yeah.
You don't have that fault.
But if I win, I've got a customer for life.
I've got someone who's coming multiple times a year.
If that chef wins, you may go once a year.
You may actually never go back again.
Even if it's great.
I never go back to those places, even if it's the really abstract ones.
It's a fun, cool experience.
But it's like I recently went to places called a Chicago chef.
He had throat cancer or something like that.
Elinia just did a pop-up in Brooklyn.
And my wife and I went.
And the food was great.
And we got into a nice argument, which was uncomfortable for all the other people during our season.
That's fun, though.
That's love.
That's at a communal table.
No, no, no, no.
Not only at a communal table, you change tables like four or five times.
So they had to deal with that fight four or five times.
And it was new people sitting next to us every different time.
No, not letting this go.
Just because you put the dessert all over the table, I'm going to let the fucking fight go for the room.
Everyone in the restaurant loves that.
Going to dinner with my wife, seeing a couple of organizations, I'm like, yes.
It's just fun to listen.
You're like at dinner and a show.
Bro, it was, I mean, because at the end of the dessert, they like, it's all deconstructed or whatever, you know?
And they're like, that's three Michelin store.
I mean, that's the highest award.
At one point, he was the highest-rated American restaurant we had.
I literally pay you to construct the food.
I know, I never paid anybody to take some shit apart from me.
I can do that.
Believe me, I can do that.
I can take apart a lasagna.
But I will say the food was good, but you would hate it.
You definitely would hate it.
They exist.
It's important that they exist.
It's just not my mind.
I'm in a business.
We're at the corner of art and commerce.
Like, I'm in a business model, right?
Like, there's nothing wrong with preaching the art and teaching the art of business.
Yeah.
That is also a craft, and we need to keep the lights on and we need to keep people paid.
Yeah.
Do you know how much money?
Sorry, do you know how much money your wait staff makes?
I mean, depending on the restaurant, a substantial amount.
Like, what does a waiter at Carbone in Miami make?
Like, on average?
Over $150,000 a year.
So if they're guaranteed $150,000 a year, and that's what's on the books.
That's not even like people throwing them a little shit on the floor.
Yeah, but there's very little cash these days.
Everything's cards.
No one carries cash anymore.
No one.
So I always wondered, like, do some of your staff that was in like cash tip positions get upset about that?
Like the people that are doing valet, these, like, how do they manage that?
Their whole life was cash tips.
I guess valet is still trying to think of when I carry cash at this point.
Valet is one of the few ones that you still want to have that.
But the wait staff, it's all in credit cards, which is good because it actually used to be really dangerous because you have these restaurants have all these cash.
At the end of the week, some employees got to take like comical bags of cash and might as well have a dollar sign on it to a bank that is waiting to get robbed because you were putting robbery in the bank.
100%.
Yeah, you weren't giving it to Ricky to face to go put under a mattress.
COVID.
Yo, it is a crazy thing because restaurants in the city, any like small mom and pop business in the city that dealt with cash was given, like if you want to be generous, 50% of it to the government.
And that business completely changed now that everything goes digital.
So you got to adjust to shit.
Yep.
For that same reason, wasn't Carbone only cash in this?
No, never.
Just with me.
That was strictly your policy.
It was me.
Because the card kept bouncing.
Yeah, because we didn't take that card you had.
Oh, yeah.
What was that?
I think that was a diner's car.
Uncle Rush card.
He's like, I take gift cards.
When I go to like some of my favorite bars or lounges, I bring cash just so I can tip with the cash.
Because I know for that particular reason, they appreciate that way more than if you just put all the tips on the credit card receipt.
That makes sense.
Michelin Stars and Free Dinners00:13:27
Also, guys, this weekend, I'm gonna be in the best comedy clubs in the country.
No disrespect to any other club, but Comedy Works, the best clubs in the country.
I know we sold out two shows.
We still got tickets left.
There's some tickets left for the Sunday show.
The other two are going quickly, so hurry up and buy those.
May 9th and 10th, Virginia Beach.
I'm letting y'all know I might have to reschedule.
I will know for sure very soon.
But I think I might be in India working on some things that you guys should keep an eye out for.
June 19th through 21st, I'm gonna be in Salt Lake City.
Guys, those dates and a bunch more at akashing.com.
Thank y'all so much for coming out to these shows.
We did nine in Tampa Bay.
That was amazing.
I love y'all.
Peace.
What's up, people?
World's fastest Adri, Bangor, Maine, Portland, Maine, Charleston, South Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia, and Stroudsburg, PA, a bunch of other cities, all on my website, markgagnonlive.com.
Come see me on the road.
We're going to hang out after the show.
We can say what's up.
We're not really going to hang out.
Say what's up with your mouth.
No, just take a picture and come to the show.
With words, like more like a whoa.
We can talk about just only talking and have time.
It's hard to talk with Mark's dick in your mouth.
You guys are the show.
Guys, this is incredibly important.
Maybe the most important thing that I tell you on this episode: our dear brother, okay?
This is family.
Okay.
This is not like casual work acquaintance.
This is literal family.
Derek Poston.
You saw him open up on the live tour.
You saw him open up on Infamous, absolutely hysterical.
And he's putting out his first piece, his first comedy piece with the great Don't Tell Comedy brand.
You've definitely seen Don't Tell Comedy specials all over the internet, all over TikTok, all over Instagram.
This piece, How to End Racism, is absolutely hilarious and is on YouTube right now.
Derek Poston, How to End Racism, Don't Tell Comedy.
You go look it up right now, okay?
You could finish the episode, you come back to the episode, you do whatever you want, but you make sure you watch that.
You leave some comments, you share with friends.
We support family over here.
Derek is flagrant family.
So get after it.
Go watch it.
Let's run these fucking numbers up.
Create another superstar out there.
He's absolutely hilarious.
Leave a bunch of comments, share it.
Show the love.
Show that flagrant family love right now to our boy Derek Poston.
We're very proud of you, Derek.
Love you, Derek.
Let me get back to the show.
I'm sure back to the Michelin thing, like the politics of the Michelin.
Like, I have a friend that has a restaurant in Brooklyn.
He's a place Bar Madonna.
It's awesome.
But he talks to me about getting on the list.
You want to be on the best bars list.
Like, there's all this politics you have to play, not only having a great experience with your consumers, but playing the game of the restaurant.
So, as far as getting a Michelin star or playing in that world, how important is it to be in the good graces of the critics, being on blogs, things like that to promote the brand of the restaurant?
If you're going for that, if that's a goal of yours, then it's important.
Michelin can't possibly be what they say they are or what they have been.
So, like Michelin in the past started in France, you know, 50s and 60s.
There would be an anonymous inspector that would come every year and check on your restaurant and grade it, basically.
For that to still happen today in the number of restaurants and numbers of cities that Michelin is in is virtually impossible, right?
There's no way they're checking on it on these restaurants.
So, it's my belief that it's simply an aggregate.
They're just aggregating where they need to sell books and what the reviews of the rest of the world are of these places and figuring out who to give stars to.
I think there's a handful of people that are actually going to some of these restaurants, like the top couple brass of Michelin are going to the important ones, but there's no way they're going to all of them.
So, it's really just some sort of aggregate system they're using to give out these stars.
It's no longer like the movie Ratatouille kind of like projects this.
Like, that's a Michelin inspector, basically, right?
Uh, at least at the New York Times, which is which is for me the most important review in New York, right?
The New York Times criticism: you know who it is.
It's a single person's opinion, whether you like it or not.
It's a real person.
It's not some sort of computer-generated aggregate.
And take this for a grain of salt.
We only have one Michelin star.
They took a couple away from me a couple of years ago.
It is what it is.
But like, you know, I could easily be seen as someone who's just kind of grumpy about it.
But I just think as a system, and it's not something that we necessarily covet, but as a system, I just don't think they're being honest with who they are as a criteria.
So you're saying there's other motives here at play.
There's a financial system.
They used to be a subsidy of this tire company, right?
And the whole idea was that they created this map of restaurants so that you in your car on your Michelin tires would drive from restaurant to restaurant.
And it was a fun way to promote it.
It became really big and then it became, it spawned into its own business.
So you have to look at it and say, this is its own business.
It has to make its own dollars.
So as a business, there's just no way, given what they do in revenue and book sales, that they could pay enough people to go to all these restaurants.
So if that's the case, then how are they coming up with it?
So then in that case, it's a Fugesi.
What's more important?
Like if you're going to a city and you want to know what the good restaurants are.
Yeah, how do you know?
And you don't use a Michelin star.
Is there another review system?
Is there an app?
Is there a website?
Like, how else can I be informed about the best restaurant in a city?
I mean, social media is going to tell you.
I mean, if you punch in best restaurant, pick your city, you're going to get 10 at least.
But it's a paid inflatuation.
Have you heard of that one?
Yeah, infatuation.
I mean, they don't speak kindly of me in Miami, but they do in New York, two totally different groups of people in the same publication.
But they're definitely going to pop up.
You're going to get CNN Traveler.
You're going to get all these things that are going to pop up.
But the biggest thing that's changed in the restaurant business is that the power of these critics has been basically completely taken away and put in the customer's hands.
Everyone has it now.
Everyone's an editor-in-chief of their own thing, right?
No matter how big their Facebook is or their Instagram page, they're going to tell you all about their meal.
And if you follow them, you're going to go that they're the critic.
There's a people always say a lot of times comics like compare ourselves to boxers for some reason.
I don't know why.
And whoever does that has never boxed at all.
But I always say the closest comparison for comedians is chefs.
My chef friend says it's the closest comparison.
And just in terms of like speaking to them, it's a couple of different things.
One, the kind of natural people pleasers, like we're doing this thing, we're creating this thing for other people to consume and hopefully they like it and we're kind of waiting for them to tell us that they like it.
The hours also.
And just like, you know, degenerates, just like really kind of bad people at our core.
Dredge of society.
Dredge of society that somehow managed to make money doing this like weird thing.
It's a circus.
It is a circus.
100%.
You're in these restaurants and you're managing the staff.
They're all fucking each other.
How do you stop that?
I don't know anything about that.
I worked in restaurants for years.
Listen, I think.
What do you do?
How do you team going out after work and having drinks and letting some steam off of a long night is totally normal?
And we're not going to get in the way of that.
I think, you know, certainly we have rules that like management and hourly staff can't co-mingle.
That's just rule number one.
And as soon as that happens, there's a zero tolerance there.
But the staff, I mean, they become family.
I mean, I have the same team in Carbone, the original Carbone, since basically day one.
No one's left.
It's all the same team.
Wow.
Starting with Ricky.
Wow.
Really?
Yeah.
How do you know, Ricky?
Ricky was a day one, day one guy who answered an ad for captains, the head waiters or captains for a captain position and loved them immediately.
And he grew into being the face.
I call him the face because everyone knows him.
Everyone knows him as Ricky of Carbone.
That's great.
Before we get too far away, two things.
Do you think a Michelin star can be bought?
I think, I think you got to play the game a little bit.
If that's something you're going after, if that's a really important metric for your restaurant and for success and for getting people in there, then you have to play a game to a certain degree.
And that being buying it could manifest itself in the things you buy for the restaurant, all of the extra money you spend towards the things that you think you need to get that star.
I don't think you can pay Michelin for a star.
No.
Gotcha.
Cities pay Michelin, which is commonplace.
Cities pay it to bring them to that city to create a Michelin whatever money.
That makes sense.
But that's just like the Michelin Guide?
Yeah, the Michelin Guide.
So the Michelin Guide is paid for.
It's paid for by the cities to bring them there, which makes sense if you're a tourist in Miami.
Michelin Guide.
No, it makes perfect sense.
I thought Michelin Guide was the achievement right before Michelin Star.
Because sometimes the way people speak about it, they're like, oh, it's not Michelin Star, but it's Guide.
You can be included in the book without having a star where they're like sort of recommend you, especially if you're at a lower price point.
If you're at a really low price point, usually you're not even opt for a star.
This is really just kind of the world of find outing, more or less.
And then the second question, because you said now the power's in the customer's hand.
But I feel like restaurants are just paying influencers, hey, here's some money.
Come here, eat for free, do a review on us.
So it's like, I don't trust a lot of the TikTok because they'll do it on the same restaurants over and over.
And I'm like, I'm a little suspect about this.
That's a great point.
That is marketing these days.
I mean, it's not that much different than paying some agency to tell you how great this restaurant is.
Bro, it's more effective.
Yeah, so then how do we find it?
I guess we can trust it.
No, no, I understand what you're saying.
But like when Kendall Jenner wears a bag, all of a sudden all these girls want to wear the bag.
When they eat at this restaurant, all of a sudden all these girls want to go check it out.
So to Alex's point, if some of them are being paid to go to restaurants, how can we trust them as an influencer?
Because the whole game is to assume that they really truly are inspired by this restaurant and they love the cuisine.
I mean, they're selling, if you're a big influencer, you're selling all sorts of products, right?
I mean, like.
Oh, they're getting huge amounts of money.
And they're getting money to even go to restaurants.
I mean, we don't pay anyone to go to restaurants, but I'm sure that that's a business, right?
That's got to be a line item in advertising somewhere that in this local town, so-and-so is a huge influencer.
They're definitely going to move the needle.
They're definitely going to move the needle.
I thought you guys were making great headlines the opposite way.
So instead of who comes to the restaurant, it was who gets kicked out of or gets rejected.
Every time a famous person would get rejected at Carbon, it was like, dude.
But you heard about it.
It happened every now and again.
And sometimes it was a mistake.
Who is it?
But it was like Justin B. We're trying to get it.
That was a mistake, Justin.
Yeah.
That was a mistake.
No doubt.
Make that mistake.
Unintentional.
But is it what I'm saying?
I would not have kicked Justin out.
A serendipitous mistake or whatever the word is.
Like, you're like, oh, this is a mistake.
No, because I didn't want to deal with that press.
It didn't look good.
It wasn't like, it didn't, to me, it didn't look good.
Like, that's not hospitable.
We try to take care of it.
It was just like a last-minute thing.
That scenario was just like a super last-minute try to make a reservation, and they were already showing up, but we just didn't have the table at that moment.
But to Andrew's point, there's a human psychology.
When you read this person couldn't get into this restaurant, it must be insane.
So could you see a world?
I'm not saying you did it.
Could you see a world where somebody might reject that person and then leak it to the press?
I think it's too risky.
I can't see somebody trying that.
What's the scummiest thing you've seen a restaurant do for PR?
Scummiest thing to do for PR.
There's only so many things that you can really do.
I mean, I'm trying to think of like creative, scummy things.
Um, you, you know, planting paparazzi, so making the calls of the media, someone's there, yeah, and that you call like a page six type guy, and all of a sudden they get blown up.
Um, I've heard some clothing like uh, well, like wardrobe people will do that where they'll like go to some company, Hey, you have these designer clothes, pay me, I'll make sure he wears it, and then when he wears it, I'll call the paparazzi and say, Hey, Justin Beaver's at this restaurant.
That's a thing, that's a thing, yeah.
And how do you make sure your staff doesn't do that and then get hit?
Well, I mean, our staff-that's something we talk about more than probably most is sort of anonymity.
Like, one, of course, we say nothing, but also, like, we are we're the protective layer of a celebrity or an athlete or someone that's in the restaurant because you don't know who might be like secretly filming them or who might just come up and try to get like an autograph or a selfie.
Like, so my team is that last line of defense to make sure that they have a really private moment.
Do they have a special seating area, a special entrance, all of that?
It depends on the restaurant.
Some places just have like there's nowhere else to go.
Um, it depends on how much notice we have, but like most places, there's like wow, okay, take me through early days.
Yeah, was there a point in Carbone where you were like, We're not going to make it, we're going to close.
Well, early days was just a couple hundred feet away from here.
It was original Teresi's.
This is on Mulberry, right?
Yeah, that's the first, that's the very first restaurant, Mulberry and Prince.
I'm sorry, if we're going to go early days, let's go really far back.
Leaks, Uniforms, and Hidden Jobs00:02:20
You go work at Belude, right?
I worked at Belude before my first like real New York chef was Baba Patali.
Yeah, so you start with Patalia, then you go to Italy, if I'm not mistaken.
You come back and you work for Daniel Belude, and you're working at Daniel?
I went to Danielle to try to get a job.
Well, the story of Danielle was I really wanted to work there.
My dad was turning 50 years old, and I said, Pops, I'm going to save up some money.
I'm going to take you to a nice restaurant tonight.
And me and my dad went to Danielle.
I know that Danielle kind of works the dining room, he walks around the whole dining room, and I really wanted to meet him.
I want to get a restaurant, so I have my resume in my jacket pocket.
And he comes over, he introduces himself, he talks for a second, and he asked me what I did.
I said, Listen, I'm a cook in New York, but I'd love to work here.
And I gave my resume right on the dining room floor.
And he told me, Listen, I don't know if we have anything, but here, call my assistant tomorrow.
And I called this assistant like every day for like a month until finally she was like, Just show up on Saturday.
Saturday, I show up.
No one knows I'm supposed to be there.
No one has any idea I'm there.
I get there.
They're like, Who are you?
They give me like, they just throw a uniform at me and they're just like, Go find something to do.
So I like, I find one cook.
I do one thing all day.
I dice leaks.
I did that really bad for a while, and they kept yelling at me.
And I finally did it.
Okay.
I dice leaks all day.
No one says anything to me.
The day ends, and everyone's going home.
And I'm like, all right.
So I throw my uniform in the bin and I'm like, I guess no one's going to talk to me.
Like, the next day I show up.
I find the guy.
I get the leaks again.
I do it again.
No one really talks to me.
This goes on for like three or four days.
And then the executive chef at the time, a terrifying man named Alex Lee, one night during dinner service kind of looks over and he's like, and he like points at me.
And I'm like, me?
He's like, yeah.
He goes, come here.
I walk up to the pass and he's like, who the fuck are you?
And I'm like, my name is Mario Carbon.
I've been here for five days.
No one's talked to me.
I've been cutting leaks for four days.
I just need a job.
And he's like, there's no work here for you.
There's no jobs here.
I'm totally full.
He's like, go to one of the other restaurants in the company tomorrow and see if there's a job there.
So I spent a week at Danielle without really anyone talking to me.
I wound up getting a job at one of the other restaurants and I worked there for Cafe Belude.
So it was at that time, it was, I was like 22.
Me, David Chang, who owns Mobile Fu Boo.
That's what I was about to say.
This is a really, and then also Teresa.
My partner, Rich.
We were like in a row like this.
Five Days Without a Single Order00:10:24
So think about this.
Within Belude, it's called Cafe Belude.
Cafe Boulevard.
Where was it?
76th in Madison.
Okay, so within Cafe Belude, three of like the four most restaurateurs in New York City would sprout.
Yeah, 22, 23 years old each.
21, 20 years old.
You know Movafuku.
Of course.
Yeah.
It's fire.
And wow, this is just like so crazy.
So you, I'm doing a little research on you.
And like, you thought that you would open something with David.
Originally, we were going to do something together with Dave.
With Rich as well?
No, just me and him.
But Rich was my roommate.
So we would like, after work, we would spend like before like before we'd crash, we'd spend time talking about ideas, talking about like how we were going to get started, what his place was going to be like, what my place was going to be like.
And then in 2008, there was a financial crisis and like all money dries up.
All investors dry up.
Everyone's done.
But we were ready.
It was like, this is our time.
So instead of trying these separate ideas individually, we were like, the only way, if we want to be our own boss next year, the only way we're going to do this is if we do it together.
Wow.
And we pooled our resources, our money, and we took a space a couple hundred feet away.
There was like 450 square foot jean shop.
And it was on Mulberry and Prince, but we just, we thought that that was it.
We thought that was the energy.
That was the spot.
That's where we needed to be.
What was it called?
Teresi Italian Specialties.
Yeah, Teresa Italian Specialties.
So he got his name first.
Yeah.
Eagle Maniac this kind of thing.
It's unbelievable.
Foosball, two out of three.
Really?
That's awesome.
Okay.
That's the most diplomatic way to do it.
Really?
How else would you do it?
Rock, paper, scissors, but that's too much to chance.
Not to Italian kids.
You put foosballs.
So Rich gets his name.
Is it successful?
At first it was mixed.
We opened it as a sandwich shop.
That did well.
But our goal was to open it at night and do kind of a serious dinner.
It was one set menu on a chalkboard.
And when we started opening at night, no one really came.
And if they did come, they were like, oh, I heard you sell sandwiches.
And we're like, yeah, but in the daytime, they're like, yeah, but there's nobody here making a sandwich.
We're like, no, that's not the thing.
That's not what we're doing.
We're doing this menu thing.
That took a while.
They got a point with that.
You want the money or not?
I see what you're saying.
I'm going to die on my morals here.
It took a while for people to figure out what was going on there.
What do you think it was?
Eventually, we got a great review from New York Magazine.
And that started a bit of a line outside, people waiting for reservations, the shit that we had never seen before, almost overnight.
Were you just waiting on the reservation?
Were you calling them trying to get them down?
Because I think you know this could change fortunes.
Anybody reviewing us, how do you get them to review you?
You don't, right?
You don't.
And at first, when they came the first time, they were all alone in the dining room.
We knew them.
And so we cooked for them.
We talked to them.
We were friendly.
They left.
They came back next week.
And I was like, Rich, man, they must really like it.
They're here again.
And he's like, yeah, cool.
You know, whatever.
Third time they come and I'm like, oh.
They're making sure.
Oh.
They're writing a review on this.
So do you spice it up on that last one?
I mean, we gave it all we had, but it wasn't.
I mean, we threw everything we had at it, but it wasn't much at the time.
We only had this one little menu.
Yeah, no sandwiches.
We had no sandwiches, just enough money to kind of make a chalkboard there.
Were we both in the kitchen at that time?
Yeah, it's only five employees total.
You know, there's like me, him, a dishwasher, one waitress.
I mean, that's everybody, right?
So we were open.
We were open six days a week.
On the seventh day, we were closed.
We would prep.
He and I would go in, lock the door, we go in, we'd crank, we'd crank the radio, and we would prep all day just to get ready.
So we're working seven days, but we were the only employees.
But we were living the dream.
There's a there's an interesting thing with restaurants specifically about the review, and this has changed in almost every other form of media.
The review is really important with TV shows, or not even TV shows, but like movies, anything that comedy that you had to leave the house for, right?
Because you got to get a babysitter, you got to get dressed, you got to get an Uber.
There's like a lot of things you have to do, right?
Once everything went streaming, the review doesn't really matter.
I turn it on.
So are you sweating the reviews when the special is turn it on and people make their own?
That's what I'm saying about social media as well.
But what specifically for restaurants is you're not ordering a delivery.
I got to go.
So if I'm going to commit that, I have one date night a week with my wife.
If I'm going to commit Tuesday night to someplace, my wife has already vetted 10 different websites and made sure it's a thing that she really wants to do because that's our one night out a week, right?
So the review does still hold, whether the review is from an influencer, some social media, from Yelp, the review does still hold a lot of weight within the restaurant community.
We still need that word of mouth.
We still need someone to validate the experience before we go.
Whereas just like turning on a special is, I don't need you to tell me if it's good or not.
I give it 10 minutes.
Ah, it sucks.
I'm done.
Oh, I really like it.
I'll keep watching it.
So it's interesting to see that one single review flipped.
I mean, I used to hear that back in like the 70s and 80s, if you got a great New York Times review, that the owners would literally tear it out of the newspaper, walk into the bank, and get a loan.
Wow.
Be like, here.
Wow.
That's all you need.
The old, old New York Times critics used to tell me that.
Wow.
So were they drunk off that?
Power.
I mean, that was the top.
I mean, there was no Michelin in America back then.
Rick Abraham was a little stronger.
Yes, Chef.
What a little dirty martini.
Dirty martini.
Wait a minute.
Gin or vodka?
Right away.
I'll do that as well.
This guy just brought you a Spritzy dick.
I'm going to have that too.
Empty glasses make me nervous.
That's why I burned it.
What am I bringing?
You know what I mean?
Two vodka martini right away.
Hey, in all of your experience, who's the worst tipper?
Oh, this is a good question.
Everyone tips wonderfully.
You're not going to get it.
Come on, not going to get it.
Who's the biggest scumbag that walked in there?
Everyone that walks in the door, we thank them very much.
Let me ask you a question.
Everyone's great.
When you were letting Epstein dine at your section specifically, was he a big tipper?
I don't know about the dip.
I don't know.
No.
I wasn't there that night.
I was awesome.
Mr. Facebook.
If I ask you to settle a debate between Alex, Alex and me, your life depends on your answer here.
Alex and I walk into a restaurant.
Who do you think is going to tip better?
You don't know anything about us.
You're just looking at us.
You know what?
We just deliver the best service.
We don't think about things.
We're not going to get them.
Not at all.
I'm just looking at you a lot.
You don't go, oh, we got to come.
I'm just saying.
Wait, talk away.
Dream martinis?
Dream martini.
Make a four.
Do you call them Canadians when they walk in?
Dream Martinis on the way.
No, make a four.
Make them four.
Four.
You got it.
See how demanding they are?
Italians count.
They can't even help the Italian, bro.
He said three, three.
I love it.
Okay, so, all right.
So the review changes everything, but it's still a small restaurant.
Like, you're not getting.
Can you answer that question?
Wait, who tips the rest of it?
Oh, yeah.
Who does set the worst?
Indians or black people.
That's not fair.
That's not fair.
That's Chinese.
No, but they're a Chinese tip.
Or designer boy in New York City.
I'm a diner boy.
I'm a diner.
I was talking when I talked to Alex.
My dad saw me.
Told me you didn't need a tip when you sat at the bar.
See, and I overcompensate, I overtip because of the great scene in My Blue Heaven where Steve Martin goes over overtipping.
That was a fantastic movie.
But wait a minute.
Yeah, is there a version where overtipping makes you look a little funny?
No.
Never at all.
No.
But do you think if you saw him overtip or him overtip, they would be overcompensating for cultural stereotypes.
If I overtip, I'm generous.
If they overtip, they're trying to make up for what their people have done to the restaurant industry for dick.
Jeez.
Simply taking care of the staff.
I actually think this is.
Yeah, I might be.
I don't got to need to push back.
That's been around Ricky for a while.
Also, 20% is fine, right?
Yeah, yeah.
20% is generous.
15%?
Wait, 20% is generous?
15, I can't.
Are you unhappy with your service?
Oh, my God.
No, I thought it was great.
I mean, what should you tip?
20%.
20%.
20% is good.
You're good at 20%.
20 is right.
25%.
Yeah, I would only go under 20 if I was unhappy with myself.
Okay, that's fair.
That's typically what I do.
But if you're unhappy, he's always unhappy.
He's always unhappy.
He's never happy.
You might want to start staying home.
No, I started tipping better when I started making money.
When I didn't have money, I would look for any excuse that you gave me bad service so I could go 15.
Yeah, I didn't like his attitude and I didn't like his vibe.
Now calculate.
What are you doing?
You're taking your phone?
I'm Indian.
You know what it is?
My dad told me to double the tax.
Back in the day, double the tax.
Yeah, 16.
You got to go a little lower than that.
And he doubles and it takes a little while.
I'm 41.
Back in the day, double the tax was a fine tip.
20% is like a newer thing.
When we were younger, 15 years.
That's inflation.
15 needs to be young.
That used to be the greatest.
But now you tip it for all sorts of things that don't learn any sort of tips.
What are we talking about here?
Like what?
I mean, if you're just, you're going to the coffee shop, you're getting a cup of coffee, all of a sudden the screen spins around.
He makes me tip.
I didn't know that.
I got a water 15, 20, or 20 pounds of water at a cafe today, just the water.
I brought the water.
She made that screen around.
She made me beat the snakes.
Son.
And then check the thing around, and then the thing said 20%.
And I'm like, what did you do in this whole process?
Like, the screen's going to prompt you to a couple of questions.
Buddy, self-checkout at the airport.
They asked if you want to leave a tip.
No one is here.
I'm still taking off the microphone at the airport because people are working those.
Just making sure they understand that you're going to have trouble with this.
Vulnerability in Self-Checkout Lines00:14:46
And there's people that are helping you check out, which is no longer the whole purpose of this.
It bothers me so much.
If they don't help me check out and I have issues, I just walk out with the water.
And I know I'm brown.
And I do it anyway.
Justify the legal.
Yeah, yeah.
I do it anyway.
It's a $20 water.
I get it.
Yeah, it's $9.
You got to get these migrants out to country.
For real.
For real.
It's a good point.
And leave the water on the way out.
Hey, can I ask you, this is a restaurant deep cut?
What are you going to do?
No, no, for real.
No, no.
But no, no, this is.
I've noticed some restaurants.
Okay.
It's almost as if they made a decision to not have Latino bus boys and they go Indian.
Bangladeshi, I think.
Or Bangladeshi.
I'm going to say it, and then we'll bleep it out so that you're safe, but not your restaurant.
There are no Latinos that work there.
It's Bangladeshi, you think it is?
But they look into it.
Is that like a strategic move?
So the strategy that's implemented there is if you have like one main guy who's like the head porter, right?
If you start blending communities, there's going to be all sorts of stupid drama that's going to happen between because they're fighting with each other.
And it's best to sort of hire one community of people.
That's fascinating.
America tried to do that way along together.
No, no, that's different.
That was the problem.
If we got a bunch of different ones, there'd be no infighting.
So it's delegational responsibility.
I never thought about that.
If your head guy is from this community, then he's going to hire all his people.
And it's just a happier house, right?
Everyone gets along.
It's all one community.
The staff meals all the same, right?
You don't deal with like Mexicans making pork for the Muslims and they're fighting about it.
Like it's just a happier house.
Is that how it works with like nursing too?
Like when you see like some areas are specifically Filipino, some areas specifically Caribbean.
Like I know that happens with nannying.
Like if you tap into like the Caribbean nanny community, they're going to recommend the other people that are often like part of their church.
Makes sense.
Huh?
It's word of mouth though for that.
That's what I always assumed it was.
I could just be like, yeah, I have someone that can fill in.
I know someone that can pop in.
But it's all good.
They're going to stay within their own.
Yeah, of course.
People they know.
Yeah.
Why does it seem like in New York, the best chefs of Italian, the best chefs of Thai and every other cuisine are all Mexican?
It's teeny tiny.
Every kitchen I go to, it looks like it's Hispanic spectrum.
Oh, you gave me a little toast.
He's called you a philanthropist.
He called me a Philadelphia.
Oh, yeah.
So, wait, you were saying?
No, just wire all the chefs.
What he's trying to say is why are they incredible chefs?
I mean, Mexican cuisine is arguably the most complex food there is.
Period.
Talk that shit.
Period.
Starting with like the Aztecs into the Spanish, into the regional Mexican cuisine.
Oh, thank you.
It's an incredibly difficult.
So if they can cook mole, they can cook whatever else the fuck you want.
So then why?
And they would work hard.
No one asked them about them, periods.
Pyramids.
Yeah, he knows.
He knows.
No one questioned them.
He knows.
So with all like the immigration that's going on now, is that affecting the restaurant business at all?
I mean, I'm sure it is.
It doesn't affect ours.
I mean, we just don't allow illegal immigrants to work in the restaurants, right?
I mean, you have to have proper paperwork.
You know, we don't fuck with that.
Like, it's not worth bringing the house down.
It's not.
So you have to.
I've got 5,000 employees.
So then how do you get how do other restaurants get around that?
Because I see it looks like.
You go to Roosevelt Avenue and you get paperwork made.
Oh, so you can get fake paperwork.
Yeah.
Now let's get back to the show.
So how do we go from the restaurant being a sandwich shop in the daytime, getting a little bit of traction with New York Mag to then becoming a staple in the neighborhood?
Oh, yeah, sorry.
Because it's not even that restaurant that becomes Carbone.
That's what I'm saying.
Teresi.
So you and Teresi are there, these two Italian guys that understand art, you understand food, right?
At what point do you're like, we need a Jew to pay for shit?
Well, we were pretty frugal early on, but we knew how did you bring that up?
We knew we needed help.
We were just two chefs who were trying to figure out how many tables at that first restaurant?
Sorry, I'm a ticket.
Like six tiny little tables.
Oh, wow.
And when we got somebody that was like noteworthy coming in, it was heavy because the room's this big, you know?
Like Stat would bring Hove in and he'd sit in the corner and you're like, oh shit.
Wow.
Wow.
This is nuts.
Yeah, that's crazy.
So early days were kind of crazy when we were getting momentum because that was the room.
That was everything.
But when we met Jeff, Jeff was one of the kind of early customers.
We knew him.
We had similar friends in the same business.
And he came in and he quickly kind of identified that we had a chance of being something much bigger than we are right now.
And he thought Could bring the rest of it to the table, which we would have learned.
Like, I believe we would have learned, but it would have taken a lot.
That expedites the process.
Yeah, for sure.
Okay, so you go, you both are together and you decide to open up another restaurant because he won the first game.
You get to get your name.
The location is phenomenal.
Yeah.
Like, absolutely phenomenal.
Pure luck, coincidence, incredibly expensive.
Like, for everybody who doesn't know, it's in what would you, I would say, it's Greg Village, like a few blocks from the heart of Green Village, Thompson between Bleecker and Houston.
It's you're blocks away from Salho, a blocks away from Neesville.
It was an Italian restaurant.
Rocco.
Yeah, Rocco from the 20s.
Yeah.
I think it was a Genovese family kind of like Stalworth restaurant.
There's like, there were a couple of questionable doors in there that were for them, back courtyards and shit.
And it finally kind of fell in disrepair.
And we found out about it through the guy who owns the space knew Jeff somehow.
And we wind up getting it.
It was at the time crazy expensive.
Now it's a great deal, but at the time it was crazy expensive.
What was the rent?
It was like $18,000 a month in 2012, 2013.
Keep in mind, this is a first-floor retail space with like three windows facing the street.
Yeah, Max.
So the majority of it is behind.
Yeah.
I mean, 18 grand is an absolutely absurd, no offense here, but like, what are we talking about square footage?
This is like.
I mean, we were paying top dollar back then.
How many square feet is this space?
I have no idea.
Okay.
It's 85 seats.
80, 85.
It's smaller than this, this whole studio that we have here.
Yeah.
And okay, so you guys start it.
There's big overhead, but you have somebody that's willing to invest in you guys.
At what point is it immediate success?
Is there a review?
Is there people of fame that are when we first opened?
There was a big push of who do you think you are sentiment from sort of the community at large because we had gone from these kind of lovable guys charging a small amount of money in New York to tuxedos, you know, expensive dishes, table side.
You know, there was a there was a sentiment of like, don't you know Il Molino's down the block?
What are you doing?
What are you trying to do here?
You know, there was that, especially from the older generation.
So we had to kind of push through that.
So you had immediate almost rejection.
We had a bit of rejection from like the food community.
Not necessarily the patrons, but the journalists, certainly the ones that had been around a while and seen a lot of shit.
And you were their darling.
Because we were acting older.
Yeah.
We had guys like him in tuxedos.
We would put fake ads in newspapers and like Craigslist to hire old school waiters because I didn't want kids.
I wanted old.
So we created a fake steakhouse for them to respond to because those are the style of restaurants that they want to take jobs in.
And so I got old school guys to come in and respond to those ads.
And then I told them what we were doing and put them in tuxedos, play the old music, do the old vibe.
Because everything in 2013, everything was this big.
All the food was this big.
The trend was 20 course tasting menus.
And we were going completely against that grant.
And to do that in our 30 years old didn't make any sense to anyone for a minute.
And it took a little bit of time.
And then we got to the New York Times review.
We got an incredible New York Times review.
Before that, before that, it was the price point that they were frustrated by?
It was that we made such a big leap that it caught people off guard.
They're like, who are you guys to charge this much for the next one?
And the same person that was applauding me a couple months ago down the block in that little place was like, wait a minute, what'd you just do?
Was that hard for you to deal with or do you just not care?
I can't understand it.
Bro, this is human nature.
It's like when you're on the way up, you remind everybody of what their dreams are.
And then when you believe maybe you get to the top, you remind them of what they might never achieve.
And it's very hard for humans to support you in that endeavor.
And yeah, you see this happen in like every single industry.
You see this happen with athletes.
You see, it's like, this guy's the next Jordan.
Then he starts playing really well.
And he ain't Jordan.
I thought you said he's the next Jordan.
Right?
Okay.
So you guys are living your dream.
And all of a sudden, you get turned on by the community that had really kind of, I don't want to say inflated your egos, but really like pumped up.
Well, they helped get us the confidence to try this.
So was it heartbreaking?
Because you must believe their reviews of your other restaurant because you're like, wow, finally someone recognizes our talent.
Then you see the criticism and you're like, well, shit, do I have to believe that as well?
Those are the same people I believed when they were complimenting me.
It's very sensitive reviews, right?
I mean, you put yourself out there, you make this thing.
So whenever a review doesn't go your way, it's impossible to not take it personally.
That shit hurts.
It's impossible.
100%.
So to know that we were putting ourselves out there in that way and to have that be the initial response.
Again, we were getting traction on the ground.
People were enjoying themselves.
The vibe in the restaurant was good.
I was just worried a little bit at like the community at large.
And it took a kind of a flag being planted by the New York Times to say, no, this is accredited.
This belongs.
So the New York Times comes in and thwarts all the other criticism.
They basically wait to be the last one.
So in a big review like that, the New York Times will take that position and they'll wait for New York Magazine and the Post and all the other publications to weigh in and then they'll go last.
And then initially, are those other guys saying who the fuck are they?
Those were a mixed bag.
They were all over the place.
Do you remember those people?
Have you like hung out with them since, seen them since?
Have they tried to cozy up to you now that you're successful?
Well, I famously threw one out and that was a thing.
What happened?
Because no one's ever really thrown a critic out.
Wait, what happened?
I wasn't, again, young and a little spicy at the time, but the critic at the time for New York Magazine had come in and he wrote a really poor review.
And I just didn't like the way he went about it.
And I was also young and sensitive.
And I didn't like the review.
I didn't like the way he went about it.
What do you mean, Ian like the way he went about it?
He brought it.
I remember he brought in like other chefs to sit with him.
And I didn't think that was cool.
To review it.
And I thought he had an agenda.
I thought he didn't like it from before he even sat down.
He never gave us a chance.
So he wrote this pretty terrible review.
And then we had a little bar down the block.
And he tried to go to that bar a couple weeks later.
And he's supposed to be anonymous, but I know who he is.
And he shows up and we threw him out.
And that became a whole thing because no one's ever done that.
And in hindsight, probably I wouldn't have done it again, but that's how I felt at the time.
I wonder if the people that review or react to things, I wonder if they understand like the lack of respect for their opinion.
We're appreciative when their opinions are complimentary.
But like the lack of respect comes from the fact that a lot of them have never put something out in the world to be criticized.
Man in the arena.
Yeah, it's a Teddy Roosevelt thing.
Yeah.
And it's like, it is a different thing.
When you create something and you put work into it and then you place it out in the world to be criticized or loved, it doesn't matter.
There is a vulnerability to that.
So even the people I don't even like and I don't even like their stuff, I still admire that they have the courage to put it out.
And I wonder if critics, if they did that initially in their own life, if they had submitted something for public hazing or public scrutiny or support, if they would have a different energy towards their criticisms.
We should get one of them on here.
I mean that.
I wonder if they ever think about that.
I appreciate the ones that do real homework, that come with real, like either they've been in the business a really long time, but you can tell that the way they go about it, the way that they research it, whether they like it or not, it comes from a real place of understanding.
And at that point, you can't, you can't, you can only say so much.
But the ones that have their opinions made up beforehand, dude, have you ever gotten a negative review that you respected?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I have.
And what does that look like?
You know, there's a couple of critics.
There's one named Ryan Sutton, who is a really, really bright journalist who knows his shit inside and out.
And sometimes he's written really beautiful reviews for us and sometimes he hasn't.
And if I look back at the ones that he was more critical of, they are some of the things that some of the projects that I think needed more work than others.
I think he was probably right about them.
Respect.
That simple.
I had a guy criticize a joke that he criticized writing as lazy and then he referenced a joke that he didn't get.
So in his criticism, he missed the cleverness of the joke.
Critical Reviews and Bright Journalists00:08:29
But he had such confidence to criticize me that he showcased the joke as evidence for laziness while the joke went over his head.
And I'm like, I don't even know what to do in that.
You know what I mean?
What do you do with that?
I mean, like, how do you compartmentalize that?
I'm at this point, I'm just like, yeah, I have to give more, I have to give more energy to the people that really praise and really appreciate and like are more aligned with like what I think the creative vision is.
Comics are dope because just like chefs, they get instant gratification.
You tell a joke and you know right away.
Like I delivered the plate and it's gone.
Did you like it or not?
And you ate it or no.
Like it's instant gratification, which is just beautiful, right?
And like it disappears.
You make something, it's a disappearing art.
It goes on a plate and it's consumed and it's gone.
I'm curious when you create Carbone and you go for like these old school servers, captains, faces, all these guys, where does that vision come from?
Are you trying to replicate something that you went to as a kid or were you just trying to deviate from the trend that was happening presently?
Where did that conviction happen?
Carbone was very intentional sort of celebration.
It's an Italian-American restaurant, right?
So it immediately doesn't exist in the country of Italy.
It's born and raised in America, like I am.
So if you start to look at it and you're telling a story, and for me, restaurants are most closely associated, most closely similar to theater.
You build a stage, you're telling a story, you're in costume, you're trying to make this believable play that starts at the exact same time every day with the same cast in same uniform for a different audience.
It's theater.
And you're trying to create something that's transportive.
I want to take you somewhere.
And in Carbone's perspective, it's first generation Italian Americans.
So I say it's Michael.
It's not Vito, right?
It's Michael.
He struggles with Italian, right?
In the movie, right?
He can speak it a little bit, but it's not his native tongue.
He's born in New York, right?
This is a thing that's born in New York.
It's really not recognized.
It's not understood by Italians.
It's our thing.
So when did that take place?
If you think about the Godfather of the movie, the first reference is Louis' Italian-American restaurant where he kills Salozzo.
That's the 40s and 50s.
So that's where I wanted to set the restaurant to that period.
So then I start thinking about, okay, if it's 1950 New York, what's the music?
What's the uniform?
What's the menu look like?
What does server look like?
What's the server look like?
What is this?
Because I want you, the customer, to walk into it and teleport and be in my play.
I always appreciate thoughtfulness.
Whether I, whatever, if I know you were being very thoughtful in what you did, I just really appreciate that.
And I love that.
And my question kind of piggybacking when Marcus said, you had a vision, Rich had a vision.
Y'all were going to do separate things, but then you came together.
What elements did you take from each of yourselves to create Carbone, Teresi, whatever it was?
He's crazy talented.
He's a better chef than I am, right?
We're both chefs, but he's a better foosball player.
He is a better fucking foosball player.
Super talented, militant about how he goes about things.
I'm much more, I live in the margins, right?
I tell these sort of stories.
They don't necessarily, there's a perfection to the imperfection for me.
While he's more like a Swiss watch, he's been trained by the best chefs in the world.
He's an incredible.
So I've taken a little bit from him, and I think he's taken a little bit from me of how we go about making something.
And that's proven really, really, really special for us and how the end result gets there.
Because I think without either one of us, it's a really different product.
But we approach it really differently.
And if there's like a chef competition, like he wipes the floor with me.
Do you have to say that because your restaurant is so much more successful?
We love you, Rich.
Rich, we love you.
We need a reservation at 8, not 5.30.
Okay.
Not 10 p.m. and not at the bar and not at that new seating that you put in front of the kitchen.
No, no, no.
Okay, so obviously Carbone becomes super successful.
How much is the game nurturing relationships with famous people because of what they bring to the success of the restaurant?
I.e. Jay-Z coming into the restaurant, Justin Bieber getting rejected, humiliated outside of it.
But how much is it like you nurturing those relationships?
I always say that it's really flattering when they come because they can call anybody, right?
Like there's no door that's not going to take Jay, right?
So the fact that he came tonight means that he's like, he's selected there.
He's chosen to go there.
So I think it's really flattering when we do get these sort of big celebrities and athletes.
And as far as taking care of them, I think the most important thing is making sure that you do everything you can as a restaurant, as a team to protect their privacy.
You know, they're not there to be on display.
You want to try to make an environment that's really nurturing for that and make sure that they're protected.
The team knows that.
Their anonymity is everything to me.
And I think if you do that, then they respect it, put out a good product, make something they want to come back for.
And hopefully they'll be part of the regular.
How does the public find out that all these celebs are going there?
Everyone's mouth.
Everyone's got a phone, too.
I think it's like, yo, Jay-Z was at the restaurant while we were there.
Have you ever had to throw a patron out because they didn't know how to act around a famous person?
I don't think we've ever thrown anybody out.
I think we've definitely gotten in the way of photos.
Hey, I'm sorry, but Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so is having dinner.
Please respect that.
I don't think we've ever thrown anybody out.
Anybody that's banned?
We have a few banned.
Who's banned?
I don't know.
Who's banned?
One of the only ways to get a bunch of people.
One of the only ways to get banned in this company.
You think he's a rat?
He needs a fucking rat.
One of the only ways to get banned in the company is to treat the staff poorly.
So who treats them the way?
You're a dick to stay.
Rich would tell us.
Rich would totally tell us.
So would Zelazny snitches get sticks.
So would Zelensky.
Who's the guy that Zelensky is the guy?
Ukrainian?
No.
No, Zelaznik.
Yes.
Yes.
So they would tell us, give us a little dirt.
Who's a piece of shit to the staff?
Who should we give?
That person deserves to be outed.
They deserve to be outed.
Jeff Bezos.
No, Bezos is a good guy.
I heard that he offered to put you in the spaceship with all the girls.
Is that true?
Yo, I would get so claustrophobic in the spaceship.
Yeah.
I had to do, I did the Today Show last week from that serious of a cruise ship.
I'm buying it with you.
I'm severely claustrophobic.
Yo, I can't get into this thing.
If I was ever trapped in the elevator with any of them for 30 seconds, they would never respect me.
He does not see it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fuck that.
Okay, so you're not going to give us any shit.
You're not going to give us.
Wait, but why would someone get banned?
They're addicts.
If you like treat the staff poorly, you cuss at them, you get drunk, you yell at them.
God forbid you put your hands on them.
Yeah, you're never coming back.
And we have door guys and we have security around.
I mean, the restaurants are too busy and too high profile to not.
But the fastest way to never come back here is to mistreat the staff.
And that's part of it.
I assume I was thinking the service at your restaurant is really good.
And I really appreciate it.
I'm a southern boy, so like manners mean a lot.
Is that part of your 50s aesthetic?
Like every waiter going out of their way to do such a seems like there's like a show in the world.
I think they go out of the way.
I mean, I'd like to think they go out of the way because that's their home too, right?
Like you're disrespecting their home.
This is where they make their money.
This is their family too.
The staff doesn't really turn over.
They're really close as they're a really close-knit group.
Do you train them to do any like, it's kind of a show.
When I went to Carbone, it was like.
There's a certain amount of like, there's a cadence to how I want the, like, and we do kind of put it in the book too.
A cadence to how we talk to tables and how we take an order.
There's a way that we do it.
Like Ricky's voice is basically in this book as like how we take an order.
Southern Manners and Waiter Respect00:11:16
Yeah.
Because they're captains.
They're not there to take orders, right?
They're there to guide your coaches through.
They're there to guide your experience.
When was the first time Carbone was mentioned in a rap song?
First rap song, I think, was Drake.
That was the first one.
I think Drake was the first one to do it.
I think so.
And did that blow your mind?
Like, how do you find out about it?
That's a great question.
Yeah, people just started texting it to me.
We didn't know what was happening, of course.
And it's crazy.
Yeah, it's crazy.
Like, I'll be working out in the gym and some song will come on.
They'll mention Carbone.
It's absolutely bananas.
Did he hit you up before?
No.
No.
No one's told it before.
I mean, it's been, you know, it's happened a couple of times.
It was just like the cover of someone's album.
Someone that's on Rock Nation, like, they just took a, they just took an iPhone photo in front of Carbone, and that was the cover of their album.
Wow.
Did you talk to him since?
Like, did you hit Drake up?
Like, yo, thank you for the, thank you for the shout out.
I've never thanked him.
Really?
No.
Oh, hey, real quick.
Can we send our flowers?
Take a break from this episode.
We got to send our flowers to Volk.
Oh, Alexander Volkanovsky, 46 years old.
Whoa, Alexander the Great.
46.
You need 46?
36.
Why are you aging him like that?
That's fucked up.
I thought he was 46.
He had a whole rugby career.
That's actually decent logic.
I see.
Yeah, I thought I heard 46, and I was like, oh, that makes sense.
You are bad at math.
Yeah, it's really embarrassing.
It's really embarrassing.
But no, for real, shout out to Volk, man.
That was an unbelievable fight.
Because that guy, Diego Lopez.
Well, that's impressive now that I know he's not 46.
But it was so impressive.
It's really impressive.
Nah, he's a beast, man.
Yeah, that guy Lopez was scary as shit.
Also, coming off of, I think, three straight losses, and two of them are knockout losses.
Like, you're out completely.
Yeah.
And to come back after that was awesome to get clipped during a fight and literally be blind in one eye.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't know if you guys watched the fight, but it was phenomenal.
It was fantastic.
Like, he was just.
He was like unbelievable.
Doesn't stop moving the entire fight, constantly making Lopez.
And Lopez, give credit to him, too.
Like, he just kept coming forward.
Dog, his chin is nuts.
That motherfucker is a beast.
He's going to be around for a while.
Yeah, it was just awesome to see.
But it was awesome.
That's very much a casual.
I'm watching this fight and I'm like, dude, I don't know how Volk, I don't know how our boy wins this.
Because Diego Lopez is big, and he seems like he hits fucking crazy hard.
And even though the reach difference apparently wasn't that big, it wasn't that much, he looks so much bigger.
Volk is small, but he's got a 72-inch reach.
So your reach is usually kind of your height.
So he's a guy.
Volk is probably five.
Five, six, five.
Something like that.
I think it's 70 inches.
And that's a guy at 5'10 normally.
He has a six-foot reach.
Wow.
Like, that's insane.
Yeah.
So a lot of these guys, he has that advantage.
And I think that's why he's able to, like, did you see him peppering him with jazz?
Yeah.
So you're standing at distance with this guy who's much smaller than you.
And you're like, there's no way he's in punching distance.
And then boom, boom, he catches you.
But there are these moments.
And this is the thing that's like about fighting, especially MMA.
You got basically nothing on your hands.
So whoever connects, the other person goes down.
And there are these exchanges where they would both sit down, bite the mouthpiece.
I don't know if you saw it.
Like Volk would come in with a one or slip and then come over the top with a two.
And then he'd add three more punches to it.
And in that exchange, they're both throwing.
Yeah.
And it's not like they had their eyes closed, but you're really just throwing.
Yeah.
You're not even, you're assuming the other guy's going to throw and you're like, I hope I land first.
Yeah.
And we got to watch that for five rounds.
Yeah, it was a great.
It's an insane thing to witness.
Anyway, I'm just so happy for him.
Even if he wants to retire right now, he doesn't have to.
He has so many more.
He's a legend.
I mean, what an accomplishment.
You did it.
Insane.
You know?
Also, to do it in Miami, same place where Izzy came back and took out Predator.
I mean, they're part of the same camp.
There's a lot of cool vibes there.
Yeah.
Man shouts.
So hey, we love you, Volk.
Yeah.
Never bet against Volk.
That's what I said.
Last Way.
He did call that.
Last Washington.
He did call that.
That's what I said.
Volk wins by decision.
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
You are absolutely right.
Four round.
Don't check it, but.
Okay.
Decision in the first round.
That's what I said.
I think he's at second.
Anyway, what else we got?
We got NBA playoffs.
Yeah, this is your time to shine.
I hope the Mavs lose.
Oh, Luca came back.
It was crazy.
Luca coming back to Dallas's first.
Oh, did you watch it?
No, I couldn't watch it.
I'm too sad.
I'm too broken.
I'm broken.
Like, I'm like, I saw the video that they played after.
You trade a fucking guy and then play him and he doesn't want to leave.
Luca starts crying before the game.
Watching the video.
This guy did not want to leave Dallas.
It's the most obvious thing in the world.
The only thing that made me happy is my friend went to the game and said me.
I have it on my phone.
I could probably pull it up, but the fire Nico chant in the arena.
Crazy.
Nico's the GM of the Mavericks.
Fire Niko.
So fucking loud.
And I'm glad at least, and I think he knows anyway, but I'm glad Luca got to see that.
Like, nobody's, he got a crazy ovation.
People are cheering to the Lakers.
There's still a lot of people cheering for the Mavs, like, no matter what, but apparently they're going to lose like $100 million in revenue, they think, from this trade.
And how is that?
Ticket pricing?
People aren't.
Well, they raised ticket prices twice since the trade, which is insane.
Season ticket prices.
People aren't renewing.
I think people aren't buying as much merch now.
I mean, I love Kyrie, but you're not that inclined to buy a Kyrie jersey.
Also, he's injured.
And he's injured.
AD, you're probably not, even though he's actually good, he is always hurt.
And you're always going to look at him as the guy who they traded Luca for.
So they're never going to reload.
Oh, wow.
So it's just the fucking stupidest trade I've ever seen in my life.
And then Luca went out for 45 on like 60% shooting.
Like he just went nuts.
And I'm really, this isn't the first time in my life I'm like rooting for the Lakers.
If they won, I'd be so happy for them.
Poor Akash.
Yeah.
You had some good wins early in your life.
I'm not even worried about you.
Yeah.
Since age 10, it's been pretty rough.
So, Luke said, Who do you think wins?
Like, what's happening right here in the NBA playoffs?
The West is super tight.
It's like the Lakers and Wolves, I think, are the 6-3 matchups.
Can anybody beat the Celtics?
My understanding is that just from speaking to people around the league, it's like, and this is fucked up to even put out there, but the conversation is essentially: if everybody's healthy on the Celtics, they're winning it.
So, they're almost hoping, and this is fucked up, but they're hoping for an injury.
Yeah, because that's the only way it happens.
That sucks.
That sucks.
But that's how dominant they believe it is.
Oh, shit.
Did the Warriors not make it in?
No, they won their play.
They did win their playing.
Yeah.
So they're seventh.
I think that's inaccurate.
They barely beat the Wolves.
It was a comeback.
They won by like five in the end.
Steph, dude.
You know what?
I watched Steph in the Olympics the first time I rooted for him.
Everything I say about Golden State fans, I've taken back.
It's the most fun thing of the world.
It's incredible.
It's so fun getting to root for Steph.
And I was like, oh, I love this guy.
I take back every negative thing I've ever said about him.
He's awesome.
Because your team was in the Western Conference, it was harder.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I hated him.
The fact that we are Knicks fans, you can kind of root, I don't want to say root for West Coast teams, but you're not really tripping off them that much until you reach the finals.
The Knicks never reach the finals.
So I'm not really that worried.
And also, if you're a big LeBron fan, that's the guy that was always in the way.
That team was always in the way.
So LeBron has eight rings if it's not for Steph and the Warriors.
But I was like, if him and Jimmy Butler went to the finals, that'd be the greatest fucking thing.
And I think they'd give the Celtics a hard time.
This is the thing.
Jimmy is a different player in the playoffs.
He went off last night in the play-in.
Admittedly so.
Yeah.
Like, I think I told you this.
Like, he straight up told me.
I was like, how many guys can actually step it up to another level in the playoffs?
And he was like, there's five.
And he named him.
And I was like, what's the difference?
He's like, yeah, during the regular season, it is what it is.
And then the playoffs is like, we start to really lock in.
And there's like five guys that can lock in.
One of those guys, he said, was Joelle Embiid, which I didn't even consider.
And I was like, really?
He goes, oh, he goes, that man is not to be played with.
Wow.
And I don't know.
Like, I've seen him be effective, but maybe because he's kind of slow in plotting, I guess I didn't view him in that way.
But Jimmy's not one to bullshit about that.
You know, he sees KD.
He's like, yeah, KD's crazy.
Anyway, but Jimmy's the type of guy that's going to win you a playoff game by himself.
Yeah.
So one of those games, he will win you by himself.
I mean, he took them to the heat to the finals by himself.
By himself.
So now you get some steph action.
Let's say Draymond steps it up.
I'm not saying he's going to be scoring, but there's a different level of intensity that Draymond's going to bring to the game in the playoffs.
I think it's very hard to count the Warriors out.
That'd be an awesome story.
Lakers and Warriors would both be so fun.
Yo, the NBA is fine this year if the Western Conference finals.
Can it even look like that in the even gold Lakers or are they going to play each other before that?
I think they can because I think the Lakers are the three seed.
So they play the winner of the two seed.
Oh, yeah.
They play the second round.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Whatever.
It's fine.
I think though, I don't, I don't know why I don't believe in the Rockets.
Maybe I just haven't watched enough this year, especially post-crate.
But I don't, I think that's a very winnable series for Golden State, I think.
Yeah, I think Golden State.
I think, I'll tell you one thing.
I think the Rockets are scared shitless.
Oh, yeah.
This is because it's all new to them.
I mean, no, it's like, you know who you're going up against.
And you know, these motherfuckers can hoop, especially in the playoffs.
So it don't matter what happened during the regular season because you got half-ass play during the regular season.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So you let them, not you, but like somehow they inch into the playoffs.
And now the season starts over.
Yeah.
And that's the other thing that like, say what you want about the Lakers.
Like there were times during the season where LeBron at 40 is just carrying the team.
Yeah.
That's going to happen for the next few weeks.
So get fucking used to it.
Yeah.
He took a few nights off so he could carry the team.
Yeah.
And now you got Luca too, and Luca can carry a team.
And that's the reason why the Lakers.
Now, defensively, I don't know what happens.
And obviously, in the playoffs, like you need to lock in.
Yeah.
But has LeBron been on a team, and I'm sure the answer is yes.
But has LeBron been on a team where there was another ball handler that could also do the things he can do: score from three, get a bucket whenever he wants, and get other people involved.
Has he played with enough?
Kyrie, but I don't know about getting other people involved.
Yeah, yo, Kyrie is a really good example.
And then look how well that went.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maybe D-Wade a little bit on the heel.
Oh, yeah.
And look how well that went.
It's like, it's almost like, I mean, this is so stupid to say.
Like, obviously, LeBron plays really well when another top five player in the league is on his team.
But like, specifically, like, AD, he's not taking the ball up, putting himself in position and scoring.
Yeah.
He kind of needs you to set him up a little bit.
Luca is like, you either get out the way and I get a bucket, or you set a screen and I'm on some bum and I get a bucket.
Yeah.
And LeBron is the exact same.
Yeah.
So I'm like, I haven't even given a fuck during the regular season.
Yeah.
But I'm kind of into this.
Yeah.
It's going to be brutal for me to watch, but yeah.
What about the East?
What happens in the East?
Ain't nobody getting a fucking Knicks.
All the way.
It's the Knicks, obviously.
Alex has been to so many games this year.
I trust his judgment.
How many games have you been to again?
40, 41?
Shut up.
One?
Do you even want?
Shut up.
Okay.
Just curious.
I was just checking.
Anyway, listen, if you're going to gamble, if you're going to put all your money on the Knicks, as you should, steak is the leader in global betting and U.S. social casinos.
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Now let's get back to the show.
New York Food vs. Indian Cuisine00:03:04
What are the rules to sending food back?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think if you order something that has a specific in it, it's cooked to this temperature.
I want it without pistachios, you know, I think, and it didn't happen that way.
You order an expensive steak, you want it rare, and it comes out well done, like send that shit back.
Like that's that, that should be sent back.
That was completely mismanaged.
What about the hair?
I would send it back.
I mean, like, that's, that's, that's disgusting.
It should be sent back.
It should be taken off the bill.
It should be made right.
I kind of just, if it's not on the food, I'll just take it.
I'll take that to the sky.
It depends how long it is.
The length of the hair makes a huge difference.
You're saying if it's like a full, like your length hair?
Yeah.
Yeah, if it's a whole strand, like if I found out you got women cooking.
When you get a little pugilic, let me find out.
Dude, what is this?
Teresi?
Rich, we love you.
Okay.
Is the Italian food in New York City better than the Italian food in Italy?
It's completely different.
They don't even, they don't look anything alike.
Can you get better Italian food in New York than you can in Italy?
Oh, wow.
This is my take, but I'm really glad that you are supportive of this.
I think the highest level Italian food in New York beats the highest level in Italy all day.
Wow.
Now, my take is that the mom and pop Italian in Italy is going to beat the mom and pop Italian on average in New York.
I agree with you.
But the highest level, and I would go not just Italian.
I'd go the highest level, whatever food in New York is going to beat any other country.
He's trying to get it.
Or any other country.
The only thing I would say is like Japan is like such a like such an outlier.
You can't even count them.
Okay.
It's AI.
They're AI.
They're AI.
That's Asian intelligence.
So it happens.
Thoughts on that?
I don't think that that's totally inaccurate.
I think New York is the greatest food city in the world.
And at the highest level, it is often better than the best in that country because it has to be.
Wait, why does it have to be?
To survive.
Yeah.
Because there's so much compounds.
You're in New York.
If you're going to have the best Indian restaurant in New York, it better be one of the best restaurants in the world.
Jersey kind of beats out.
But he likes the mom and pop Indians.
What is Jersey beauty?
Look at his face.
Look at his steak.
He's fighting all the time right now.
Working over.
Game of Rainbows.
Working over time.
Table of razzles.
Wait, wait, go, go.
Indian food.
The best Indian food is in Edison.
Daisy Galaxy, you and I go one time, you're going to fucking stewed with a foot.
Like, it's a different type of room.
It does taste authentic, but it's also better.
Next time you're going to bring us some.
Indian food don't carry well, but if you want to carry it.
Come on, Carrie's great.
It's amazing.
Yeah, that's probably the biggest thing.
The single biggest food in the world is going to carry well.
Pizza Carries like shit.
It's the biggest delivery food in the world.
Dosa, have you ever had Dosa carry out?
Curries, Takeout, and Authentic Flavors00:03:15
This doesn't hit the same.
No, no.
A curry in a bag.
A curry in a bag?
Butter chicken and all that.
That's fine, but yeah, we can get that too.
It's just getting better.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I see what you're saying.
Yeah.
But not veg food, which a lot of Indian food is.
It's better there.
We'll go there.
Keep bullying him on this because he's about to.
We're not going to go, but I would do takeout.
It's not going to be as good, but I'll take it.
We'll do it.
We'll do it.
Let me get Carbone takeout.
But that's just not happening.
Oh, why is that?
I mean, we're too busy.
It's not as good?
We're too busy.
They're going to take out the 50 to take out dollars.
Even at Daisy Galaxy.
Dacy Galaxy don't eat your takeout dollars.
Carbone does not eat takeout.
You did get Carbone takeout during the pandemic.
Yeah, that's right.
We kept the lights on with that one.
Yeah.
We got shut down by the cops.
First time a black person ate a carbon.
Dude, how have you accomplished that?
It's so refreshing.
Lots of black people at Carbone.
That's not a celebrity.
It's not my fault you're not famous.
I'm just saying.
He doesn't deny itself.
I'm just saying.
Okay.
Be a hedge fund manager or something.
I know you're now.
Okay.
This is a very important question.
Okay.
How do you communicate to somebody at a table that it's time to leave because you have another reservation without telling them it's time to leave?
You start taking things off the table.
So slowly, one item at a time, you start taking things off the table.
Yeah.
So the first thing is you start taking things off the table.
You've dropped the bill, right?
That's the first move.
Drop the bill.
If the bill's on the table and they haven't paid it yet, then you're going to slowly start taking things off the table until they realize potentially, subliminally, oh, we probably should go.
They're removing things.
They may not.
The next round would be like to offer them an after-dinner drink somewhere else in the restaurant at the bar, another local.
So that's the emergency.
That's like, can I buy you guys a drink at the bar?
I need you off this table.
If you have to go there, you offer.
That's class.
I'm going to pay you to leave.
Yeah.
Because you're guessing, right?
You're guessing the amount of time people are going to stay, and you've built this book off of that.
Yeah.
So if they're staying far too long, then it's going to start screwing up the next round.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's why it's, it's so important.
Just to go back to that earlier question, saying to someone, I have to leave in 45 minutes is very valuable to a restaurant.
Incredibly valuable.
It's funny.
Like, I would do that, especially now that we have a kid.
Like, if we just pop into someplace and we're just like, hey, it's two enough.
I'll start it out being like, we have 40 minutes with this baby before it's time.
And you'd be surprised.
Your chances are going to go through the roof.
Because in that early time, like before, when does the rush?
Maybe like seven o'clock.
Yeah, it starts around seven.
So if you're in that like six o'clock range, they're scared that you could push back, I imagine, the set.
Yeah, I can't.
Even if that table's available, it's not really because it's about to get sat.
Yeah.
But you could potentially get in and get out.
Yeah.
And the restaurant just won a whole nother seating.
That's free money.
Yeah.
Consistency, Shorts, and Free Money00:15:33
Do people bring their kids to Carbone?
Very rarely.
Yeah.
Very rare.
Like a kid.
But like a five o'clock seating?
We frown on those.
He's trying to bring his kids on.
So there's restaurants that there's different.
Okay.
What's more Italian American than bringing your kid to a restaurant?
Well, actually, it's what's more Italian?
I don't know.
Italian American life.
I'm curious: how do you communicate to people that it's not kid-friendly without saying it directly?
I've seen some well, I think it's actually part of our reservation protocol.
Like you make a reservation, the email confirmation probably says at some of the restaurants that like children under a certain age with like shorts and sandals like that.
There's yeah, some restaurants just won't have baby chairs.
That's a great way of doing it.
I mean, if you're like a brunch restaurant, then that's obviously a kid-friendly environment.
Yeah, if you're going for like a really nice dinner, probably not the place for an infant.
How do you talk to someone that shows up in sandals?
That's why we built it into that.
That's why we have like a backup and says, hey, listen, it's actually on your reservation.
It says, you know, like proper attire.
He's really asking questions for himself.
In Miami, you'll wind up sitting outside.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Oh, that's interesting.
This is how you enforce the sandal requirement.
There's another way of enforcing it, which my dad taught me, not about restaurants, but it was like the way that the people that work there are dressed defines how the people that attend dress.
So if you have everybody that works there in tuxedos, it's hard to show up in shorts.
But if everybody that works there is in shorts, then the people that show are going to be in shorts.
Can I call out somebody that refuses to wear pants?
Yes.
Noriega.
Corey wears shorts everywhere.
He fucking refuses to put pants on.
I don't know if he owns pants.
Go grab me then the Drink Champs Heavyweight Championship belt that's out there.
He refuses to wear pants.
Like not to the restaurant in life.
Because he's on the run eating.
You can't be on the run if you're not in shorts.
Oh, you enforce the shorts rule, even in Miami.
You sit outside if you're in.
Oh, I don't know.
Can I ask a question based on that?
Do you miss the outside dining at your New York?
Not at all.
I was just wondering.
Not at all.
I mean, listen, it was revenue for us.
It was good revenue for us, but for the city, it had to go.
Yeah.
It had to go.
Why?
Because there were no rules around it.
These restaurants don't really have extra money to do it, right?
But they need to capitalize on it.
So they're building up these shanty towns in front of their restaurants.
It's a horrendous look for the city.
Then it breeds.
Thank you, Ricky.
It breeds.
What's going on here?
So, this is, I just did Drink Champs and I got the belt.
Did you win something, or you just get it?
No, I just put it on.
He's like, nobody's ever done this all the episodes we've ever had.
He goes, I want you to take this with you.
Oh, that's fine.
That's awesome.
So if you want to do it, Drink Champs, heavyweight belt.
But, you know, listen, this can be with you right here.
This is nice.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, dude.
Come on.
Okay.
That's nice.
Nice piece.
Here's a question.
You got carbon's all over the world now, or at least the country.
I'm pretty sure the world is.
Oh, no, you guys.
How do you maintain quality, consistency?
It's the number one thing that I spend the most of my time on, and the most difficult thing, I think, is consistency.
Trying to build protocols and like, you know, WhatsApp chats and video zooming and digital recipes and all sorts of like processes so that the chefs can communicate all over the world because they're all making virtually the same thing.
We're spending more money and more time every year to try to get better at it.
It's really hard.
It's really the hardest thing.
It's harder than everyone assumes it's staffing, which is hard.
But once you get once you get good people, I think they stay because they want to be part of a good team and they want to make good money, right?
It's the consistency that is number one by far for me.
The thing that will keep me up most at night.
Yeah, consistency is, I think, or inconsistency is the one thing that would make me stop going to a restaurant.
Like, how many chances are you going to give a restaurant?
How many?
One.
One.
Yeah.
One.
And if it fucks up, I hesitate the next time.
Because there's the thing about there's like, especially when you're in New York City, there's hundreds of restaurants you haven't even tried yet.
So if I keep going to the same restaurant, I'm making a choice to not go to all those other ones.
And if you fuck up the meal that I'm expecting and excited to have one time, the next time I'm about to go, I'm like, shit, it might get fucked up again.
It's not only.
Not only did I lose that customer, how many people did he tell?
Oh, shit.
And it's not just the meal, it's the service.
It's the music.
It's the table you get.
Okay, okay.
So you can't have the chef there seven days a week.
No.
Is your A chef as good as your B chef?
No, otherwise you'd be the A chef.
So then how do you maintain consistency?
Or maybe a better question is what days is your A chef there?
It's tough with Carbone because we're blessed to kind of have the same business almost every night.
Usually what you do is you put your B chef on your B nights, right?
Which is like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday, maybe, depending on the location.
I feel like New York Sunday is a big Sunday can be big.
It depends.
If you're uptown or you're Midtown, the weekends are quiet.
Because the Midtown's Monday to Friday.
Saturday, Sunday, quiet.
Usually Sunday closed.
Midtown, quiet.
Downtown, you have a good Sunday.
So you're looking at Monday, Tuesday.
The best nights for us in the company are Wednesday, Thursday, usually.
Because what the week is?
Thursday is like the biggest night of the week for sales.
Wow.
Why is that?
I don't know.
It's always, it's been like that for a while now.
Thursday, I mean, yeah, you get a Friday.
Saturday is that kind of like bridge and tunnel thing is that's a real thing.
Yeah.
And it's a lower check average.
It's more customers.
They eat for less period of time.
They spend less money.
They spend less time there.
So we do more reservations.
It takes more customers to do the same number of revenue ones.
Yeah, they have to leave because they got to go to Desi Galaxy and they got to go back.
They got to go back to the kids, the nanny, whatever.
That's interesting.
How do you preserve the brand?
So not only is the restaurant and all the particulars of actually dealing with the day-to-day, but the brand of Carbone, like this global entity, how do you make sure that doesn't get diluted as you spread into more markets?
It's a great question.
I think you have to, one, be okay with a certain amount of dilution, right?
You have to understand that it's no longer as potent as it was when there was one.
Sure.
Wow.
You have to make peace with that.
You're now on an entrepreneurial journey, and it's no longer about I'm the chef of this one restaurant.
I'm here every night.
I'm going to cook for you, which is a beautiful thing.
But when you've made that choice to take on a more entrepreneurial venture, you have to make peace with that to a certain degree.
And now that we're growing further and further beyond that one location, it becomes consistency.
You know, can somebody on the other side of the world tonight have a very similar pasta than they will at New York?
That's the, for me, that's all the brand.
That's the brand right there, right?
I can set the playlist.
I can make the uniforms the same.
I can do all of those moves.
But what's going to happen when the waiter delivers that plate of food?
Is there ever a moment where you're like, this dish is too difficult to replicate the same way?
Okay.
And then in that circumstance, do you just reduce the level of difficulty of the dish?
And what dish?
Yeah, I think we've done that a lot over the last few years is trying to make things that are, I call them big bullseye, you know, like they have a big bullseye.
They're much more easily replicable for whatever reason than a dish that takes a lot of in-the-moment talent.
Like the ticket comes in, I ordered this thing, and it takes a great deal of talent to make this from scratch versus something that is predetermined to be in a big strike zone.
And I have a pretty good confidence that it's going to land somewhere here and it's going to be pretty tasty.
Can you give us examples of big bullseye and maybe even small bullseye?
Like Rigatoni vodka, which I sell probably the most of all the restaurants, right?
You call it Rigatoni vodka?
That's what you call your dish?
Rigatoni alo vodka?
That everybody calls the spicy rig?
Spicy rig.
Spicy rig.
You don't know that that's what everybody calls it the spicy rig?
The spicy rig?
You don't know this about you?
The spicy rig?
You don't know this about you.
Tell me about it.
I'm finding out Hulk Hogan doesn't know about ripping his shirt off.
You don't know.
It's called the Spicy Rig with a the it's so profound.
It's called the Spicy Rig.
Go to carbon, get the Spicy Rig.
Get the Spicy Rig.
Yeah um, you're not aware that that's how people speak about it.
Uh, I didn't really think that it was like it had a title like that.
He's doing market research.
There's a the.
You get this.
Okay, I would like to enter this discussion.
Yeah, go ahead.
I'm sure you're aware of like the dish from different restaurants.
I name a restaurant.
You know exactly what's the dish, POLO BAR, the burger.
That's interesting.
You went with burger, we're gonna go with the pastrami.
Yeah, I mean I, I feel like it's iconic for that burger.
I think the specialty burgers they do are better than the burger that's on the menu.
Okay, but it doesn't matter.
But, but the pastrami sandwich, maybe okay for you guys.
Spicy Rig, yep, I also think there's another thing for you guys which is like it's experiential.
I think that POLO BAR is in that version too, 100.
You're walking into a world.
It's immersive, as you described it earlier, like the play is.
I think that's.
I haven't heard it described that way, but I think that's perfect.
Yeah, because you're getting experience.
The second you're not, it's actually like all the heavy lifting isn't on the food.
The lifting has done.
The second you walk in.
Imagine, imagine you can be Henry Hill walking in the back of Copa, exactly.
If I can deliver that yeah that's that's, yeah.
But that's a perfect shot, right?
Yeah, that's a perfect shot.
That Scorsese set up to have all that happening yeah, that I have to have running for six hours.
Right, I have to have a six hour Fellini movie happening at all times where there's a guy lighting something on fire, there's a hot girl in the corner, there's something, there's an athlete over there, and then then you walk in yeah yeah, and you're having that Henry Hill moment.
Yeah yeah, i've got to have that going for six hours.
Yeah yeah, that's a great okay so so Tari okay so uh Terezi, for example, what would you go with?
What is the, the dish, what is the thing that speaks to you um, or just stands out?
The dish there for me is um, there's a couple.
There's the Jamaican yeah, the Jamaican beef patty cavatelli, which we've been doing since the original um, because when we, when we built Teresi RICH, did you see it just took credit for your dish when he?
Um, that restaurant Tromadoro, the tortello.
Yeah, the tortellini is the.
Tortolini is probably the one that's the best.
Tortolini is crazy.
We wanted to make Italian food that was new.
We called it the New York Casey.
Yeah.
Right.
It was like, because there isn't really Italian food in Italy.
There's regional Italian food, and they don't fuck with the other regions, right?
Like Tuscany doesn't care about Sicily, right?
There's no like.
They just became Italy.
Before that, there are these individuals.
They've been in Italy way less years than we've been America.
And so we were like, what if we make our own region of Italian food that is New York City?
That's great.
So we pulled from the Jewish, the Jewish Lower East side.
We pulled from Jamaican beef patties being in pizzerias randomly.
We pulled from all the German local.
We pulled from all of that that was New York to make this food that was our New York food.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, we believe that we were doing the most Italian thing possible by not making Italian food.
So what do you think the dish is for Carbone?
Rigatoni.
It's the spicy rig, right?
And that's the one you think is the spicy.
The Rigatoni.
The Caesar stood in the Veal Parme.
Oh, yeah.
It's the, yeah.
Okay, so what I think is it's spicy rig and then the Caesar.
And then I think the, not the sleeper, but the, the one that actually knocks your socks off is the veal parme.
So it's like the spicy rig, everybody knows about.
It's like obviously synonymous with the brand, but not everybody gets the veal parme.
And then when you get it, it's like, why the fuck did anybody tell me about this?
Because I don't think I got veal parme until maybe a few times that I went there.
But also it's the experience with the Caesar salad.
That's really fun.
Like having them make it in front of you, that goes back to the theater.
Yeah.
Have you ever introduced a dish to any of the restaurants that didn't want all the time?
Like, once an example.
Give me the biggest bomb.
Well, this is, we're comedians.
We love bomb stories.
Bombs are more like no one orders it, right?
Like less they order it and they don't like it.
More like you put all this effort into something and zero order.
Yeah, yeah.
And for chefs, usually it's like really chefy shit.
Like you want to, you want to get, you want to get away from the mainstream ingredients because something's in season or something's, you know, some farmer drops something off and you're really excited about it.
And particularly at Carbone, because you're being bulldozed with the number one menu, right?
Everyone's now ordering through social media and like the thing you have to order to be there, right?
It's so hard to sell them something else at this point because they need the verification of being there.
It's like Bert Crusher's machine story.
So I can't.
That's what we came for.
You're like, no, no, no, this thing's a, sure, get the Ricatoni, but I promise you, this is great.
So do you try, because you always hear something like the specials are, oh, these are older ingredients that the chef is trying to get rid of or whatever.
Is sometimes the special, this dish that the chef really wants to add to the menu maybe and it's in the way we would try a joke at an open mic.
Is that what it is?
Or are specials just something that you generally shouldn't mess with?
No, I think specials this day and age are something that they're actually trying to work on and it's new.
I rather reprint the menu and not verbal a special.
And so that when like Ricky verbals things at your table, that's part of a script, like kind of a script.
Yeah.
Because I want there to be a back and forth between you and the waiter.
I don't want to just drop menus and then you come back and you tell me what you ordered.
There's nothing there for me.
I want a conversation.
Yeah, you want this.
So I force these things.
I force conversational moments during the order taking.
Like meatballs are not on the menu at Carbone.
That's an intentional thing because as soon as you order pasta, that's a trigger for the waiter to say, you want meatballs?
Yeah.
You want to put some meatballs on it?
Automatically, the service feels better for me because we're having a conversation.
You're having a dialogue.
There's a back and forth happening.
And you're now all of a sudden, you're now trusting this person.
You're putting the rest of your experience in their hands.
Later on, you're not even going to know.
They're like, hey, just choose some desserts for me, right?
You trust them.
They're captaining your experience.
And it's kind of a script that we laid out in the book because I wanted to memorialize the language of Carbone because that's how we take an order there.
Are there any other secret menu items?
Like you have the meatballs, obviously.
Trusting the Captain of Your Experience00:14:55
They're kind of off menu, but anything else that someone could order?
Yeah, I mean, there's all sorts of like little, we call them pocket moves, right?
Like things that you can do.
Well, I hate when the waiter has to ask the chef.
Like when the waiter says that, oh, let me ask the chef.
Oh, yeah.
I really don't like that.
I hate it in my restaurants.
So I try to make sure that the waiter, the waiters, the captains, they know all the things that are possible.
So that when they're at a table and they're talking to you and you're like, yeah, no, I don't want the prosciutto.
I don't eat pork.
Oh, I can do roasted peppers with the mozzarella for you.
That's not in the menu.
But he knows.
He's like, go ask the chef.
I know what I can do for you.
I can do this, right?
Vio Par.
I'm not in the mood for Vio Parm tonight.
You want to do a little milonaise?
We'll put a rug of salad, some tomatoes on a little lung.
Yeah, let's do that.
Great.
We'll do milonaise.
These are real waiters.
These are lifelong waiters.
These are not transient people that are on their way after.
They're not on their way to another thing.
This is how they feed their family, right?
So give them all the tools to take care of this table and let us cook.
That's the model.
What are your other pet peeves for restaurants?
My might be my own.
Not your own restaurants, but just pet peeves in general.
Like you go to a place.
I'm really sensitive to lighting and music in restaurants at this point.
If the lighting is really harsh or the music is just off, too loud, off theme, abrasive, I'm not feeling it.
I'm immediately put in a weird, a weird like place.
I'm not comfortable.
I'm not cozy.
I want warm lighting.
I want whatever the music is.
I want it to be the vibe of what I think this place is.
And then those are my two biggest ones because I think that sets the tone.
How do I put people in their position to just kind of succumb to my thing tonight?
And if you're not feeling it, you're uncomfortable, you're immediately, you're in a defensive place.
And I don't want that.
I want you to give in.
I want you to be part of my movie.
I want you to be an extra in this thing.
And to give in, you have to be totally comfortable and you've mentally bought into this thing.
As soon as that guy walks up to your table with giant menus, you're giving in.
It's in your hands.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So the menus being huge.
Cartoonishly huge is a thing.
What purpose does it serve?
It felt like to me at the time when we did it, again, we were going against.
To people that don't know, can you just, with your hands, show how big a menu is from Carbo?
I mean, it's probably, you know, it's not exaggerating.
Two, three feet by the way.
It's a small flat screen TV.
Yes.
Yes.
It's gigantic.
At the time, we were going against the micro tasting menu.
That was like a little bit of a title.
You're here all night.
It's the chef's way.
There's no substitute.
It's no autonomy, no agency.
You mean, you matter nothing.
Yeah.
You matter nothing.
Wow.
And here, you know, I remember writing an Italian, like, have it kind of have it your way.
Like, it says apiachere, like the way you want it.
If you don't see anything on this menu, tell me what you want.
Yeah.
We want it to be a yes restaurant because that's, to me, that's what Italian restaurants are.
Like Italian restaurants by nature, especially in Italy, is a night off for mom and dad.
It's an because you eat so well at home.
That's this is so fascinating.
I never even considered that.
You eat so well at home that to go out, it's a night off for them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you're just using this restaurant as a conduit to eat well, hopefully.
I never considered it.
In a eat-in culture like Italy, it is not surprising that both parents know how to cook extremely well.
Extremely well.
In America, maybe one is proficient at cooking.
In my family, neither.
We ordered in every single night growing up in New York City, and we had the luxury to do that.
But like, it was only like most family, maybe one knows how to do it.
In Italy, both probably.
If not them, close relatives, grandparents are ready to rock.
So to choose to go out, of course, the mom and pop restaurants are going to have high-level cuisine because at home, you're competing with some serious shit.
You'll see legit grandma.
Wow.
I never considered that.
So a night off.
So the only reason you would go out, it's not to have better food.
We would go out to have better food because my parents were proficient.
You're going out to have a break from cooking and cleaning.
And you're hoping it's as good as what's at home.
Exactly.
You're hoping.
But bare minimum, what you can do is not bust my balls.
And that's why I probably experienced it.
I know what I'm talking about.
I'm a customer that's highly edgy.
I know what I want.
This is give me this.
I never considered the competition, the greatest competition for restaurants in Italy is not other restaurants.
It's how you cook in your own house.
That's why, by and large, super fine dining in Italy is not great, you know, in my opinion, because they're competing with phenomenal base food of their mom and their grandma.
And so they're trying to make this thing that's nouvelle, this new take on it, when the base product is fucking fantastic.
And anytime that I've gone to one of those places, and my wife and I have gone to Italy and you're like, why did I go?
It's not, it's not it, dude.
You need to find a nono somewhere.
Yeah.
Or just go to that mom and pop restaurant that people talk about.
Yeah.
I've been, yeah, I'm in Florence and we have legit grandmas cooking the food.
And it was like, this is incredible.
All right.
Go watch it right now.
I was 20 and I just moved to Italy and I moved to the middle of nowhere.
Where?
Northwestern Tuscany.
Italy, Italian English wasn't even really spoken.
Modena?
No, this is like north of Pisa in like near Luca.
You're trying to like choose a town that maybe you've heard of that's near, like near Luca.
It's middle of nowhere.
And I moved there to live with a family that ran just like exactly the kind of restaurant you hope to run into when you're on vacation.
The most amazing mom and pop restaurant.
The family lived above the restaurant.
The restaurant was on the ground floor.
Their apartment was above it.
I lived with the family in the extra room.
How'd you find these guys?
You seek them out specifically.
Mario Vitale helped me set it up.
So you're working at Babo and I said to you.
I talked to Mario.
You asked to say, I really want to learn.
I said, I'm from New York.
I only know this food.
I want to learn the origin of this whole thing.
I need to train in Italy.
I need to learn this.
Can you help me set up?
He connected me to an author who lived in Rome, who knew this family, and I lived with them for like almost two years.
He saw talent in you early, though, Mario?
I think he saw an aptitude for work.
I don't know if I had talent back then.
I know I wanted, I know I had a very high threshold for work.
He saw ambition.
Yeah.
Okay.
And what was that experience like with the mom and pop were there?
That's crazy.
Like life-changing.
Like there's only one phone number for the whole building.
So even if you're upstairs, like watching the soccer match, you have to answer the phone as if it's a reservation, right?
It's your day off and you're upstairs and you're like, you have to take a reservation.
It's as mom and pop as it gets.
And that was like that total.
How was your Italian at the time and how much better did it get?
It was not good at all.
But I had a, you know, this is before like technology in your pocket.
This is 2000.
I had a little book in my, like a little translator in my back pocket, a little thesaurus, and I would learn what I needed for the day.
And by the time I was done, I spoke the language a little bit.
What did they think of you?
I was like an Italian-American.
They thought I was like, they thought I was crazy, like a crazy American who works too much.
Like exactly what you would think a European thinks of an American.
Why do you work so hard?
Can't you just take the afternoon off?
It's not all about the paycheck.
You need to like, they instill like the beauty of the process, you know?
And a lot of it was, you know, going to the field to find the thing or visiting the farmer, like exactly what you would think the quintessential food experience would be in Tuscany.
I got to live that.
You know, a certain mushroom would come in and the chef would be like, hey, go up that road right there.
You see those bushes over there?
Like, yeah, he's like, there's an herb that grows over there.
Pick a bunch of it and bring it over.
It goes for this mushroom.
Oh, that's cool.
You know, like shit like that that would happen to me.
That's just like, as a kid from Queens, it was like as life-changing as it gets.
The Italian food that I knew is the Italian food I make today, like Italian, real Italian, greasy Italian American food.
That was like, wow, this is the, this is where it comes from.
This is, this is Vito Corleone.
Oh, that's interesting.
How do you feel about pop-up restaurants with like their curated like night?
There's a story to the night.
You know, they have like the tables, the, what's it called?
The tables that we all share?
Communal tables.
Communal tables.
Like, how do you feel about those?
Because I feel like those are becoming way more popular.
And then they try to infuse like Nigerian and Italian, like crazy mixes that you wouldn't necessarily see.
But do you think it's more of a gimmick or is it like...
It depends on who's doing it.
But like, I think if it's great, it's great, right?
Like if you believe it, if you're about it, if you've put the work into it, like, why can't that be your transport of experience?
It doesn't have to be mine.
Mine's mine.
If that's yours, then great.
I'm all for it.
I want to experience it.
Okay, so you're in Italy.
You're learning about the connectivity between, you know, the land, the people.
Yeah.
And I'm sure they're teaching you some, what's that saying?
Dolce fernete?
Yeah.
Is that it?
Yeah.
Le Dolce Ferniente.
Yeah.
The sweetness of nothing.
The sweetness of nothing.
Yeah.
And you're this ambitious American.
Is there any point in time where you're there that you get caught up in their appreciation of life and you're able to kind of relax?
Do some of your ambitions subside?
I think I learned a great appreciation for how they live.
I think at 20 years old, as someone who wanted to like tackle the world, probably not.
I think I was just as bullish coming back to the States after that trip about wanting to be this chef entrepreneur who conquers to New York more than ever.
I don't think I didn't really fall.
I mean, I loved my like afternoons playing soccer and getting four hours off between lunch and dinner, but I knew that that wasn't my life.
I knew that I was coming back to Manhattan to be in the jungle and to conquer it.
I lived in Barcelona while I was in college from 20 to 21.
But I had a similar experience.
And there was this moment where I was like, wow, this is really enjoyable.
Like hanging out with my friends, playing basketball together, going out, living on 10 euros a day.
Five Euros of the 10 was spent to get into a bar and I got a free drink with the entrance.
Like I saw this version of a life for me and it kind of scared me.
I was like, well, this is too comfortable.
I could enjoy this and I could do this.
But there's this other part of me that was compelled to go do something quote unquote great as if that's not great.
That's also great.
It is interesting that like despite learning all those things, you still felt like the pull.
Yeah.
I think that's an American cultural trait that we don't communicate to each other enough.
Europeans seem to know it about us.
But I almost think that it's expected of us and we're unaware of it.
We're an ambitious people, man.
Laugh a couple of times.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like to eat, to experience that, like cooking at the highest level.
Let's call that the highest level for, I mean, I imagine you really respected the cuisine.
It was incredible.
So, and it's a different type of it, but you still felt like that, that eagerness, that urge.
Because for me, it was like I knew that that was just part of my journey to get to this end goal of make it in New York.
That was the, that was the only goal for me.
Is that the pinnacle for like, what is the pinnacle for a chef?
As a New York kid training in Manhattan, my ultimate goal, which I far exceeded, which is incredible, was just like, make a name for myself in New York City, which seemed impossible, but I was going to give it my best shot.
The best chefs in the world, the best restaurants in the world, there's so many of them.
There's so much noise.
There's so much talent.
Can I make a name for myself in this city that I've always called home?
So to get that recognition from like the New York Times, from the from the biggest publications of New York, from your colleagues, from your peers, was, I couldn't have thought of anything higher.
And now we're like, we've expanded far beyond New York.
But for me, that was always the goal.
What has felt better?
Achieving that for yourself or giving back to charity and letting Rich have an opportunity to do it?
Love you, Rich.
That's actually, I'm curious about that.
Rich, we love you.
Love you, Rich.
We love you, Rich.
Remember the name, the restaurant you and Rich worked at, Cafe.
No, no, no, with the original one or the one that they built that you all met.
Cafe Belude.
Cafe Belude.
So in the way Cafe Belude curated you, Rich, David, has Carbone curated any new restaurateurs that have gone off and made a name for themselves?
There's a great chef named Luciana who's in Miami.
She was originally from Miami.
She opened Carbone with us in New York, who's opened a handful of restaurants in Miami, who's been really successful.
But by and large, I'm really proud that most of the great talent in the company has risen within the company.
So the people that run this company, like the top 10 people in this company have been there since almost the beginning.
They're partners in the company.
They have ownership in it.
And they've been there forever.
So I'm really proud that they haven't had to leave.
And we've grown fast enough to where even their ambitions were met within the walls of the company.
This with the twist right here is really good.
Have you been overserved?
I've never had a martini with a twist.
Do you have any more restaurant tips that you gave like with the champagne with the wine glass?
Or maybe even how can we seem classy?
Yeah.
I heard my name.
Ricky, this is not dirty, the one that twists.
So what's in it?
Just tell me, break that down.
I've never had a martini with a twist.
Martini with twists.
Nice.
He just is a little stir.
Yeah.
Makes a nice little vermouth and he gives you a little nice spritz with a lemon twist.
Simple.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Are you married?
Yes, I am married.
Dry Pasta, Campari, and Simplicity00:07:51
Oh, really?
You see the ring, dude.
For how long?
I didn't see it.
10 years.
Wow.
What's his name?
My man.
Let me check.
Let me go check.
Okay.
Anybody else see something else?
A little something.
Yes, please.
A little something.
We need a little something.
Makes me some Garibaldi's.
Garibaldi's right away, Joe.
Giuseppe Garibaldi, the patron saint of the Italian Americans.
Oh, yeah, I think you guys had a question.
Let me ask one real quick.
If you're a tourist coming to New York, let's say you try to go to Carbon, you can't Sidales, Tracy, you can't.
Where else can you go if you're like, yo, this is what I would tell any tourist, this is the best places to eat in New York to experience the city?
I would send them to Katz's.
It's very hard to find a restaurant that embodies New York quite like Katz's.
Okay.
I would send him to Katz's, maybe Peter Luger's.
My dad's 84 years old, and his family would go to Katz's.
I mean, it's, and it's still fucking great.
Yeah.
Like, complain all you want for what it costs.
It's incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's one of the few old school places that are still around that are putting out product as good as they have since day one.
It's incredible.
Let's go through it.
Best pizza in New York City.
Let's break some hearts right now.
So I'm going to put Lucali up there.
Of course.
My cousin.
That's your cousin?
Basically.
He's been shot so many times.
I didn't realize that.
We were hanging out at.
Do you know Wayne?
Wayne Boyd's?
Yeah, I do.
Yeah.
We're at Wayne's house for this paddle thing.
We got to get you on paddle.
You're on tennis.
I don't know why you're playing tennis.
Oh, a real sport.
It's like using a typewriter.
You got to go with what's going on.
It's like the 1950s.
Yeah.
Oh, that's right.
You're trying to have like an immersive experience when you're doing sports.
Ping pong for adults, but sure.
Yeah, yeah.
People like ping pong.
China's taking over.
So with the, and we're, we're hanging out there and we're talking.
He starts telling me a story about how he got shot up.
Like stabbed.
Stabbed.
Stabbed.
You know, it's funny that he would lie and make it a gun.
Well, I mean, he got stabbed like 20 times.
Jeez.
Why?
Hold on a story.
He'll tell the story.
We've got to get him one.
So that's your cousin.
I told him that.
I was going to tell him to come to you today.
It would have been funny.
I mean, it would have been great.
So, like, what type of cousins are you?
Are you cousins?
Like.
How are you, cousins?
Cousins, like, cuz.
Like, we're cousins.
I got it.
I dated his cousin for a short period of time, too.
Isn't that your cousin?
Not my cousin.
That's his cousin.
They're cousins, but that's his cousin.
We're like cousins.
All right.
We're not going to ask anybody.
I also love Lindistry.
Lindestry is fun.
Oh, yeah.
That's great.
Okay.
Best burger.
Best burger.
I love the age burger at Maneta Tavern.
I still love that burger.
And I'm going to throw in Hometown.
I'm going to throw it down tavern.
It's unbelievable.
That's the best burger I've ever had.
Billy Journey.
Shout out Billy Journey.
Shout out to Billy.
Billy's the fucking.
Incredible.
Sushi Nas.
Incredible.
That's on the Upper East.
Yep.
I did not like it.
Really?
You know what's interesting?
When I was doing some research for you, when Carbone got its first review, I think it was from either New York or your timeouts.
You were like second best restaurant.
Not first review, but one of your reviews, second best restaurant.
And you were second best restaurant to sushi Nakazawa.
And I confused it with Nas at first.
And I was like, I couldn't believe it.
I told my wife.
I'm like, are you kidding me?
What the fuck?
I will say Sushi Nakazawa was fantastic.
Nakazawa was great.
It is fantastic.
I did not like Sushi Naka.
I preferred Carbone to Sushi Nakazawa.
But I will say that I thought Sushi Naka, and I'll tell you why.
The waiter there had this encyclopedic knowledge of the sake.
And he was this Korean guy.
Like, he wasn't even Japanese.
He was telling me the different ways each of this, he could have been making it up, dude.
But it was phenomenal.
And it was like transporting me.
There was an experience there that was really good.
So that place was good.
Okay, so best sushi, you say Nas.
Really?
I did not like Nas at all.
Nakazawa is a great call.
I'll take Nakazawa.
Okay.
Hmm.
Chinese.
Cafe China, Sejuan, spicy as fuck.
Indian food.
I love Sejuan.
Cafe China.
Indian food.
Indian food.
Well, we're about to get Gymcana from London, which is my favorite Indian food in the world.
Have you been to Gymcana?
You're the whitest person.
That's made by white people.
I mean, I mean, it's listen, they were so kind when I went there, but it was not made for the spice level was non-existent.
Thank goodness.
What was the quality of the meal?
It was cool, but it's like venison, bidiani, and like, oh, that's cool.
But, like, just give me the, give me this good stuff, you know what I mean?
Street stuff.
I want this stuff.
I don't want to see all the jersey.
I am telling you.
He also doesn't like anything popular.
Like, he immediately rejects it because it's popular.
He hates Drake.
Yeah.
I just said Teresi's best dining experience I had in New York City.
So how do you feel about that?
How do you feel about that?
Rich, did you hear that, Rich?
It's not boating well.
Thank you, Gitza.
Gabibaldi, for chef.
This is a Gabaldi.
Oh, what is that?
This is orange juice, campari, and a little bit of approval.
You're going to love one of these.
Really?
Could I try one of those?
Absolutely.
I'm the way.
Thank you.
I'm flying.
He's going to get me one.
He's going to get me one.
He's going to get me.
What about Mexican?
Mexican.
I just opened a great Mexican restaurant.
Wait, where?
In Miami.
What is it?
It's called Chateau.
It's an old French chateau that we made this really dope Mexican restaurant out of.
Because I actually got a chance to spend a bunch of time in Mexico.
Mexico City.
Mexico City, but traveling around a little bit to other regions as well.
My favorite Mexican here, I mean, Cosme is amazing.
Cosme is amazing.
I mean, I heard that voice.
I know that that was the Gym Canada.
The Gym Can of Italian fries.
Enrique, I thought Enrique is like a legit, really.
Respected legit.
Legit legit.
Yeah, I think Cosme is.
I think they got one of the best desserts in the city.
Oh, the corn?
The horned corn hush for a huge corner.
That's one of the best dishes in the world.
Really?
That's one of the, I mean, I'd put that in like one of the 10 best dishes in the world.
Bro, that's another thing.
Like Mexico City specifically, as just a world.
I always say this, it's a world-class city.
Like, you can't think of it any different than you think of New York, Paris, Rome, like, especially when it comes to dining.
Like Pujol, did you go to Pujol?
It's unboxing.
Pujol is incredible.
Conte remar, Pujol.
Even like their old breakfast spots, they call it Cardinal, like the old school Mexican breakfast spots, like the Sedels of Mexico City.
They're incredible.
Yeah.
Okay.
Best chocolate chip cookie in the city.
I don't know if I have an answer for that.
I don't know if I've done a lot of chocolate chip cookie research.
Are you a sweets guy?
I am a sweets guy.
I'm a sucker.
Italians are suckers for like sweet breakfasts.
I don't know why.
It's like they're a big pastry coffee culture.
So I think I'm a sucker for that stuff too.
Like all things from donuts to like all things croissant.
I love all that shit.
Best bakery then.
Best bakery.
Now you're talking my fat ass language.
Bakeries.
Is this hard since you know all these people?
Like, is it like asking us who the best comedians are?
No, there's a bakery in Brooklyn called Apartment 4F.
That's great.
I've heard of this place.
They make some really incredible pastries and breads.
Yeah.
Balthazar's bakery I've always loved.
Perishable Ducks and Critical Margins00:05:30
Yeah, it's fine.
Always love that.
I love the old school donut shops, like Peter Pan.
Oh, Peter Pan's great.
I love donuts.
I fucking love donuts.
Yeah, yeah.
If you were to go to an Italian restaurant, you needed to judge the quality of the food with one dish.
What would you order?
Great question.
I would order like a dry pasta, not a fresh pasta, dry pasta.
It's trickier to make.
So, something like a spaghetti or penne rigatoni, a dry pasta cooked perfectly, cooked from scratch, al dente, sauced right.
It's trickier than it takes a certain touch of someone that really knows what they're doing.
Oh, interesting.
Fresh pasta is easier, it's more forgiving.
It's soft, it's luxurious, it only cooks in a few seconds, it's good with just plain butter.
It's harder with a dry pasta, it's trickier.
That's interesting.
What is the thing on the menu at Carbone that you think people should order?
Like the thing you're most proud of that people aren't ordering as much as the spicy rig are pork chops.
We serve great pork chops, but because of a veil, I don't eat veil par.
Yeah, I don't eat beans, so that's what I'll do.
Um, we serve a fantastic, big, thick-cut pork chop with vinegar peppers, like which is a classic Italian-American dish that I order a lot when I'm there as a customer, um, which is really important to be a customer, like to sit in the seat of a customer.
Yeah, I get I get a whole different set of notes than I do when I'm in the kitchen, but pork chop with vinegar peppers, great dish.
That's the one.
All right, what about at Teresi?
A dish that doesn't get ordered that often.
Um, his menu is smaller, he sells a lot of everything.
The duck, the duck at Teresi, I've heard that he's a duck master.
We used to have, we probably shouldn't say this, but we used to have so when we first opened uh Dirty French on the Laurie side, Rich had developed a technique for cooking duck where the duck had to age for 30 days like beef.
And what would happen was the skin got super dry and crispy when you cooked it, but also that it tenderizes the meat just like it does with beef.
We were selling a lot of duck, we couldn't hold all the ducks we needed in the restaurant to age them for 30 days.
So we rented an apartment across the street on Ludlow, across the street from the restaurant, and the landlord didn't care at all.
Like, the landlord had no idea what we were doing.
We just moved refrigerators.
There's no furniture.
It was just refrigerators in an apartment across the street on Ludlow Street and ducks hanging throughout the apartment, aging in this apartment.
And then every day at four o'clock, you'd see a cook come out with just a tray of ducks from this apartment into the restaurant.
It just sounds like a racist conspiracy.
These Chinese people are hiding ducks in apartments downtown.
Don't say that.
Meanwhile.
Meanwhile, there's Rich Teresi.
How often are restaurants hacking the margins?
Where you try to take an item that's going to sell well, but it's also the cheapest to make, but you price it the highest.
Or like they'll do this with wine sometimes.
Sometimes they'll make like the cheapest wine or one of the cheaper wines more expensive to try to like create a psychological effect.
Have you heard about this?
It's like what movie theaters used to do, where they charge a certain amount for the small Coke and then the medium and the large.
Right.
Are you guys doing that with wine?
I mean, no, we're trying to apply a pretty, you don't apply, like for us, for example, we don't apply the same price structure to an expensive bottle of wine as you do to a less expensive bottle of wine.
So you're generally you're looking at like a three-time markup on a on a less expensive bottle of wine, $100 or less.
And then as it gets more and more expensive, the markup becomes smaller.
So like if it costs us $500, we're not charging $1,500.
We're probably charging closer to $1,000 on it.
While a bottle that costs us $30, we might charge $90, right?
So there's a greater threshold on a less expensive bottle than there is on a more expensive bottle.
Those margins are critical to the survival of a restaurant because at the end of the day, the final number at the bottom is generally a really small, like everyone, like if you know anything about restaurants, you know that it's they're generally going to close and that you don't make a ton of money.
So that money that's made in alcohol is critical to the life of a restaurant.
Also, it's as opposed to food, it's non-perishable, right?
Like if you fucked up and you ordered 40 ducks this week and only 20 people ordered the duck, like you're gambling on something that's very perishable, right?
Now you're eating it for staff meal and you lost money.
So it's a very fine dance with food and perishable items to get the number right so that they don't come to the table and be like, sorry, we're out of the duck tonight.
Or we eat it for staff meal.
What's in between those two is like really knowing how to run this business.
And it's a fine dance.
If you're on a date with a girl, like let's say you've got on a couple dates, you get a reservation of carbone, you really want to impress her.
Is there anything you can do internally to send like a message to really like blow her mind?
Like something with like dessert, but not like corny.
You want to send a message to her?
Yeah, like if you want to like, you know, have a good experience.
I'm sure there's some people listening.
Mark's never been on a fucking.
I'm sure there's some people on a second.
Impress Her with a Carbone Reservation00:13:07
The first girl he met.
He might be the first girl.
I would go back to the implementing the bring a beer rule.
Like you're going out on a date and you carry like this gift to the kitchen and she's she wants to be like, what are you doing?
Why you got like a 12-pack Corslite?
Like, oh, no, it's, I just, it's a thing that we do for the guys.
And like, that's going to put you in a position of like, who is this guy?
He's a regular.
He's a regular.
He got a carbon reservation and he knows this place so well that he brought beers for the kitchen.
And then all of a sudden they're going to start sending extras out, compliments of the chef.
Now you look pretty great.
Right.
So I would go back to that strategy.
Tell me about this F1 thing.
F1 is our fourth year of doing it.
I mean, obviously, you know, Miami is at its capacity that weekend.
The city's crazy.
So the first year, we were sort of like, okay, well, if the restaurant's so full, maybe we can do something else.
Like there's such a demand for this weekend.
What can we do that's like over the top to meet the weekend?
So we kind of devised this idea of like throwing this like really elaborate supper club dinner party where there's a performance, there's house bands, Ricky sings.
Ricky can sing?
Oh, yeah.
He's Sinatra.
Oh, wow.
Ricky?
What's your favorite Sinatra song?
Oh, My Way.
Without a doubt.
Yeah.
I mean.
But he could also fly me to the moon.
He'll give you, I mean, but keep going.
He loves a good saloon song.
He loves a good set.
Like what?
You got to bring him out.
That's like.
Oh, he can lost that one out.
Yeah, we got three.
We got three going.
Okay, but do we have any sashitas?
But go on.
So there's like about four or five hundred people that come.
We build this giant amazing tent on the sand of Miami Beach.
There's a headlining performer every year.
The very first one we ever got was Andrea Bocelli, which was crazy.
Oh, wow.
Wait, what?
Where in Miami Beach?
It's on basically 21st and Collins on the beach.
What is that close to?
What?
It's like right where all the hotels are.
So like right behind the satai.
Okay.
On the actual sand, we build the kitchen, the whole thing.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday night in conjunction with F1.
And it's pretty great.
I mean, it's like, it's a carbone meal, but like plus, plus, plus.
It's like carbon meets form of the 12 Caesars.
It's like really over the top.
And add all the live music, a giant, you know, ice sculpture, raw bar.
And we throw everything at it.
How does the average person go to something like this?
Impossible.
No, I mean, you first of all, Amex sells their tickets through, you know, you can buy tickets through them.
You can buy tickets through us.
You can get them at majorfoodgroup.com.
You can get them through our, you know, all the individual restaurants.
We saw them on Instagram.
I think Saturday sold out, but we still have tickets for Friday.
I went to F1 Miami two years ago.
That was the place to be.
Really?
Like the last performance last year was Lauren Hill, and it was one of the ones.
Wow.
Lauren was one of the great ones we've ever had, but we've had some amazing ones.
But Lauren brought the house down.
She's one of my favorites ever.
Brought the house down.
Yeah.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah.
What's next?
What do you want?
You've achieved all the dreams.
I don't know.
I don't have a lot of wants.
It's amazing.
I mean, like, things are fucking amazing.
I mean, I've far exceeded my own expectations.
Thank you, sir.
He's got the orange.
He's got the orange handkerchief for Frank.
Wait, We got a little light.
We got a little light.
Hold on, hold on.
I've heard that you have a phenomenal voice.
I sing a little bit.
That's very kind of you to say, but I'm a huge fan of the American popular songbook.
Oh, really?
And, you know, music has been a big part of my life and my family.
And we used to sing around the house growing up.
So I figured I might as well give it a shot.
Yeah, whatever you love.
I mean, we would love to hear something.
Where are you from?
I'm from Yonkers, New York.
Oh, no way.
Okay, what is the song?
The song that you would go to, the song that lights up the house.
Well, there's many, but just to give you, you want to hear a little something now?
Yes.
Fly me to the moon.
Let me play among the stars.
Let me see what life is like on Jupiter and Mars.
You know, something like that.
In other words, in other words, hold my hand.
My man.
In other words, baby, kiss me.
You know, we do something like that.
What about that slide?
Oh, yeah, that's one of my favorites.
Oh, give us some of that, dude.
Yeah, that's life.
That's what all the people say.
Wow.
You're riding high in April.
Shut down in May.
But I know I'm going to change that tune when I'm back on top on top in June.
Oh, I could keep going, but don't know what to do.
Thank you so much.
It was my pleasure.
Thank you so much.
He's a fucking legend, dude.
He's great.
Oh, he's awesome.
Have you ever had any princes come to you?
Prince?
Like royalty or like a shake?
What's the weirdest request?
Wait, there's a restaurant.
I mean, we had, we had Obama when he was still sitting president come in, which was as New York Carpenter.
New York, yeah.
To have him as the sitting president, eat at the restaurant and the protocol that goes around that is bananas.
Okay, what's the protocol?
Well, I was the only, I was one of the only people that knew about it.
So I was pretty convinced that they were watching my phone.
So I didn't tell anybody because it was an unso that night it was unannounced.
So no one knew that he was supposed to be there.
So at that point, Secret Service deems anyone that's in the restaurant to be safe because they don't know what's happening.
So they don't need to check that, right?
That's interesting.
So the second that he shows up, then they go full, they shut down all communication, all phones stop working.
They set up a metal detector outside.
Someone goes to every exit downstairs throughout.
There's someone in the kitchen with me.
And immediately, the second he walks in, then things sort of shut down.
But it was amazing.
He walked in, the place went absolutely bananas.
And so to have him there as the sitting president of the United States, and he's been back since, but to have him there that night was pretty unbelievable.
Does he order or does he say, give me your best hits?
They ordered for the someone at the table ordered for everybody and he ordered his drink, which was a dirty show.
Dirty, I think he's a dirty Jim Martini.
So the only thing he ordered was his cocktail, but everything else just came out.
So you, you, does he speak on any of the dishes?
I went to the table.
I said hi to him.
He's unreasonably cool for President of the United States.
He got up at the end of the night.
He kind of addressed everybody in the crowd, which is amazing.
Where do you see them in the restaurant?
We have one table in the back that's like talked.
To the left.
Yeah, talked all the way up.
So the most unbothered of all the locations.
But when he stands up, he knows that.
Everybody's looking at him.
Yeah, I know it was like standing ovation.
Every night for dinner.
So here's the thing.
I was at the comedy cellar once and like Madonna was upstairs.
She actually went on stage and did some comedy I didn't watch, but she was upstairs.
And it was like a very weird experience because the gravitational pull to her, like any conversation you and I would be having was a pretend conversation as we like through the side of our eye watched Madonna.
And the fact that he would get up and just acknowledge that, I think is quite honorable.
It's the most authentic thing you can do because you know everybody's fucking staring at you the entire time.
You finish, you're like, everyone can have a look.
Yeah.
And then I'll leave.
Does someone taste Obama's food?
Yeah, that's there.
There was a person in the kitchen that all they, you know, they have like a whole like kit with them, a giant briefcase.
And all that they asked of me that night was to let them know when we were preparing his food.
And he got real close to kind of the preparation of it.
But I don't remember them like tasting it ahead of time.
I thought they were going to.
That briefcase is doing something.
There's like a whole, yeah, there's a whole kit of something in that briefcase that never came out.
Did Daniel Belude ever congratulate you, validate you, give you your flowers?
Was there ever a moment that he had with you that was really important to you?
Well, we're very close now still, which is great with Danielle and Jean-Georges.
Danielle.
You know, it's important for Rich and I that we're close with that generation because they were our heroes.
And they're still operating at a really high level, which is amazing.
Rich was even closer to Danielle because he had worked there for like far more years than I had.
So that relationship is really important to him, but it's important to me as well.
He definitely gives us our flowers, as does JG, Jean-Georges.
And I think that that relationship means the world to us because those coming up, reading the review every Wednesday in the New York Times as kids to see who got reviewed and to see their names and to eventually work with them and now to be their kind of colleagues and peers is everything.
Have you ever had a personal moment with him where he's like, hey, I'm really proud of you or even Mario, any of these people you want to?
I mean, I've had a lot of moments with Mario.
I spent a lot of years with Mario.
I've had moments with Danielle telling him that story about the resume and having that moment with him where I get to tell him that story.
What did he say?
He doesn't remember it, but he loves that that happened.
He loves that we're alumni.
That means a lot to him.
So to see the pride that we came from his kitchen, that we made it is the greatest possible reward for us.
That goes back to that, we made it in New York and that was the biggest thing we could have ever imagined.
I never thought about a restaurant in Hong Kong.
I just wanted to be, I wanted to be big here.
Yeah, yeah.
Have you been asked us?
Oh, real quick.
And then with Rich specifically, you have to have an ego to be a chef, but you and Rich seemingly have navigated the fact that you both have a lot of ambition and egos and have built this like incredible company.
Maybe with the Zelensky, he did a little bit or whatever.
But we love you, Jeff, Jeff.
But I don't think a lot of times bands break up.
You guys have done this thing.
I imagine there's been difficult times, but has there ever been any reflection where you both look back and you're like, holy shit, we both got big egos.
We're like really ambitious.
We're really confident, but we managed to kind of stick together and build out this amazing company.
Do you talk about that ever?
We talk about it from time to time for sure.
I mean, there's definitely moments, especially because you're creating something, so you're sensitive to it.
So when we're criticizing each other for the betterment of whatever that thing is, you can't help but get emotional about it.
I made that.
So like I'm sensitive to it.
That still happens today.
I think the confidence that we have in that whole like the band's not going to break up thing is that, especially with Rich, I've known him.
I've known him my whole life, right?
I've known him since I was a kid, since we're teenagers.
So we know that if we're in a, if we're fighting about something or we're not agreeing, we're butting heads about something, that it's, it's just like when you're doing that with your actual brother.
Like you don't build a relationship before the business.
You're not going to break up with your brother.
Like you're going to fight with him.
You're going to call him a dick and something's going to happen.
And then tomorrow is going to be tomorrow because that's your brother and he's going to be there.
And like you're not going to break up with your sibling.
So I think that that's what we have.
And there's never, it's never going to get so blown out of proportion that this whole thing is going to be a house of cards.
I will say one thing on the menu.
We were talking about like the sneak things on that Teresa menu, the Zeppelies.
Zeppelin hands.
Holy shit.
Yeah.
And it's like a pineapple, yeah.
Yeah, the avogado.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I like it.
I like the shaved part of it.
Yeah, it's going to be great.
As much shit as we give from that Zeppelin thing.
I get it every time I go.
It's fun.
I think that's really cool.
I think it's easy when people get successful to kind of rupture, break up, or whatever.
I think it's something that like, not saying that we've achieved your guys' success, but like it's something that is important to us to like maintain like the friendship comes first.
Something that Akasha always reminds us every single time that there's any kind of confrontations, like, why do we do this?
Because we're friends.
The conversation's good.
Yeah, we should bump head.
The conversation's good.
Yeah.
If you guys disagree with each other all the time, then like, what are we doing?
What are you doing, right?
Like, you want to have people that are challenging you and you're going to be sensitive about it.
You like made this, you made this thing.
You wrote that.
That was my joke or that was my idea.
Like you got to just acknowledge that we are all creatives and we're sensitive artists at our core, but it's not going to break us.
The whole point is that we're going to make each other better.
Friendship First in Tough Times00:03:32
The sum of our parts are going to be greater than us as an individual.
Okay, before we get out of here, why is New York City the greatest city in the world?
I mean, there's just not another city that looks like this, right?
There's not another city that looks like New York.
I think for those that, for those that sort of complain about the classic New York isn't what it was, I think you're misunderstanding the point of New York.
New York's job is to change.
Exactly what he is.
I say this all.
It's so annoying these two.
I can't tell you how annoyed I am.
There's a generation of 18, 19, 20 year olds that are getting their first taste of New York.
It's the great, it's the great tournament of New York.
Like, how long are you going to be here?
How long?
How many rounds are you going to make?
It's here to be the great editor.
There's so much to learn from this place.
New York is not the one that our parents remember.
It's not the one from my grandparents when they came together.
Not the one from our child.
It's not the one from our childhood.
That's what makes New York great.
It's malleable.
It's here for the next generation.
It's going to challenge the next one.
And for those that are still here, right?
It's the great tournament of life that is in Manhattan or New York City.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you still care?
I do not still look here.
There you go.
Before we go, before we go.
That's my camera.
It's as you were, I don't want to say given opportunities, but earned opportunities from these great chefs.
Are there any young creative chefs that you're seeing right now in New York City that we can shine a light on?
I think it's important to us, definitely as New Yorkers, to like shine a light on young comedians that are coming up in New York, but also any industry for someone that we bring on the podcast.
Are there any young restaurateurs out here that you really believe in?
Like people you're seeing with promise?
Yeah, it's hard when the financial world is in a questionable place, right?
It's hard for young, aspiring restaurateurs or any industry to get the backing in a shaky financial moment to do something.
So in times like this, you're going to see less creativity because it's too risky.
You're going to see more status quo.
You're going to see more safe plays.
You're going to see people taking chances when it's safer to take chances.
When the economy is healthy and money is cheap, and there's investors out there looking to take chances on you.
So it's a tough time for that generation, like it was for us coming out of 08.
There's not a lot of us that are going to get that break and we had to do crazy shit to get to get those six tables.
So I'm here for those who are out there, who are challenging.
Guys like Kwame or Tatiana, who are doing incredible work right now.
It's a tough time, man.
It's a tough time to take.
Little guys.
It could be the tiny, it could be six tables, like anybody that you've seen tasted recently.
Industry.
I remember when industry was just starting, right?
These two guys who looked and felt a lot like me and Rich when we first got to that pizzeria, but you see it in their eyes.
It's like, it's like Tony Montana, man.
Like you, it's the eyes, man.
Like you can see that that guy, they're going to make it, man.
I don't care.
Like, there was that guy that was making pizza, I think Chrissy's pizza or something in the oven in his apartment in Brooklyn.
Yeah, in Brooklyn.
I think Chrissy's pizza.
Assimilation and Italian American Pride00:03:33
Yeah.
Similar bye-bye soon.
You're not going to tell them no.
They're going to figure it out.
They're going to make it through it.
Are tariffs affecting the restaurant industry at all?
They're going to.
Yeah.
I mean, we're just starting to see it.
But it's going to.
And I think that its greatest effect is going to be in cost of the customer.
It's going to get passed on, right?
I think certainly for us, like we're, if my options are choose a lesser ingredient than what I'm accustomed to bringing in because it's too expensive, or bring that ingredient in at the additional cost and pass it on to the customer, we're going to choose that one, right?
Because I feel like I've made a promise to my customers to give them the best ingredients in the world.
And if I'm saying that I need that, I'm not going to choose something else.
So it's going to get passed on to them, unfortunately, right?
I think that's where it's going to manifest itself: in rising costs to customers.
Okay, last one.
Italian American.
You put a spotlight on Italian American cuisine, as you said.
It becomes one of the most successful restaurants in the world.
And I'm not even talking about financially, but in terms of notoriety, is there like a moment where you kind of like look back and you feel this sense of pride in your culture?
You know, this is you're doing like a sauce, this is a sauce joint that now is being mentioned in Drake songs.
Yeah.
What does that kind of feel like?
Do you feel the community are they supportive of it?
Are they happy of it?
I feel like it is a function.
I feel like Carbona is a functioning museum, right?
I think that it's Italian Americans not dissimilar to any sort of other immigrant path, right?
The whole point of this journey, if you follow it back to your ancestors, my ancestors from southern Italy leaving a place to come to the United States for the betterment of the next generation, right?
The entire point of the experiment was for us to assimilate into just becoming Americans and to sort of eventually become less and less Italian.
As each generation passes, you become just Americans.
That was the whole point of this assimilation.
To me, for community, for what we're doing, what I'm leaving behind, I have great pride in that Carbone stands as a nightly functioning museum that you can go to, you can visit, you can consume what was the woolly mammoth that is the Italian American in New York in the 1950s.
Because my children will be less Italian than I am, as I am less Italian than my parents are.
And that's the point.
When you lament the fact that there are no Italians in Little Italy, you are also proving the point of what the purpose of that was.
They weren't supposed to stay here.
They were supposed to just become Americans.
That's why they left their country.
So when it was at its most potent, and I chose that period, the first generation of Italian Americans in 1950 to make this thing, to make this play that's thankfully had a very long run.
We're fucking cats over here.
We're 10 years in and we're still going.
You get to experience this museum because over time, the Italian American will just become the American.
So I get to do this thing.
So you get to maintain your culture while at the same time embracing this new identity, which was the point of it all.